Procession of the Species in Olympia, WA

After I studied non-fiction film at Evergreen College for a year, my camcorder, which had been an almost permanent appendage of my hand until then got put into the closet.  That was almost three years ago. 

My life never seems to go on a straight, sensible path so perhaps there’s a reason why the year I went and did what was supposed to be an incredibly good non-fiction film program was a year when the program was not so good.  The whole year was very chaotic and it felt like every little step gained came at a huge cost.  The joy of shooting video and working with it was quashed for the time being.  Unfortunately the student loan bills were vivid and real.

I know from other events in my life that hardship or a little mandatory hibernation away from something we love can be a revolutionizing thing in the end – so I’m hoping the urge to pull my camera out last weekend is the beginning of my starting up this hobby I loved so much again.

When I turned on my camera to check the tape last weekend  – I found the footage of the parade above which I hadn’t captured and had forgotten about.

So there is one thing I enjoyed alot while I was in Olympia  – the Procession of the Species.

The community spends many weeks preparing nature costumes from scratch.  Sounds in the parade are allowed but no words or signs.  Just drums and music.  About 10,000 people come to see the parade and its magical! 

In honor of magic anytime and anywhere I edited together some of the footage and here it is.

Forest Fire in Taos, NM 2003

[The white speck moving across the smoke at the beginning of the clip is a fire fighting plane.]

Video taped in my backyard during the Encebado fire that burned a 5,400 acre tract of the Taos Pueblo’s reservation land including watershed and areas sacred to the tribe. The Pueblo has been continuously inhabited by this tribe for over 1000 years. It was remarkable watching the tribes response to this natural disaster which they considered to be . . . . natural. I found the spectacle which lasted for eleven days both fascinating and disturbing.

I put down needlepointing a few years later but then recently I had a strong urge to start up again.  The Greek women would always ask to see the back of my canvas – to see how neat my stitches were. I don’t think I scored very high then and probably still wouldn’t but I do notice that my whole mindset of "trying to finish" is gone.  I just enjoy stitching without any sense of wanting to see the end result.  So I’m needlepointing a large (18" by 20") canvas which wiill probably take me forever but that’s OK.  It’s a relaxing way to get some down time after my work as a web developer.  It’d be kind of neat actually if everyone in the neighborhood came out to greet the early evening with their needlework, calling out greetings to each other and enjoying the closing hours of the day. I think I’d like that.

Abhishiktananda’s as a path of introversion and Merton’s path of extroversion

Both Abhishiktananda and Merton pioneered attempts to introduce spiritual dialogue between Hinduism and Christianity.  Both lived monastic lives and both were compelled to go physically and mentally to the East to study eastern religion.  Both asked themselves in deeply serious ways:  are religions of the east and west divergent or convergent ways to God?

Abhishiktananda

Abhishiktananda’s path was one of introversion or reserve.  He holds his fire verbally and works with everything internally.  His hermitages were the “not-doings” of silent renunciation.  He is relatively unknown by the World.  You can see the inward focus clearly in his physiognomy; his eyes.

Thomas Merton

Merton’s path was one of extroversion or expression.  While initially he spent much time in solitude and isolation.  He later emerged to write 70 books and is considered by many to be an influential American spiritual writer.  He took up socially controversial issues of race relations, violence, nuclear war and economic injustice as a part of his spiritual concern and gave lectures at gatherings of world leaders.  He felt compelled to act.

Seeing these two personalities as being on paths of introversion and extroversion helps me to understand a real distinction in personalities.

What a place the world would be if everyone felt this way!

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.

Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.

Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.

Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be. I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me.

That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you. I may be your spouse, your parent, your offsping, your friend, or your colleague.

If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right — for me.

To put up with me is the first step to understanding me.

Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.

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