Below is my humble offering to the movement. Please come share with us and check out some of the others as we dare to make a real difference for those in need.
—Corina Ravenscraft, core team member
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” ~ Matthew 25:40 KJV Bible
~ Under ~
Homeless Joe, has nowhere to go. He lives under a bridge; not a troll, just poor.
(Not in some third-world country, no).
Crazy Jane lives under a delusion—from voices of people not here anymore.
(In the land of the free and the home of the brave).
Carmen, a single mother of five, lives under the stigma of using food stamps to eat.
(In America, the poor are victimized, you know).
Speed-freak Charlie lives under the influence of the drugs which keep him wandering the streets.
(How many poor would that daily latte save?)
All of them, under poverty’s yoke. Under society’s up-turned nose. Homeless, hungry and in many ways “broke,” Do you really think this is the life that they chose?
(How about walking a mile in their…feet?)
What they truly need is understanding, To help them get back to dignity’s door. Out from under all the senseless branding, Back to being visible people once more.
In September 2011, Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion saw their idea and month of work come to fruition—the first 100 Thousand Poets for Change (100TPC) worldwide poetry events, held on the last Saturday in September. Little could they imagine back then that it would continue and grow for the next ten years!
The organization has over the years focused on three general areas globally: Peace, Sustainability, and Social Justice. Around the world, organizers and groups focus on these issues as they fit in local contexts plus other local issues that require attention to bring about positive change. In 2015, Michael and Terri worked with 100TPC organizers in Italy to put together the first 100TPC World Conference in Salerno, Italy.
100TPC World Conference Banner
Save the Date for this Year!
We will hold our annual online 100TPC at The BeZine again this year, on the “official” date for 100TPC: 26 September, 2020. So, save that date! In addition, we will be co-sponsoring All Africa Poetry Symposium in Celebration of 100 Thousand Poets for Change 10-Year Anniversary at 8 AM US East Coast, early afternoon in the Africa time zones. Read more here (including times in Africa). With this new mix of live-stream poetry, we hope to provide an exciting 100TPC virtual BeZine event. We plan to live-stream in The BeZine Facebook groups and on YouTube…stay tuned for more information.
Ultimately, talking points preserve narratives seeking to keep the status quo or create a reality that aligns with the person’s ideology or personal needs.
We want to start this introduction to the SustainABILITY issue of The BeZine with a pause and breath.
Go ahead, breathe in deeply. This is both calming and symbolic of the interrelated crises of humanity at this time.
Three huge, potentially shattering issues loom large today, what commentator Elizabeth Sawin, Co-Director of the nonprofit Climate Interactive calls “three massive threats”:
Climate Change, COVID-19, Racism a sustainABILITY pastiche
Climate Change
Climate change concerns the atmosphere and excessive carbon.
Breathe in again, deeply. Breathe out.
That exhalation, as you probably know, is CO2, carbon dioxide. We breathe the atmosphere.
And, as we pollute it, we poison our own breaths through industry, fossil fuels, factory farming, and other human activity. We poison the globe. And as climate change continues its charge ahead in leaps and bounds, it will be increasingly difficult for us to breathe, literally.
Climate Change hits much more than White areas in what Hop Hopkins (“Racism is Killing the Planet,” Sierra Club) calls the “Sacrifice Zones,” where White Supremacy’s “Disposable People” live. The 1% remain more secure and protected.
Have you tried to breathe when the temperatures go above body temperature (37C / 98.6F)? Imagine what it must be like for those locations that have had recent record-breaking temperatures of around 50C / 122F?
Where do you think waste is dumped? Where are polluting industries and power plants built? Who lives in areas that risk their health the most? Certainly not those with money, status, and power in societies.
How long can we continue this way? Are we able to find a path to sustain life on earth (human and otherwise)? That is the goal—sustainABILITY.
According to a 2015 study published in PNAS, a 30,000 year old virus was found in the permafrost of the Arctic, raising concern that rising temperatures could lead to the rise of deadly, archaic illnesses. —cited in Science Alert (Melting Glaciers Are Revealing Dead Bodies And Ancient Diseases, 23 March 2019).
The economic problems will compel those in power to take actions that before this crisis appeared to be radically leftist measures. Even conservatives are having to do things that run against their principles. —Slavoj Zizek (Slavoj Zizek’s ‘Brutal, Dark’ Formula for Saving the World, Haaretz interview, 04 June 2020)
Higher temperatures and respiratory problems are also linked. One reason is because higher temperatures contribute to the build-up of harmful air pollutants. —U.S. CDC and American Public Health Association (Extreme Heat Can Affect our Health)
COVID-19
COVID-19 blocks our lungs. It literally stops us from breathing. Yes, also organ damage, including heart problems. But it stops our breath, in a world-wide pandemic. Like the global crisis of climate change will, eventually, stop our breath.
There will be more pandemics with continued Global Warming. There will be more disruption, economic loss, social unrest, and all of the things we have seen so far in this pandemic.
Will we avoid the next pandemic? Could a 30,000 year-old virus, or a 150 year-old virus revive to attack? If so, who will have our back? The government?
How will we be able to sustain human and other life on earth if we continue on this path? Will we build a sustainABLE future for our children, our grandchildren? Ourselves?
In the US, even the current CDC admits that COVID-19 has hit POC and Indigenous Peoples, especially African Americans, harder than White people. The 1% remain more secure and protected.
From Pandemic to Race
The effects of COVID-19 on the health of racial and ethnic minority groups is still emerging; however, current data suggest a disproportionate burden of illness and death among racial and ethnic minority groups. —US CDC (COVID-19 in Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups page last reviewed on by CDC June 4 2020)
Robert D. Bullard is a professor at Texas Southern University who has written for more than 30 years about the need to redress environmental racism. He welcomed the statements of support this week from the leaders of big environmental groups but he lamented that the vast amount of donor money still goes to white-led environmental groups.
“I’d like to see these groups start to embrace this whole concept of justice, fairness and equity,” he said. “Those statements need to be followed up with a concerted effort to address the underlying conditions that make for despair.” —(Black Environmentalists Talk About Climate and Anti-Racism, NYTimes, June 2, 2020)
It’s essential to have anti-racism baked into the goals that even white-led organizations are pursuing because both political racism and environmental racism are drivers of our excess pollution and climate denialism. —Heather McGhee, senior fellow at Demos, a nonpartisan research and advocacy group, and the author of a forthcoming book called The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (cited in Black Environmentalists Talk About Climate and Anti-Racism, NYTimes, June 2, 2020)
Police violence is an aspect of a broader pattern of structural violence, which the climate crisis is a manifestation of. Healing structural violence is actually in the best interest of all human beings. —Sam Grant, executive director of MN350.org, the Minnesota affiliate of the international climate activist group 350.org (cited in Black Environmentalists Talk About Climate and Anti-Racism, NYTimes, June 2, 2020)
Anti-Racism
Racism has come to the fore with the anti-racist, anti-police-brutality protests and riots since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. His quoted last words, echoing those of Eric Garner (murdered by police in New York City six years ago): “I can’t breathe.” Protest signs and chants have repeated this phrase thousands of times since last month.
George Floyd, a Black man suspected of passing a counterfeit $20, was strangled by a police officer kneeling on his neck for nearly 9 minutes. Eric Garner, a Black man selling loose cigarettes, was strangled by police using a “choke hold.” The 1% remain totally secure and protected.
Structural, systemic racism is an integral part of our extraction economy, according to Hop Hopkins, writing for The Sierra Club. It keeps those in power in power by dividing us against each other—so that the 1% (or 3% or 5% or 10%) can keep in power and grow their wealth. It is built into not only the U.S, but Western Society.
Hopkins writes:
Devaluing Black and Indigenous people’s lives to build wealth for white communities isn’t new. White settlers began that project in the 15th century, when they arrived in North America. Most Native peoples of North America lived in regenerative relationships with the land; they were careful to take no more than the land could sustain. The settlers had another ethic: They sought to dominate and control. —Hop Hopkins (Sierra Club, Racism is Killing the Planet, June 8, 2020)
From “Three Massive Threats” to SustainABILITY
One of the most baffling things throughout the coronavirus pandemic is that even with a life-threatening global pandemic, sides emerged. At the beginning of the pandemic, I remember thinking that this threat to humanity would unify us and strengthen public trust in science. Boy was I wrong. The economic realities of the pandemic, cries of “just the flu”, and protests against social distancing policies tell a different and complex story.—Marshall Shepherd (3 Common Things In Race, Coronavirus And Climate Change Debates, Forbes, June 12 2020)
I wish I had all the answers, but I don’t. The answer is for all of us to figure out together.
All I know is that if climate change and environmental injustice are the result of a society that values some lives and not others, then none of us are safe from pollution until all of us are safe from pollution. Dirty air doesn’t stop at the county line, and carbon pollution doesn’t respect national borders. As long as we keep letting the polluters sacrifice Black and brown communities, we can’t protect our shared global climate. —Hop Hopkins (Sierra Club, Racism is Killing the Planet, June 8, 2020)
Today we face threemassive threats, and the only way to neutralize any one of them is to succeed at addressing all three at once.…
…we must as soon as possible – in our cities, states and nations – convene emergency task forces to tackle equity, the pandemic and climate change as an integrated whole.
These task forces will need expertise in climate, clean energy, equity, public health, epidemiology and people-centered economics. Each task force should include an additional kind of expertise: the life experience of those who are most impacted by inequity, climate change and COVID-19. Those who live with the impacts of multiple problems often have the most creative ideas about addressing them.
Time and money are in short supply. There isn’t enough of either to treat equity, climate change and the current pandemic as separate issues. A holistic, multisolving approach is an effective, cost-saving way to tackle the great challenges of our times. —Elizabeth Sawin (US News & World Report, Commentary, Why We Can’t Ignore the Link Between COVID-19, Climate Change and Inequity, April 1, 2020)
The June Theme of The BeZine: SustainABILITY
We can’t wait. The time to act is now.
We may want to say, “God save us.” But we have free will, so it is up to us to move forward and make the change, so that we are ABLE to sustain the earth.
Then, perhaps 100% of humans (and other life) would be more secure and protected.
—Michael Dickel, Co-Managing Editor
Much thanks to Michael Dickel for stunning and exhaustive editorial collaboration and technical innovations on this issue, to the whole of the Zine team for stalwart efforts and supports, to our readers and supporters who share our peaceable values, and to Margaret Shaw for the wonderful header-art gracing this edition of the Zine.
In the spirit of love (respect) and community and on behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines,
—Jamie Dedes, Founding Editor and Co-Managing Editor
Given the scope and magnitude of this sudden crisis [the COVID-19 pandemic], and the long shadow it will cast, can the world afford to pay attention to climate change and the broader sustainability agenda at this time? Our firm belief is that we simply cannot afford to do otherwise. —
“All the human and animal manure which the world wastes, if returned to the land, instead of being thrown into the sea, would suffice to nourish the world.” —Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“The main thing, Ruby said, was not to get ahead of yourself. Go at a rhythm that could be sustained on and on. Do just as much as you could do and still be able to get up and do again tomorrow. No more, and no less.” —Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain
“In the end, the term ‘circularity’ may just be one way to make us aware that we need a more encompassing, integrated and restorative sustainability path that includes people as much as technology and nature.” —Michiel Schwarz A Sustainist Lexicon
“..despite myriad differences in beliefs and value systems, people have the capacity to acknowledge that the one constant across the board is the Earth. Her health is our health. Her life is our life.” —Heidi Barr, Woodland Manitou: To Be on Earth
We need to stop thinking through a capitalist prism. I don’t agree with those who claim that now is no time for politics, that we should just mobilize to survive these dangers. No! Now is a great time for politics, because the world in its current form is disappearing. Scientists will just tell us, ‘If you want to play it safe, keep this level of quarantine,’ or whatever. But we have a political decision to make, and we are offered different options.
“. . . I don’t understand why our propaganda machines are always trying to teach us, to persuade us, to hate and fear other people in the same little world that we live in.” Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
My Aunt Julie once said that it is easier to love than hate. She was a good woman, a diamond in the rough and I believe her. I believe it takes less energy to love (respect) others than it does to hate them and that honest appreciation of differences is actually our own best protection: today the hate is directed at “those people” and tomorrow it is directed at me and you. This is the way the world turns in the hands of the spin-meisters. They love nothing so much as pitting us against one another for their own gain and it is ALWAYS for their gain, not ours, make no mistake.
The BeZine is devoted to featuring the commonalities within the diversities. Our contributors and our core team of writers, artists, photographers, activists, philosophers and clerics represent a wealth of countries, cultures, religions, and first languages. We may not agree on the exact path or paths to peace but we agree that violence and hate are not the ways. We see no reason to be threatened because someone speaks another language, enjoys a different cuisine, celebrates different holy days, dresses differently, or is seeking safe haven in our countries. We have no desire to further victimize the victims. Our hearts are open to civil discourse and our hands ready to embrace and support. I am not writing this from a position of moral superiority but from a practical position of self-concern and regard. There are profound lessons in the trauma of the 2020 pandemic. It highlights just how unified we are in our vulnerabilities and how we are only as strong as the weakest among us. This crisis also points to the fundamental amorality of many among our politicians, governments, and businesses, lest here-to-fore you’ve been inclined not to judge.
Δ
In February 2011, I started this site and we now celebrate nine years of contributing to the Peace in our small but earnest way. The BeZine is possible thanks to the support of our core team and our contributors and readers, now approaching 7,000.
Beginning on April 1, 2020, American-Israeli poet, Michael Dickel (Meta/ Phor(e) /Play), will move from the position of contributing editor to co-managing editor with me. I am pleased and appreciate Michael’s prodigious talent, support, enthusiasm, and many contributions to the success of this effort.
We are opening the Zine blog to poetry for the entire month of April, officially Poetry Month. Womawords Literary Press, the heart-child of Zimbabwean poet in exhile, Mbizo Chirasha (Mbizo, The Black Poet), is the sponsor. Watch our Calls for Submission on this site and The Poet by Day for details and our new submission email address. While we cannot compensate contributors, neither do we charge submission or subscription fees. This is labor of love.
We continue in 2020 with our quarterly publications:
June 15, SustainABILITY;
September 15, Social Justice; and
December 15, A Life of the Spirit.
As is our tradition, on the fourth Saturday of September we will host Virtual 100,000 Poets (and friends) for Change (100TPC) with Michael Dickel as master of ceremonies. As the year continues to unfold, we may host other events or special issues. Meanwhile, please enjoy this edition of The BeZine and don’t forget to share links on social media and to like and comment in support of our valued contributors.
In the spirit of love (respect) and community
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines, Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor
Table of Contents
To read this edition of The BeZine, link HERE to scroll through or click on the links below to view individual contributions.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
“When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.” Fred Rogers
The BeZine: Be Inspired, Be Creative, Be Peace, Be
Daily Spiritual Practice: Beguine Again, a community of Like-Minded People
“There is a LIGHT in this world. A healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. We sometimes lose sight of this force when there is suffering, and too much pain. Then suddenly, the spirit will emerge through the lives of ordinary people who hear a call and answer in extraordinary ways.” Richard Attenborough
I find it heartening that what preoccupies me at present is clearly reflected in most if not all the submissions for this issue, which are filled with the kind of spirit that has no physical form, cannot be measured, cannot be physically embodied and, perhaps most important of all, cannot be contained or imprisoned. Human history provides us with a litany of evidence of how the spirit of the most oppressed, the most downtrodden and enslaved, even those groups of people, whom others have tried to exterminate in the most awful expressions of human behaviour, genocide, cannot and will never be vanquished.
We are surrounded by evidence of the power of the human spirit even in these times when, all around us, the leaders of the World seem to be pulling us into dark and uncertain places and there seems to be no clarity, no escape from the fire and smoke that chokes us. It is difficult to see past the debt we are creating.
The collective works of our contributors in this edition of The BeZine represent a response to Hope and Light. They seem to have taken in the many facets of the human spirit as a universal word that could be slotted into every sentence ever written. Along with compassion, “spirit” makes a worthwhile contribution to human life, to humane life. The Life of the Spirit is truly embodied in this issue of the Zine.
We now hear the voices of those writers and poets who have embraced December’s theme in many diverse ways. I thank them all, especially those who have found their submissions published here for the first time, but also thanks to those who are returning and consistently help to make this publication special.
John Anstie
Associate Editor
Much thanks to John Anstie for the intro to this quarter’s Zine. We keep the intro’s short, which may make it seem an easy assignment. It’s not. All of the work must be read in order to ensure that the through-line is evident and the intro consistent with the spirit of the contributions. That’s quite a bit of reading and analysis, though entirely pleasurable.
Thanks to Michael Dickel for putting together the Memoriam for Reuben Woolley who died earlier this month and to whom this issue is dedicated.
This edition of The BeZine is our most heterogeneous in terms of literary forms and national, racial, and religious diversity. We have perhaps finally arrived at the fulfillment of the original vision. We couldn’t have done it without you, our contributors, readers, and stalwart supporters for whom we have so much appreciation. And with this we close an eventful year with our gratitude and best wishes. We hope we’ve contributed some modicum of hope and healing.
In the spirit of love (respect) and community
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines, Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor
Table of Contents
This issue of The BeZine is dedicated to Reuben Woolley, “I am not a silent poet”
“We can’t afford to have our nations sinking into dungeons of banditry cabals and corruption cartels. We are indebted to use this official language of resistance, poetry. Even under all these depressing challenges of imprisonment, exile and intimidation, poets remain the people’s commissars and their poems are weapons of mass instruction.” Mbizo Chirasha, Zimbabwean Poet in Exhile
September 28, 2019 The BeZine Virtual 100TPC Event is LIVE!
Social Justice
as the world burns and wars rage
Global protest actions on the Climate Crisis have been scheduled for September, as fires rage from the Arctic to the Amazon [1]. Potential conflicts in the Middle East seem on the verge of flaring into their own wildfires, most prominently as I write this: Taliban-US, Iran-US, Israel-Hamas-(Hezbollah-Iran), and Pakistan-India-Kashmir. Underlying and entwined with these huge, tangled problems, the pressing need to address injustice, inequality, and huge economic disparity, which smolder or burn throughout the world. Big words cover what we wish for in place of these problems: Sustainability, Peace, and Social Justice. In order to understand the complex dimensions of each of these pressing global problems, The BeZine has focused in our first two issues of 2019 on Peace and Sustainability—and now, the Fall Issue of The BeZine focuses on Social Justice.
As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.
In this time of Orwellian language-logic and fake news (aka propaganda and lies), science denial (aka lies and distortions), nationalistic-populism, vitriolic debate, and self-serving and greedy leadership in the financial and governmental towers of power unmoored from ethics or morality (aka high crimes and misdemeanors)—with all of this, I ask you to reflect on these words of Martin Luther King, Jr.—”Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence.”
I find myself at times of despair drawn to the idea of violence as the only solution, but each time remind myself of the repulsiveness of that solution. We must find a way to bring justice into the world, to immediately address the climate crisis, and to foster peace, without contributing to the bitterness, pain, and murder so rampant now, fueled as it is by the rhetoric and actions of government and corporate powers. If we stoop to the level of those men (and women) in power, we will end up only fanning the destructive fires they have lit and spread.
As the Reverend King goes on to say: “If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.”
Sometimes I feel that we already are reaping that legacy with this reign of chaos surrounding us today. I fervently hope that, if so, it is not an endless inferno.
Glimmers of hope emerge—Greta Thunberg and her activism shines like a bright light. Her language makes clear that the climate crisis is an issue of social justice for our children and grandchildren. It is also a social justice issue for indigenous peoples, migrants, the poor, and less “developed” countries. The climate crisis and wars contribute to the issue of justice for migrants, creating a flow of refugees that other countries refuse to shelter. Racism, unfettered capitalism, gender biases all create injustice, and those oppressed in the system that produce hate are most likely to suffer in war and the climate crisis. Our contributors touch on these intersections while exploring social justice in their work.
In the end, the hope has to come from us—from our acting, responding, striking if necessary. Yes, avoiding violence. But also, demanding change now. We need to seek the abstract “social justice” through social ACTION. And we need to see and act on the links between issues, rather than dividing ourselves and fighting over which issue is more important. They are all important, and they all need to be addressed holistically.
We all need to work together, because there are no jobs on a dead planet; there is no equity without rights to decent work and social protection, no social justice without a shift in governance and ambition, and, ultimately, no peace for the peoples of the world without the guarantees of sustainability.
With this issue of the Zine, Global 100,000 Poets and Others for Change (100TPC), Read A Poem To A Child week, and The BeZine Virtual 100TPC we share our passions and concerns across borders, we explore differences without violence or vindictiveness, and we sustain one another. These activities endow us with hope, strength, and connection.
Our thanks to and gratitude for the members of The Bardo Group Beguines (our core team), to our contributors, and to our readers and supporters who come from every corner of the world. You are the light and the hope. You are valued.
Special thanks to Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion for the gift of 100TPC and Read A Poem To A Child week, to our resident artist Corina Ravenscraft for our beautiful 100TPC banner, and to Michael Dickel for pulling the Zine together this month, moderating Virtual 100TPC on September 28, and for his technical support and innovations. And to Terri Stewart, much appreciation for our stellar logo, and for our ultra-fabulous name: The BeZine – Be inspired … Be creative … Be peace. … Be …
Our theme for the December 15 issue is “A Life of the Spirit.” John Anstie will take the lead and submissions will open on October 1 and close on November 15. Look for revised submission guidelines soon.
In the spirit of love (respect) and community
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines, Jamie Dedes, Managing Editor
The BeZine 100TPC Virtual—Live Online 28 September 2019
The global 100TPC initiative on Saturday, September 28, 2019, puts forward poetry, music, art, and more, that promote Peace, Sustainability, an Social Justice. The BeZine will again offer a virtual, online event on that date. Please stop by, leave links to your own writing, art, or music, leave comments… We welcome your participation. Click here to join on 28 September 2019.
Table of contents
How to read this issue of THE BeZINE: You can read each piece individually by clicking the links in the Table of Contents or you can click HERE and scroll through the entire Zine.
TRANFORMATION
“There must exist a paradigm, a practical model for social change that includes an understanding of ways to transform consciousness that are linked to efforts to transform structures.” ― bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism
“There are times when so much talk or writing, so many ideas seem to stand in the way, to block the awareness that for the oppressed, the exploited, the dominated, domination is not just a subject for radical discourse, for books. It is about pain–the pain of hunger, the pain of over-work, the pain of degradation and dehumanization, the pain of loneliness, the pain of loss, the pain of isolation, the pain of exile… Even before the words, we remember the pain.” ― bell hooks, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black
“We live in a system that espouses merit, equality, and a level playing field, but exalts those with wealth, power, and celebrity, however gained.” ― Derrick Bell, Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth
“In the unceasing ebb and flow of justice and oppression we must all dig channels as best we may, that at the propitious moment somewhat of the swelling tide may be conducted to the barren places of life.” ― Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House
[1] In support of these, The BeZine blog has been posting about the Climate Crisis, and will continue to do so throughout September (2019), in addition to our Sustainability Issue this past Summer [back].
The BeZine: Be Inspired, Be Creative, Be Peace, Be (the subscription feature is below and to your left.)
Daily Spiritual Practice: Beguine Again, a community of Like-Minded People
“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it…” The Art of Living, Wilfred Peterson
December 15, 2018
A Life of the Spirit is a many-faceted jewel. Some of our contributors interpreted the theme for this month as Spirit (Being, the Ineffable, the Divine) and others more as spirited, strong. Some find Spirit and courage in the great love of their life or in their art, in their religion or spiritual practice. Others find it in an inspiring parent or grandparent. You will see that nature plays a role for nearly everyone.
I don’t think I’ve ever used as many hankies in pulling together an issue of The BeZine as I have with this issue. Contributors this quarter speak intimately from both joy and heartbreak, which is perhaps not surprising given the theme.
Our contributors have also rallied their spirits to speak out against gun violence and to speak up for the LGBTQ community. Violence and cruelty are not an absence of Spirit but a lack of awareness.
c 2018, Anjum Wasim Dar
My country – America – has a gun violence history that is notorious but firearms are ubiquitous on this Earth and complicit in wars and conflicts, hate crimes, terrorism, suicide and accidental shootings. Death by fire arms is grotesquely common in South American countries, Jamaica, and Swaziland.
Gun-suicides: I’ve taken the liberty of including a poem about my big sister, Teresa Margaret, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. She was twenty-seven. I was fourteen. Fifty-four years later, the trauma remains. The questions remain: Why? Where did the gun come from? Who taught her how to use it?
“Although the USA ranked fourth in the world with 12,400 firearm-related homicides, that figure pales in comparison with its 23,800 gun suicides. None of the other 194 nations and territories [ … ] came close; India ranked second at 13,400.” USA Today HERE
Easy access to firearms is cited by experts as one reason for the prevalence of their use in suicide. Another may be that guns offer an effective means of suicide.
Since there is history, culture, identity, and ethic involved in gun ownership and use, attempts at doing away with guns are not feasible at this time. Complicated core issues need to be defined and addressed first. Will we ever come to a unified place where we agree that murder and torture are not options? How then would Spirit play in the garden of material life?
Thanks to The Bardo Group Bequines team and to our guest writers for helping us put together an issue that is honest, artful, and inspiring, one that walks “with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground.”
As you read, we hope that you will leave your “Likes” and comments behind to let each contributor know they were read and appreciated and to enrich the experience for others.
In the spirit of love (respect) and community,
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Bequines, Jamie Dedes Founding and Managing Editor
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How to read this issue of THE BeZINE:You can read each piece individually by clicking the links in the Table of Contents.
To learn more about our guests contributors, please link HERE.
To learn more about our core team members, please link HERE.
In the four-year history of TheBeZine, this is the most significant edition.All of our concerns – peace, environmental sustainability, human rights, freedom of expression – depend on a more equal distribution of wealth, on making sure no one goes hungry and on breaking-down barriers to employment, healthcare, education and racial and gender equity.
This pyramid (courtesy of Wikipedia) reveals that:
half of the world’s wealth belongs to the top 1%,
top 10% of adults hold 85%, while the bottom 90% hold the remaining 15% of the world’s total wealth,
top 30% of adults hold 97% of the total wealth.
We’re all cognizant of that profile, but if you feel you’re sitting pretty and you’re not at risk, you’re employed, educated and middle class after all, you’d be well-advised to reconsider. The middle class is now – and has been for some time – dramatically challenged to find work, to acquire jobs that are fairly paid, offer stability and reasonable hours, and in the U.S., enable them to send their children to college.
The implications of a concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, the oligarchs and mega-corporations, are horrendous. Not the least is the undermining of democracy. Those who vote for and support the oligarchs because they think that’s where their security lies are victims of propaganda and bound for disappointment. The shadow of catastrophe (not too strong a word) that hangs over us is not due to the poor or the “other” who doesn’t look like us, worship the same God, or speak the same language, but to the 1%. Huxley was disconcertingly prescient.
This month our core team and guest contributors create a picture that beckons and behoves us to abandon stereotypes and propaganda about the poor, to recognize slave labor in its most absolute terms (human trafficking and prison labor) and more subtly in the conditions faced by workers at almost all levels of the corporate pyramid. We are called to ethically source the products we buy, to study our history, to bravely speak out against injustice and stupidity and, by implication, to shine a light on best-practices, those programs, services and unofficial efforts in your city/town, region or country that are helping and that can easily be implemented anywhere in the world. (You can share these with everyone via our Facebook discussion group.)
Beginning with Juli’s impassioned editorial, The Exponential Demise of Our Well-being, and moving to our BeAttitudes: John Anstie’s powerful Dictators and Desperadoes … Delegation and Democracy; Corina Ravenscraft’s and Trace Lara Hentz’ thoughtful invitations to awareness; Phillip T. Stephens on prison injustice; Sue Dreamwalker’s encouragement to see the homeless as fully human (and she connects us with homeless poets and artists in England); and Joe Hesch’s honest exploration of self, we are called to responsibly participate in history.
We present a memoir from Renee Espriu and a short story from Joe Hesch this month. These are followed by yet another stellar poetry collection from poets around the world, including work by core-team members: Charles W. Martin and John Anstie.
New to our pages, a warm welcome to: Juli [Juxtaposed], Sue Dreamwalker, Michael Odiah, Evelyn Augusto, Michele Riedele, Irene Emmanuel and bogpan. We welcome work from among our previous and regular contributors: Paul Brookes, Trace Lara Hentz, Renee Espriu, Sonja Benskin Mescher, Denise Fletcher, Phillip T. Stephens, R.S. Chappell, Rob Cullen and Mark Heathcote.
In the spirit of peace, love (respect) and community
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines, Jamie Dedes, Founding and Managing Editor, The BeZine
HUNGER, POVERTY and THE WORKING CLASS AS SLAVE LABOR
How to read this issue of THE BeZINE:
Click HERE to read the entire magazine by scrolling, or
You can read each piece individually by clicking the links in the Table of Contents.
To learn more about our guests contributors, please link HERE.
To learn more about our core team members, please link HERE.
In the introduction to his translation of Beowulf, Seamus Haney comments that “as a work of art it lives in its own continuous present.” For me, theatre (whether in its broadest or narrowest sense) is very much the same. Theatre always encourages us to be in that continuous present. As an over-arching art form it can integrate every other form of human (and even animal) expression. It usually rewards our engagement and disdains our detachment. Even when a show runs for a thousand performances, it can never be quite as canned, as mass produced as many of our other entertainments. Human variability is on display every night.
More broadly, theatre tends to mean any place in which we think there is a scripted or specialized drama occurring. In that sense it often indicates that we’re seeing a performance driven by an agenda and perhaps designed to deceive. We criticize this as hypocrisy. In ancient Greece, a hypocrite was merely an actor, i.e. one who had made a judgment or assessment of a script when preparing to perform that script for others. At that time, it was also thought unworthy for actors to become politicians since actors were skilled at impersonation. We could not know their true selves.
In the context of our art, we would probably judge this as unfair. We’ve all had the experience of “donning the mask” or crafting a persona as a way of freeing ourselves. In expressing the lie, we hope to tell the truth.
I’m delighted to be Guest Editor this month. It coincides with a production that I’m currently in. This is an experimental production staged as immersive experience. We’re telling the story of a family in crisis (the passing of parents, dealing with aging and the end of life, and the break-up of relationships). We tell this story in a residence where small audience groups (a dozen to two dozen at a time) sit in the “living rooms” of the characters. This intimacy connects us with our audience. They do not participate in the sense of interacting with the actors. But, they are side-by-side with us as we make the journey, watching us, crying with us, laughing with us and even eating with us. Detachment is not an option. We join together in the continuous present.
This month’s pieces remind us of these connections and touch on so many of the stages on which we act.
Priscilla Galasso speaks of her experience with theatre and its broad impact in her life. “Playing the muck of human behavior” as she says.
Charles W. Martin’s poetry talks passionately of life’s stage, reminding us that, yes, detachment is not an option.
Corina Ravenscraft gets to the root of why we should all spend time in “the seeing place.” It’s a broadside worth taking around when it comes time to fund arts in schools and communities.
Michael Watson recounts an early experience where his personal humiliation also reflected larger and deeper ones around him. He shows us how Playback Theatre is another powerful way to connect.
John Anstie recounts the life of his mother. In reading her story, I think on the many roles we are often forced to play and how we adopt certain personas to help us survive.
I feel that basic joy of theatre in Renee Espriu’s contribution. “The hills are alive…” means a little more to me now than it did before.
Jamie Dedes points us to theatrical entertainment with its golden moments and the theatre of life with it’s chaos and absurdity. [And, seriously, check out Fanny Brice’s physical comedy.]
John Sullivan’s four poems this month are, for me, intriguing and searching meditations on the self. They speak to who we are, the personas we have, the masks we wear, the music we sing. And, he’s allowed us to publish an excerpt from his new play, Hey Fritz, Looks Like You Lost It All Again in the Ghosting.
Naomi Baltuck’s discussion of Come From Away focuses right in on an essential aspect of our experiences both in life and in theatre. Specifically, I’m thinking about what it means to literally commune with strangers, whether it’s the characters in Come From Away or the audience who watches it.
Karen Fayeth shows how, no matter what size or shape the spectacle, there is something profound in the simplest of relationships. Say, between a boy and his horse. Because, whether we’re seeing animals at play or a play about animals we are moved.
In bringing together both her visual art and her poetry, Sonja Benskin Mesher has each explain the other. And, yet, each also enlarges the other and perhaps we see our own actions a little differently, too.
Of course, plays and poetics go hand-in-hand. Michael Dickel thoughtfully discusses how one arises from the other and the personal origins of both.
Paul Brookes’ poems read as very modern, but also touching on things quite old, such as shared rituals and the hypocrisy of actors (in the classical sense).
And, finally, there’s a last word from Denise Fletcher. I hope we’ve achieved a kind of success along the lines of what she describes.
Thank you to all who contributed this month and for letting me join the show. I’m having a wonderful time! I look forward to seeing where the story goes from here. And, to the last one who leaves the theatre, please turn on the ghost light.
Richard Lingua
Guest Editor
THEATRE
How to read this issue of THE BEZINE:
Click HERE to read the entire magazine by scrolling, or
You can read each piece individually by clicking the links below.
To learn more about our guests contributors, please link HERE.
To learn more about our core team members, please link HERE.
Photograph: Gargoyles as theatrical masks above a water basin. Mosaic, Roman artwork, 2nd century CE. The piece can be found at the Capitoline Museum in Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori, first floor, hall of the Horti of Mæcenas. From the Baths of Decius on the Aventine Hill, Rome.
This month’s publication focuses on Restorative Justice. This is a topic that is dear to me. I am the Director of the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition. I have been working with incarcerated folks and those touched by incarceration since 2003. I have seen the ripples of harm that have come. There is harm to the victim, of course. But there is also harm to the person who committed the harmful act, harm to their families, and harm to the communities that encircle all of these people.
Restorative Justice is an en vogue term. Everyone wants it but we don’t know much about how to do it. Most of us look backwards at the ancient ways of first peoples such as the Māori people of New Zealand or the Tagish and Tlingit First Nation people of the Yukon. We lift their practices and bring it forward into a defined court case.
This somewhat misses the point.
The circling process that the first peoples used far pre-dates the term restorative justice. At the same time, restorative justice has become a term to be used by the justice system. And so we create another circling process that is set aside for the courts, jails, and prisons to use.
Circling or Peacemaking Circles, the process given to us by the ancients, is to be used everywhere and with anything: healing, sentencing, discernment. And it involves the entire community. The entire circle of ripples affected by an act. It is a big process. And that’s why we relegate it to the justice system.
Because if we don’t relegate it to the work of the justice system, that means we will have to change and do better. The first principle of the circle: You can only change yourself. As long as we make restorative justice the property of the courts, we don’t have to change. We don’t have to be more welcoming, giving, or inclusive. We don’t have to mentor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked. But I have news! Great news of good tidings! Restorative justice, Peacemaking Circles, is, as the ancients say, the wisdom of the universe. It belongs to no one person and is there for all for the healing and transformation—not of the world, but of each one of us.
This issue about Restorative Justice and new forays into restoration is explored by our core team and guest writers. Each brings their own wisdom to the topic.
Writing on aspects of justice and restorative justice are: Myself, James Cowles, and Chris Hoke. Justice oriented creative writers are Lisa Ashley, Carolyn O’Connell, Paul Brookes, Rob Cullen, Charles W. Martin, Marieta Maglas, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Paul Brookes, Jamie Dedes and a short stories by Joseph Hesch, Lisa Ashley and Rachel Barton. Gail Stone offers a video that speaks to her faith and hope in restorative justice. I have also offered a moderated discussion that I led regarding zero incarceration for youth. Denise Fletcher teaches us how to put together Comfort Kit Baskets for the incarcerated.
We hope this issue will give you pleasure even as it provokes you. Leave your likes and comments behind. As readers you are as import to the The BeZine project, values and goals as are our contributors. Your commentary is welcome and encourages our writers. As always, we offer the work of emerging, mid-career and polished pros, all talented and all with ideas and ideals worth reading and thinking about.
In the spirit of peace, love (respect) and community and on behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines,
Terri Stewart, Guest Editor
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How to read this issue of THE BEZINE:
Click HERE to read the entire magazine by scrolling, or
You can read each piece individually by clicking the links below.
To learn more about our guests contributors, please link HERE.
The environmental challenges are complex, an understatement I know.
Big Ag pollutes our waterways and groundwater, air and soil. Some wetlands, rivers and their tributaries can no longer sustain life. Much pastureland is befouled with pesticides, animal waste, phosphates and nitrates and other toxic residue from unsustainable farming practices.
Sudan Relief Fund, World Food Program, Oxfam, Catholic Relief Fund, Buddhist Global Relief, the World Food Program and many other organizations are working to mitigate widespread hunger, which is a problem of economic injustice as well as environmental degradation and environmental injustice.
Drought and resulting famine are devastating the Sudan, the West Upper Nile and Yemen.
In many areas of the world, access to potable water is sorely lacking.
Lack of access to clean water is exacerbated by a want of toilets for some 4.2 billion people, which has a huge impact on public health. The result of poor hygiene and sanitation is Dysentery, Typhoid, Cholera, Hepatitis A and death-dealing Diarrhea. More people die of diarrhea in Third World counties than of AIDs.
Our problems are pressing and complex and are made the more difficult as we struggle under a cloud of skepticism and division and the discouraging weight of a Doomsday Clock that was moved forward in January to two-and-a-half minutes to midnight in response to Trump’s election. That’s the closest we’ve been to midnight since 1953.
Access to potable water may be the most pressing of our challenges.
“The world runs on water. Clean, reliable water supplies are vital for industry, agriculture, and energy production. Every community and ecosystem on Earth depends on water for sanitation, hygiene, and daily survival.
“Yet the world’s water systems face formidable threats. More than a billion people currently live in water-scarce regions, and as many as 3.5 billion could experience water scarcity by 2025. Increasing pollution degrades freshwater and coastal aquatic ecosystems. And climate change is poised to shift precipitation patterns and speed glacial melt, altering water supplies and intensifying floods and drought.” World Resources Institute
The good news is that there are many working conscientiously to raise awareness and funds. Some of our readers and contributors are among them. There are good people offering time and expertise, sometimes putting their own lives and livelihoods in danger.
This month our core team and guest writers have chosen to focus largely on water, but they also address the need to respect science (Naomi Baltuck) and the need to acknowledge that war is a danger to the environment in general as well as a cause of human hunger. (Michael Dickel). If the Syrian Civil War were to stop right this second, one wonders how long – how many years, perhaps decades – it would take to make that country’s land farmable again.
Michael Watson, Carolyn O’Connell and Joe Hesch touch their experiences of farms before industrial farming. Priscilla Galasso, John Anstie, Paul Brooks, Marieta Maglas and Rob Cullen speak to us of water. Corina Ravenscraft and Sonja Benskin Mesher remind us of the element of greed – as does John – and Sonja points to gratitude. Enough is truly enough. Charlie Martin’s poems are poignant, making us think about how sad it would be if we lost it all. Liliana Negoi brings a quiet and practical appreciation of nature. Phillip Stevens paints the earth in all her delicacy and need for tender husbandry.
Thanks to our core team members for stellar, thoughtful work as always: John Anstie, Michael Watson and Michael Dickel, Priscilla Galasso and Corina Ravenscraft, Charles Martin, Liliana Negoi, Naomi Baltuck and Joe Hesch.
Welcome back to Paul Brooks, Phillip Stephens and Sonja Benskin Mesher and a warm welcome to Marieta Maglas and Rob Cullen, new to our pages.
We hope this issue will give you pleasure even as it provokes you. Leave your likes and comments behind. As readers you are as import to the The BeZine project, values and goals as are our contributors. Your commentary is welcome and encourages our writers. As always, we offer the work of emerging, mid-career and polished pros, all talented and all with ideas and ideals worth reading and thinking about.
In the spirit of peace, love (respect) and community
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines, Jamie Dedes, Founding and Managing Editor
Photo credit: A Mongolian Gazelle, victim of drought, Gobi Desert 2009 courtesy of Mark Heard under CC BY 2.0
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How to read this issue of THE BEZINE:
Click HERE to read the entire magazine by scrolling (now includes this Intro), or
You can read each piece individually by clicking the links below.
To learn more about our guests contributors, please link HERE.
…the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. (T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland)
One of the most famous poems “about” poetry, Marianne Moore‘s poem, “Poetry.” It famously begins with
I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
However, she goes on in the very next lines to say
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in it after all, a place for the genuine.
There is much that is genuine in this April issue of The BeZine, which celebrates Poetry Month globally with our celebration of interNational Poetry Month. We are proud to present a wide variety of poets and poetry from all over the world. We have 45 posts of poetry (many with more than one poem), an essay, and one short story. This issue of The BeZine is an anthology!
Over the years, questions of poetry’s health, suggestions of its “death,” and concerns over who, if anybody, might be reading it, continue to swirl around in various articles, essays, and round tables. While many of the debates one might encounter in this bubbling broth come from a perspective of poetry’s decline, it seems to me that the reasons that such questions arise come from two primary sources.
One is an anxiety about how society values what we do, as poets or readers of poetry. It seems that the writers from this vein often worry that, in fact, society does not value poetry—as recorded in statistics about readership or as suggested by some other perceived decline in attention to it. The other vein, in my view, is a more healthy concern with what poetry is and what we are doing when we “do” poetry (read, write, critique).
This past year, a lot of words spilled onto the screen and page regarding Bob Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize—is a song writer a poet? Of course, poetry comes from song, so a song writer is a poet. Is poetry still song, then, or has it gone “beyond”? These articles and essays seem to flow from both of the sources I’ve suggested: anxiety and reflection. If our modest zine is any indication, poetry thrives throughout the world.
While the anxieties and reflections continue—and they are not new, witness the 1919 date of Marianne Moore’s poem—poets continue to write, and readers continue to read. You are reading this, so you are evidence of readers who have an interest in poetry. Whether there are more or fewer readers in any year or decade might fluctuate, or the methods of measuring them might change. However, as there are poets, there are those who read poetry. And listen to it—as in spoken word and slam.
Billy Collins opens his essay, The Vehicle of Language, suggesting that a problem with the reception of poetry is how poetry is taught:
For any teacher of poetry with the slightest interest in reducing the often high-pitched level of student anxiety, one step would be to substitute for the nagging and ultimately pointless question, “What does this poem mean?” the more manageable question “Where does this poem go?” Tracking the ways a poem moves from beginning to end puts the emphasis on the poem’s tendency to travel imaginatively and thus to carry the reader in the vehicle of its language.
In principle, I agree that the emphasis should be on where poetry goes, how it plays with language—not on decoding “meaning.” The same approach could be applied to the concerns expressed about poetry. The concerns need not be about where poetry is as measured against expectations of its current quality, akin to the “meaning” anxiety of its teaching.
Although some express an anxiety about the “quality” of online poetry or spoken word or even “today’s” written word, we would do well to reflect instead on where poetry is going, for us as readers and writers—where we as writers of it want to go with our poetry, and where we as readers of it want poetry to go to be most satisfying.
Poetry invites us to take an imaginative journey: from the flatness of practical language into the rhythms and sound systems of poetic speech. (Billy Collins, The Vehicle of Language)
It is our hope that you will read the poetry here with an appreciation for poetry’s “place for the genuine,” and find satisfaction in the depth and breadth presented here. Whether or not you will have “a perfect contempt for it” as you read, we leave up to you…
—Michael Dickel Contributing Editor
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Celebrating interNational Poetry Month
To Read this issue of The BeZine
Click HERE to read the entire magazine by scrolling, or
You can read each piece individually by clicking the links below.
To learn more about our guests contributors, please link HERE.
The title of David Cooper’s book on Kabbalah invites us to re-think the Creator as Creating: God is a Verb. While I don’t want to equate science to God in a religious sense, I want to borrow this re-conception. Science is creative, creating, if you will, knowledge of the world. Science is a verb.
Too often we get tied down to a concept of science as about facts. However, as Thomas Kuhn describes it in The Structures of Scientific Revolutions, science is a process (hence, verb). The process involves a method (the scientific method), observation, repeated results, and, if repeated results are consistent, an assertion that a hypothesis is likely to be true. However, Kuhn explains that it is also a sociological process where the method and affirmed hypotheses lead to paradigmatic beliefs—models that predict reasonably well future observations.
The paradigms are not easily changed—the paradigm of Newtonian Mechanics, which work very well in most real-world situations, did not easily yield to Relativity and Quantum Mechanics even as Newtonian physics accumulated observations it couldn’t explain while quantum physics explained more and more. As a model for most human activities on Earth, though, Newton’s model still works. It’s when boring down to atomic particles or moving out into massive astronomical systems, or specific cases like black holes and light itself, that we need Quantum Mechanics.
The different (and often competing) models—also known as theories—are products of science, the verb. The scientific process refines, overturns, explores new models. Science, at its best, produces closer and closer approximations of the actual universe it models. This is different from a belief in an unwavering truth or an ideology—in part, because it relies on observation and corrections if observations do not show what the model predicts. And second, because science does not make truth statements but, rather, probability statements. Sometimes, the probability approaches 100%, sometimes only 95%.
The flexibility that comes from self-correction unfortunately also provides ammunition for “science deniers,” such as those who deny climate change. As science is a process and models do change, as models are based on predictive ability and that ability is not 100% even in the best cases, those whose ideology or greed get in the way of accepting the predictions (even the very strongly likely ones) often claim the whole model is “unreliable,” or point to earlier results that required corrections to the model in order to discredit the whole theory. Yet, those who object do not offer an alternative model that does stand up to the process of scrutiny, repeated results, and reliable prediction of future events. They often offer no alternative at all.
At its outer theoretical spheres, the science verb sometimes takes us to conversations that sound like mysticism—as do some of aspects of that mysterious energy, light. Humans have a long cultural (and religious) history with light. Arthur Zajonc’s book Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mindprovides a wide ranging cultural and inter-cultural exploration of human understanding of light through history. In the end, Zajonc re-connects current quantum physics concepts with those from ancient myths as accurate metaphors (or analogies). Zajonc, a professor of physics at Amherst (now retired), has studied culture, mind and spirit in relation to physics from his perspective as a physic working in quantum optics (for example: The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama, one of his better known books).
In a very real sense, the verb science interacts with arts and culture. It is an active process of human society, a developed methodology for producing close observations and repeatable results to help us build models that predict future results under different conditions. It is not a series of facts, but rather a system of understanding and predicting creation. In this way, it actively creates the world, literally as we know it. And it has influence culture. Certain newly (re)discovered understandings from mathematics helped European artists develop perspective in painting. A recent example, Chaos Theory, with its fractals and butterfly effect, has influenced art, music, and literature, and not just with science fiction movies.
In this issue, we celebrate, explore, and raise questions involving science, culture, politics, and religion. John Anstie and I both contribute poems that have sub-atomic particles at their centers, but are not (only or even mostly) about them. Naomi Baltuck explores Galileo through the Musee Galileo, in another one of her marvelous photo-essays. An sampling of snippets from science take us through “Science in culture, politics and religion” in Corina Ravenscraft’s exploration of connections. In “A Life,” Michael Watson gives a highly personal account of his own encounters and loves with different ways of understanding — or knowing — embodied in the theme’s elements of science, culture, religion, and politics. Current politics seem to attack the different approaches each has to offer. Phillip T. Stevens begins with Chaos Theory and moves into myths, the myths of myths, as it happens. Hearts, Minds, and Souls, by John Anstie, considers the theme from a socio-political framework, considering societies need to control as one of many elements in shaping science, culture, and religion through politics.
The issue has much more to offer— fiction by Joseph Hesch and lots of poetry by Jamie Dedes, Renée Espiru, Priscilla Galasso, Terri Muuss, and Phillip T. Stevens. The more light section has three more poems that are not directly related to this month’s theme, but we wanted to share with our readers at this time.
Michael Dickel
Associate Editor
“It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man.” Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977), American anthropologist, educator, philosopher, and natural science writer
This issue of The BeZine is dedicated to scientists the world over, especially those who are conscientiously fighting to preserve this earth, its people, and scientific integrity. Throughout history scientists have met with the same skepticism they face in some quarters today. They were sometimes misunderstood and crudely punished. Alan Turing comes to mind first, cruelly treated after being of enormous service to his country.
I think of Rhazes (865-925), a forward-looking medical scientist who wrote a compendium of all that was known about medicine in his time. He was beaten over the head with his book, went blind and was unable to continue his work. Galileo’s (1564-1642) insight and honesty was labeled heresy. Albert Einstein’s (1879-1955) books were burned. Henry Oldenburg (1619-1677) was suspected of spying when he sought to acquire and publish worthy works by people outside his own country.
The tensions between ignorance and cognoscence continue today. So much so that in my country scientists are planning an Earth Day march on Washington to protest the current regime’s dismantling of climate protections. Members of many scientific and research groups are scrambling to archive government data they believe could be in jeopardy under this new regime.
Many thanks this month to Michael Dickel for having my back on this issue and for his distinguished contributions. Thanks also to all our supporters – especially Terri Stewart, Charlie Martin, Chrysty Darby Hendrick, Ruth Jewel, Lana Phillips, Sharon Frye, Silva Merjanian, M. Zane McCllelan and Inger Morgan and to this month’s contributors (not in any particular order) Priscilla Galasso, Corina Ravenscraft, Joe Hesch, Michael Watson, Naomi Baltuck, John Anstie, James R. Cowles, Terri Muuss and Pat Leighton. All are valued as we pursue this small effort in the name of peace and understanding.
New to our pages this month is Phillip T. Stevens. Phillip tells me he spent most of the eighties and nineties as a community and arts activist. To pay his bills he taught writing and visual design to community college students and at-risk youth for the Texas Youth Commission. He published four novels, two volumes of poetry and academic papers (including a series of articles on the role of metaphoric thinking in the development of scientific theory and religious belief for the International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society). Phillip lives with his wife Carol in Oak Hill, Texas, where they rescue abandoned cats for Austin Siamese Rescue.
And here we are. Thanks to the efforts of many, we leave the March issue in your hands. Enjoy and …
Be inspired. Be creative. Be peace. Be …
On behalf of the Bardo Group Beguines
and in the spirit of love and community, Jamie Dedes, Managing Editor
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Science in Culture, Politics and Religion
To Read this issue of The BeZine
Click HERE to read the entire magazine by scrolling. (I place it in backwards though, so you’ll be starting at the end and moving forward. Sorry about that. Just getting this down. J.D.), or
You can read each piece individually by clicking the links the below.
“When injustice becomes law, nonviolent resistance becomes duty.” Petra Kelly (1947-1992), co-founder of the German Green Party (1979) at a rally in Nuremberg (1983).
Our theme this month is Resist! We chose it to coincide with a protest today that was initiated by poets Alan Kaufman and Michael Rothenberg. Thanks to Alan and Michael, poets across the United States will gather on the steps of their local city halls and take their stand against the backward values that the U.S. President Elect represents. PEN America also sponsored an event today at the New York City Public Library and thanks to them protests are happening today in ninety U.S. cities and some cities outside the States.
As is our tradition at The BeZine, voices in protest are not limited to the U.S.
What are we trying to accomplish by protesting? “Dump Trump” is a rallying cry for some but it’s unlikely to happen, at least in the short-term.
We think what makes sense and what people want to focus on is creating awareness and building bridges, not walls. We want to stand in solidarity against scapegoating and the sort of rhetoric that fuels misunderstanding, hate and violence. We stand in support of the rule of law, civil rights and human rights. We want to keep the feet of the power elites to the fire and demand accountability.
Michael Rothenberg and Alan Kaufman have written that with “the Fourth Estate under siege it is now up to writers, poets, artists and musicians to join in and put our shoulders to the wheel.…There is no Post-Truth Era for the world of [the arts].” And here we are …
It takes courage to speak out, but speak out we must and today we bring you a collection that we hope will hearten you, if only by virtue of seeing just how many people share your values. There is hope in that.
It begins, with one brave enough to appear. One idea, one voice in an asphalt void. Oligarchs try to crush all dissension with fear. Undaunted, the idea will not be destroyed, Shares roots with others; reassures, “I’m still here.” —Corina Ravenscraft
In this issue, Michael Watson, Priscilla Galasso, and Naomi Baltuck gift us with BeAttitudes that are measured, gain their wisdom from history and the arts, and speak to the long-term and to the preservation of democratic values.
“There’s a striking parallel between our current social order and that of the Middle Ages, in which the wealthy ruling class acted and peasants endured.” — warns Naomi Baltuck in Boots on the Ground
Thanks to Michael Dickel we offer a fine collection of protest music and an apologia for activist poetry. Zena Hagerty of HamiltonSeen brings us the life of Joe Hill, labor activist and song writer. In The Push, from Zena and her business partner, Cody Lanktree, we learn how Hamilton—the fourth largest city in Canada—courageously pushed back against abuses and lack of transparency in their city government. We have a flash fiction piece from poet and writer, Joe Hesch.
This month’s poetry collection is a rather extraordinary gift from poets who are well-established. They are published here alongside emerging poets we want to support and encourage. Together the poems serve to frame the current challenges we face in our world.
New to our pages this month (presented in no special order) are Greg Ruud, Russ Green, Joy Harjo, Alan Kaufman and our featured poet, Reuben Woolley. We are delighted to welcome Dianne Turner back.
Enjoy the Zine and do Resist! This is the moment. —Jamie Dedes, Managing Editor
My first contact with The BeZine came when Managing Editor Jamie Dedes wanted to review my book of poems, War Surrounds Us, and to interview me. Somehow, from there I became one of the many “core” writers who contribute to The BeZine community—and, because I am involved with 100-Thousand Poets for Change (100TPC), I ended up taking some responsibility for our annual live 100TPC online event. Now I have a nice title, Contributing Editor. As one of the core writers, and a contributing editor, I suggested the theme Resist! for this issue to coincide with the protest readings my friends Michael Rothenberg and Alan Kaufman have instigated.
I have been active in peace and anti-racism movements for years. I recall when I first heard about the Women’s Movement, as a high school student planning a student protest against the Viet Nam War. My academic work relates to violence and masculinity (see my essay, The Warm Blanket of Silence, in this issue).
However, this autumn marks, for me, one of the darkest periods in my memory. The rising influence of white supremacy (sic) movements, blatant misogyny, unapologetic homophobia, open anti-Semitism (from the right and the left), and sword-rattling (fake?) machismo in this last U.S. election—manifested openly and through “dog-whistles” by the President Elect, his supporters, and his advisors—recall the period before WWII. And not just in 1930s Germany—fascism was popular in the U.S. and much of Europe before the war, including a notorious “Fascist Plot,” also called “The White House Coup,” in 1933. Now the industrialists will have The White House—they don’t need a coup. The probable influence of Russia on our elections (not to mention the FBI) comes straight from 1950s nightmares. These dark shadows oppress my mood and sap my energy.
The only solution I know is to Resist! To stand with others and to say, loudly, “No!”
Jamie has expressed the idea of resistance positively above. And I agree with her. Resistance must be positive, but also strong. It should be non-violent (until violence becomes a necessary and last-resort defense). And it must be embedded in all that we do. My own poetry, art, music, teaching, and life should help awaken, empower, and facilitate resistance to the hate, indifference, and greed that permeate our political culture (a lofty goal I expect I will fail in, even as I attempt to achieve it). I hope to do so in ways that welcome dialogue and allow for diverse responses and approaches across a wide range of contexts. However, I will not “give him a chance” to promulgate hate, strip the environment, legislate for racism or hate, or further oppress those under the heal of the capitalist boot. I resist.
to scroll through the entire zine If you read something you’d like to share, just click on its title in the header to get the URL for a specific piece.
IN A NUTSHELL
Let Us, a poem by Alan Kaufman
letting my freak flag fly, a poem by Charles W. Martin
Scraggly Dandelion in a Concrete Crack, a poem by Corina Ravenscraft
BeATTITUDES
The Act of “Survivance”, Michael Watson
Practising Freedom of Choice, Priscilla Galasso
Boots on the Ground, Naomi Baltuck
Werewolves—the Hounds of Hate, Michael Dickel
MUSIC
I ain’t no millionaire’s son, Michael Dickel
Democracy is Coming to the U.S.A., Michael Dickel
DOCUMENTARY FILM
One Wobblie’s Life: Joe Hill, Labor Activist and Songwriter, Zena Hagerty with Jamie Dedes
“The Push” or how the eleventh largest city in Canada is pushing back, Zena Hagerty and Cody Lanktree
FEATURE ARTICLES
In Defense of Activist Poetry, Michael Dickel
Silence i—Warm Blanket in Silence, Michael Dickel
Silence ii—Sound of Silence, Michael Dickel
Writer’s Block: Doubt, Fear and Heartbreak, Jamie Dedes
FICTION
The Nature of the Beast, Joseph Hesch
FEATURED POET: Ruben Woolley
Congratulations to UK poet Reuben Woolley for the distinction of an invitation to The Fourth International Festival of Poetry in Marrakesh. All expenses are paid for by the festival organizers but the airfair. Just like the rest of us who earn our bread with poetry, Reuben’s purse is a bit light. Reuben has set up a Go Fund Me page to raise the money for airfare HERE.
natural killers, Reuben Woolley
the uncertainty of bright maps, Reuben Woolley
shade talking, Reuben Woolley
venus of coventry, Reuben Woolley
barely anywhere in time, Reuben Woolley
darker application, Reuben Woolley
POETRY
Deconstruction, Michael Dickel
So Thirsty, Michael Dickel
Circulating Language Manfesto, Michael Dickel
Dovetailed, Renee Espiru
Fire Song, Russ Green
Fear Poem, Joy Harjo
The Taste of Cyanide, Mark Heathcote
The Oak, the Man and the Mighty Weed, Joseph Hesch
Into the Unknown Flee, M. Zane McCllelan
War Lore, M. Zane McCllelan
This Is Not a Lullaby, M. Zane McCllelan
Of Seas, Bicycles and Whiskey, Liliana Negoi
no rain, Liliana Negoi
congregrating war, Liliana Negoi
faulty darwinism, Liliana Negoi
Noblesse Oblige, Carolyn O’Connell
Now That Anything Can Happen, Greg Ruud
Righteous Anger, Greg Ruud
Goat Herders, Dianne Turner
Waiting, Lynn White
Separate Development, Lynn White
Leaving Aleppo, Peter Wilkin
In close:
Here and Hereafter, Jamie Dedes
CONNECT WITH US Daily Spiritual Practice:Beguine Again, a community of Like-Minded People
I am honored to take the lead for this issue of Rituals for Peace, Healing and Unity. Lately, I have not felt very peaceful. In large part, it is due to the election cycle in the United States. It fills me with incredible anxiety. At the same time, I am actively part of a movement called Peacemaking Circles. Peacemaking Circles came to me via Saroeum Phoung who was taught by the Tagish Tlingit First Nation Peoples. Peacemaking is an ancient process that has been traditionally used in all forms of communal and family decision-making. The first principle of Peacemaking Circles is: The only change you can make is within yourself.
As painful as that reality is, it is true. If you change yourself to become peaceful, to be healed, to be one with the greater cosmic community, that will be enough. Because as you are settled and grounded in peace, it will ripple out towards others.
In some ways, I think that we are seeing the rippling of a great many people that have a cosmic concern for the ways of peace. As it ripples towards others, it does, unfortunately, lead to an increase in violence, intolerance, and ickiness. But it will be overcome. Love will win in the end. But the journey can be an anxious one. Staying grounded in peace while the world loses its collective mind is a challenge. Being a non-anxious listening presence in the midst of overwhelming anxiety is hard. And so, we offer you this issue focusing on expressions of rituals for peace, healing, and unity.
You will find an exploration of the ritual of writing as a spiritual practice from Jamie Dedes, a dharma talk from Gil Fronsdale, a reminder from Ram Dass on how to see others, a beautiful poem on healing from Carolyn O’Connell, a folk tale and illustrative photograph from Naomi Baltuck, a calming video and poem from Bridget Cameron, a poem from Renee Espriu that aligns with Ram Dass and how we see, Michael Watson offers an essay on ritual that is spot on, Corina Ravenscraft offers her daily ritual as does John Anstie, and I am offering five rituals that I have written that focus on gratitude, naming and releasing negative feelings, decision-making, a ritual for touch, and a ritual for release.
I’m sure I’ve missed someone. It is not intentional! We have such a generous community.
So, I offer you this issue. Get your warm cup of tea or coffee or water, take a deep breath, sit back and read. Enter into the spirit of peace, pax, shalom, salaam, and pace.
Table of Contents
Editorial Contributions on Rituals by Terri Stewart
Access to the biographies of our core team, contributing writers and guest writers is in the blogroll where you can also find links to archived issues of The BeZine.
The Environment is a complex array of interconnections and interbeing (as Thich Nhat Hahn would say). Steve & I have various metaphors for this. He likes to refer to “his bowling pins”. He imagines setting up a toy set of pins on a lawn and bowling at them. When they scatter, you set them back up exactly where they landed and bowl again. This takes you all over the neighborhood in endless permutations. I think of “trophic cascades”, changes in an ecosystem that originate at an extinction or other dramatic altering of balance, similar perhaps to “the domino effect” but less linear. However you try to wrap your brain around it, the nature of Life on this planet is intricate and incomprehensible. We are wise to approach it with the utmost humility. Because we are intrinsically involved, however, we must not fear to engage. We are already immersed. We might as well learn to float, swim or drown with awareness. With that understanding, we invited our contributors to share their perspectives from where they are. And there are many other currents besides. Let me just mention a few for further research:
Environmental Law – there are some exciting changes emerging in the championing of the Rights of Nature in legal systems. Corporations have legal protection and rights as individuals in many countries, while communities and natural entities (bodies of water, land, animals, etc.) do not. The ability to stand up against the interests of a Corporation and say, “We don’t care if you want this resource. You can’t have it!” is an idea that can be incorporated into law. Thomas Linzey of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is working to make that happen. Watch his keynote address to the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC) HERE.
Deep Ecology/Environmental Philosophy – Deep ecologists are a group of philosophers who question the anthropocentrism embedded in the logic and ethics of Western culture. Arne Naess is the “Father of Deep Ecology”. Peter Singer is another important philosopher who spearheaded the discussion about the ethical treatment of animals in the early 70s. These philosophers are everything from temperate reformers (Aldo Leopold and Wendell Berry) to anti-civilizationists (Derrick Jensen).
Habitat/Wildlife/Green Corridors – where human interference has fragmented the landscape, other species suffer huge losses. Establishing connected corridors of undisturbed terrain help to shift the paradigm from domination to coexistence. The American Prairie Reserve has a habitat base of more than 353,000 acres. Read the story of this amazing management project HERE.
Organic Farming – the proliferation of large factory farms that employ pesticides, herbicides, hormones and other chemicals while dumping huge amounts of toxic waste on the land has significantly impacted the health of the planet. Soil health, human health, pollinator health – so many things are involved here. Returning to methods of food production that are more locally-scaled and less dependent on chemicals is a natural remedy, but must be radically and quickly implemented to turn degradation around. Support organic farming in your area!
And now, we proudly introduce our Table of Contents, Priscilla Galasso (scillagrace) with Steve Wiencek
Access to the biographies of our core team, contributing writers and guest writers is in the blogroll where you can also find links to archived issues of The BeZine.
In this issue our writers touch on many aspects of hope and its flip-side grief, sometimes head on and sometimes by a thread. In our lead features, Corina Ravenscraft urges us to act without expectation, to take life as it comes and Priscilla Galasso encourages us to do the work so that our hopes and dreams honor our true selves. In “You Just Never Know,” Naomi Baltuck gives us a fable about hope, perseverance and the unexpected.
Life, love, hope and dreams are explored from different perspectives by our poets, often from the perspective of the hopes we cling to despite wars and abuse. For the later see especially the Landays of Pashtun women in “I will die with a heart full of hope” and the poems of Imen Benyoub and Jenean Gilstrap. In “Ashen” k. writes about the quiet desire of a husband to stay connected to his wife who has died. In Hollie McNish’s poem, “Embarrassed,” she hopes – argues for – a society that gets past its nonsensical and puritanical attitudes toward breastfeeding. Renee Espriu speaks simply of hope and family in her poem “Eucalyptus Trees.” With Hélène Cardona’s “Life in Suspension” she trusts “the ripeness of the moment.” No stress. No strain. Luke Prater writes about the sacred moments and …
“When I knew mine was the life needed saving,
however seemingly insurmountable: this
is not an easy fade-to-black halfway home.”
With all our advice and encouragement, it’s never easy and we all need saving.
Jenean Gilstap and Hélène Cardona are new to our pages, and we are proud to introduce their work to you. Please be sure to check out their bios and Renee’s and Luke’s. This is not Renee’s or Luke’s first time here, but its been a while and we are delighted to welcome them back.
Terri Muuss is featured this month with her editorial, “For or Against,” wherein she clarifies the misconceptions and misunderstandings that arise from our communications in social media.
Enjoy!
In the spirit of peace, love and community,
for The Bardo Group Beguines, Jamie Dedes
Managing Editor
Access to the biographies of our core team, contributing writers and guest writers is in the blogroll where you can also find links to archived issues of The BeZine (currently in the process of updating), our Mission Statement and Submission Guidelines.
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake
Faith! In the discussions here you won’t find consistent perspective or theology. You will find faith explored in its many manifestations, religious and otherwise. You’ll find it both shaken and unshakable and in things of the spirit, in nature and humanity, in intuition and in self and family. Unity here is not in things creedal but in the shared values of peace, sustainability and social justice and for many of us – implicitly – in ultimate salvation through artistic expression.
Unitarian Universalist Minister, Rev. Ben Meyers, starts us with an appeal to religions to give their prayers and vigils legs, to befriend one another into the groundswell of local social justice initiatives that ultimately help to inform and bolster global efforts toward equity, justice and peace.This couldn’t be more appropriate as The BeZine “went to press” amid news reports of yet more violence.
You will find our usual diversity represented: skepticism and atheism, the three Abrahamic traditions, shamanism, and the mystical perspectives of Buddhism, Hinduism and Sufism.
Our special selection of lead features and poems are by: shamanic practitioner and psychotherapist, Michael Watson; resident skeptic, James R. Cowles; the always engaging and level-headed analyst, Priscilla Galasso; the fallen altar boy, poet Joe Hesch; professional story-teller and photographer, Naomi Baltuck; our renaissance man in Sheffield, John Anstie; and university librarian, poet and artist, Corina Ravenscraft, on the ultimate triumph of the Universe.
Speaking from positions of their unshakable religious faith are: Algerian poet, Imen Benyoub, on the spiritual joys and family and community connection she finds in the holy tradition of Ramadan; Catholic Theologian, Fr. Daniel S Sormani, theology professor at Ateneo de Manila University, warmly writes about lessons learned from the homely life of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and our gentle Italian literary contributor, Mendes Biondo, tells of inspiration from the Bishop of Hippo Regius (current Annaba, Algeria), St. Augustine. Imen and Mendes are our two student contributors.
Two of our contributors allude to child sexual abuse but a third, Terri Muuss, addresses it head-on and in depth. These are experiences that may strengthen faith in self, though that doesn’t come without pain and work. Terri is featured this month in our popular “Getting to Know You” section.
Our July poetry collection covers matters spiritual, emotional and environmental with excerpts from published collections by Zine regulars: Matt Pasca, Terri Muuss, Myra Schneider, Silva Merjanian and Michael Dickel, contributing editor to The BeZine. With joy we welcome back two lights: German poet, photographer and educator, Dr. Aprilia Zank and English poet, Patricia Leighton.
New to our pages in this issue are:
Connie Spearing who writes of finally “seeing” her Irish grandmother with the accidental discovery of her family’s history during and after World War 1.
Sandra Renew’s s poetry expresses her opinions on the state of the world. She wonders who sleeps at night? Who is lucky enough to live in safety and peace?
Anca Mihaela Bruma, citizen of world, educated in Rumania, is a poet who writes spiritual autobiography. Anca wanted to incorporate some lovely music and art into her posts. Due to copyrights in one case (Dorina Costras’ art) and technical incompetence (mine) in the other, we are unable to share Dorina’s paintings or Anca’s soundcloud recordings. However you can view Dorina’s work HERE. You can listen to Anca on soundcloud HERE.
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One last word: DON’T FORGET TO SAVE THE DATE … Saturday, 24 September 2016 is The BeZine’s 100,000 Poets for Change, an eventwhich we host virtually. This event is part of an important annual arts initiative for global solidarity and peace, social justice and sustainability. Reader participation is invited and encouraged. This is a good time to share your work in the service of a worthy cause. As is our tradition, all submissions will be archived here and at Standford University. Instructions for participation will be provided on our blog that day with Michael Dickel serving as Master of Ceremonies. Between Michael and me, the event will run from morning in Israel to midnight in California. The theme this year is Environment/Environmental Justice. More detail HERE.
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Now, come friends. Read. Nourish yourselves at our table …
In the spirit of peace, love and community
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines, Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor The BeZine
Access to the biographies of our core team, contributing writers and guest writers is in the blogroll where you can also find links to archived issues of The BeZine (currently in the process of updating), our Mission Statement and Submission Guidelines.
“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief” Marcus Tullius Cicero
Friendship: Such a homely topic and yet where would we be without friends, whether from childhood or new to us in retirement, whether with family, schoolmates, coworkers, online or in the flesh, our friends do indeed double our joys and make our grieving more bearable. Friends may share specific times in our lives or specific values and interests. Each friend is without a doubt among the great treasures of life and living.
This month our contributing writers and our guests explore the wide range of friendships, their observations and notably, their gratitude. From newborn friendships to one that has stood the great test of time and is in its sixtieth year, from friends who share our family life to those who accompany us in retirement, all are savored this month.
Many of our reader-faves are back this month. Writing on theme Contributing Editor Priscilla Galasso, and Contributing Writers John Anstie, Corina Ravenscraft, Naomi Baltuck, Liliana Negoi and Charlie Martin. Frequent guest contributors Imen Benyoub and Aprilia Zank share their world-class poetry.
Poet Maggie MacKay debuted with us last month. We’re delighted to bring another of her poems to you today. We extend a warm welcome to poet Patricia Leighton, new to our pages.
Fathers can be our greatest champions and friends and we celebrate Father’s Day with Juan Felipe Herrera, former poet laureate of the United States. He’s a joy. Don’t miss that feature.
In our “More Light” section: We continue our well-received “Getting to Know You” series this month with interviews of Silva Merjanian, a frequent guest contributor, and Michael Watson, a member of the Bardo team from almost the beginning.
With Michael we also explore the consequences of disability in a special collection of features on illness and disability. You’ll find an inspiring piece there about a heroic friend of mine who, despite being legally blind, continues to ply her passion, fine art photography.
Contributing Writer, Joe Hesch, and Mendes Biondo – Mendes debuted with us last month – share their world class poety.
Among the features included in “More Light” is M.J. Tenerelli’s article about the process of publishing a poetry collection – Grabbing the Apple, An Anthology of New York Women Poets – which just launched a few weeks ago. A long-time friend of The Bardo Group Beguines, Dutch nature artist, Paula Kuitenbrouwer, shares the tranquility in her art, “Lotus Plant” and “Lotus Pond and Tortoise.”
Enjoy all and thank you for being the peace.
On behalf of The Bardo Group, Beguines, and in the spirit of peace, love and community, Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor
Access to the biographies of our core team, contributing writers and guest writers is in the blogroll where you can also find links to archived issues of The BeZine, our Mission Statement and Submission Guidelines.
APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten.
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.…
While Eliot declares the cruelty of April, April also happens to be National Poetry Month in the United States and Canada. In our online, social media world, it has become an international celebration of poetry as well. To join in this celebration, we in the Bardo Group Beguines dedicate the April issue each year to poetry. Many of us who write regularly for The BeZine are poets, and we usually include poetry. So, for us, it is a happy celebration—nothing cruel about it!
And what a wide-ranging celebration we offer in the 2016 National Poetry Month The BeZine issue! W. B. Yeats is oft quoted as saying, “What can be explained is not poetry.” So I won’t explain. I will tell you that Terri Muuss’ poem, “Thirteen Levels of Heaven,” takes you far and wide in a few grains of sand. “The Other Woman,” Imen Benyoub’s heart-wrenching poem, is not who you think—but in the current global storm of conflict and national political climate, indeed, she is Other. Michael Rothenberg’s “Poem for Mitko” personalizes the news we hear by imagining its impact on our mutual friend, Macedonian poet Mitko Gogov.
What these three featured poems have in common is their ability to take the intimate, the personal, the real moments of every day life, and reflect in and from them larger issues of humanity and life. Each describes very specific, personal scenes. According to Joy Harjo, “It’s possible to understand the world from studying a leaf.” And all of these poems open our eyes wide to the world. Sharon Olds tells an interviewer about poets she admires: “Their spirits and their visions are embodied in their craft. And so is mine.” And so are the spirits and visions of the authors gathered here.
“It may also be the case that any genuine work of art generates new work,” Donald Barthelme tells us in a Paris Review interview. As you read the poems, essays, interviews, and reviews in this month’s issue, I imagine that they will generate new art for you. Whether the art of living, the art of knowing others, or “the Arts,” you will want to do more of it after reading what we offer this month.
Last year, the Second Light Network of Women Poets (SLN) collaborated with The BeZine during April to present poetry from the SLN. In this year’s issue, you can read more about the network in “SECOND LIGHT NETWORK, showcasing the ambitious poetry of ambitious women.” Jamie Dedes’ essay “POET, TEACHER, INSPIRATION: Dilys Wood and the Latter-day Saphos” also sheds light on Dilys Wood, founder of the SLN. This year, in my dual roles of contributing editor here at The BeZine and associate editor at The Woven Tale Press, I have served as liaison in a new collaboration. The works specifically from the collaboration appear in their own section in the table of contents below.
However, the whole issue represents collaboration—not only between the two publications, but between all of the writers. We work together, as a community. In putting this all together with Jamie Dedes and my Bardo Group Beguines and Woven Tale Press colleagues, I came to realize how many of the poets here I know personally—separately from these two publications. We all come from an organic online writing community. By organic, I mean through no organized effort or special social website.
After years of knowing Michael Rothenberg through email and Facebook, I only finally met him in person this past summer. Terri Muuss and I met at Cornelia Street Café in Greenwich Village, also years ago, where her husband, Matt Pasca (who also has appeared in The BeZine), Adeena Karasick, and I performed one lovely evening. All four of us keep in touch through Facebook now.
I met gary lundy a long time ago and have spent time together, including road trips and as roommates for a few months. However, most of our friendship has been sustained and maintained by email and online connections—dating back to before any of us had heard of Facebook. UK poet Reuven Woolley, Romanian poet Liliana Negoi, Natasha Head, as well as Jamie Dedes and the rest of the Bardo Group Beguines, I only know “virtually.” Until a few months ago, the same was true for The Woven Tale Press publisher and editor-in-chief, Sandra Tyler.
Today, the world of poetry, as with everything else, has transformed under the influences of technology and social media. Last year, I spoke to a graduate-student seminar about social media, poetry, and the latest wave of “democratization of poetry.” That discussion evolved into the foreword of The Art of Being Human, Vol. 14, which you can read in this issue as “(Social) Media(ted) (Democratic) Poetry.”
I won’t try to count how many waves of “democratic” trends in poetry have washed up on the beach. A couple of centuries ago, poets were concerned “just anybody” might write poetry, and they didn’t think that was such a good idea. Some probably still don’t. Free verse and the Beats in the mid-Twentieth Century have been associated with the idea, for better or worse, depending on who made the association.
Today, poetry slams usually involve actual voting, as do many online sites. Self-publishing has become easy and cheap, so anyone could have a book who wants to, now. As a result of all of this, editors—such as those putting together a special poetry issue—serve much more as curators than as the gate-keepers of old. So, we may be in one of the greatest ever waves of “democratic” poetry.
A tidal wave of poetry, perhaps.
Don’t worry. While it will wash over you and change you, you won’t drown. Enjoy the poetry, writing about poetry, and other work presented here for your celebratory pleasure!
“There is something in me maybe someday
to be written; now it is folded, and folded,
and folded, like a note in school.”
― Sharon Olds
Access to the biographies of our core team contributing writers and guest writers is in the blogroll to your left along with archived issues of The BeZine, our Mission Statement and Submission Guidelines.
With this issue, we bring to center stage a relationship in which we are all engaged in one way or another – our relationship to this Place. Call it Nature or Earth or Gaia or Creation, this is where all of us are born, where we will live our lives, and where we will die.
Does this place have a Spirit of its own? Does it have a will? How does it relate to us?
Those are some of the questions behind the pondering, the exploring, the dreaming and the planning that is communicated here in our writing, in our songs, in our art, and in our work.
Taking the lead in preparing this issue has been a great adventure for me. It has challenged me to hold the lens of Place in front of my eyes more intentionally and to listen more closely to the voices of those who look through different spectacles. It is my hope that the contents here will encourage sharper focus on this relationship for all of our readers.
I am delighted to have Michael Watson’s piece “The Gift of Relationship” to launch our journey. The essay “I Love This Place!” follows and establishes the Lead Features. John Anstie offers “An Alternative View of Nature” so that we might ponder not only joy, but also humility and personal cost in this relationship. This piece also ushers in our first Poetry section for this month. Nature provides so many metaphorical images that bloom into greater understanding as we ponder our interaction with the world. We have a marvelous cornucopia of poems from Zen-like to Romantic from our core members and newcomers to our group, a true garden of delights, broken into two sections: shade and full sun. (Can you tell I enjoy running with a theme?!)
So often the weight and depth of a crucial relationship is handled most gracefully in a good story. Naomi Baltuck is one of my favorite storytellers! She makes me feel the magic of my purest attempts to make meaning, the ones I began as a child. And she always includes great pictures! She offers a selection of her tales in our Story Corner.
Art and Photography are natural mediums for portraying this beloved Place. In this section, Michael Dickel will challenge your assumptions about the Holy Land and show you the true Nature of that country in personal photos…and then invite you to examine your perspective further in “Capturing and Interpreting Light”.
Two exceptional Essays put some real heartwood into this issue. “Staying Wild: How the Wilderness Act Changed My Life” by Annick Smith describes living the idea and practice of wilderness and illustrates a real alternative to human ‘trammeling’. “Let’s Hear It For The Bees! (Parts 1-3)” by Tish Farrell provides some important information about a current environmental crisis – a wake-up call to the vulnerability of Nature.
Liliana Negoi next surrounds us with Green Light – two creative non-fiction essays to stimulate luminous musing.
After the Full Sun section of our Poetry garden, we offer some cool Music with tight harmony and a timeless message.
In More Green Light, we gaze on “Life in Ordinary Time”, “Unseen”. Finally, “Who Is She?” introduces our Getting To Know You subject, the poet Joseph Hesch.
Variety, diversity, fecundity, liveliness – yep, this issue looks like Wilderness, Gardens and Green Spaces. I hope you enjoy exploring and engaging in this small space and that it inspires you to deeper and broader and higher interaction with the larger Place where we all live. –
Access to the biographies of our core team contributing writers and guest writers is in the blogroll to your left along with archived issues of The BeZine, our Mission Statement and Submission Guidelines.
“There is a LIGHT in this world. A healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. We sometimes lose sight of this force when there is suffering, and too much pain. Then suddenly, the spirit will emerge through the lives of ordinary people who hear a call and answer in extraordinary ways.” Richard Attenborough
July 15, 2017
Our theme this month is Resist! We chose it to coincide with a protest today that was initiated by poets 
Beguine Again, Spiritual Community and Practice
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