210610 Journey Eclipse

 June 10

Solar Eclipse: Rahu, who was beheaded for drinking the nectar of the gods, tried to get revenge by consuming the sun, but without a body, the sun came out the other side! 

We purchased this painting in Bali, Indonesia, in 1983. The references I find on-line blur the myth we learned in Indonesia with other legends. The sun depicted here, we were told, is a female version of Surya, god/goddess of the sun. *

*****

The word has been journey. Since the beginning of the month, it has been a theme running through my days. It first came up with regard to my diet; I see how that has evolved over decades, meandered through healthy and unhealthy paths, vegetarian, omnivorous and international. I see how it is not static, but will continue to change as I am drawn towards healthier cooking, new foods and cuisines. It will probably divert into unhealthy and indulgent side roads, even as a greater variety of nutritious, sustainable foods are incorporated. In the past week I have seen how our lives are filled with journeys. We are not, from childhood, nor from young adulthood, an unchanging person. Our life is a journey through education and experience. The significance is that we do not arrive somewhere and settle. We also do not set out on a journey already there - we are not already the artist, friend or parent that we are working towards. To accept that, and to understand that as we progress, we will one day feel that capability, is important; it is all right to feel unprepared and uncertain about that future. If we walk with an open eye, we will see many things on the way unlooked-for, that enrich our lives. We are becoming. 

I have not been a gracious person, nor a listener. I have been thoughtless of others, selfish, hard-hearted. I have not been a perfect wife, mother or friend. I am sad for the selfish child I sometimes was when my parents needed me, even though I was happily, actively, their primary family caregiver through their illnesses and senior years. This imperfect and so human past has encompassed the stages of my journey, the journey I still walk and will continue pursuing. I aspire to grace, wisdom, patience. Grace is such a broad virtue, embracing kindness, empathy, and patience.  I want to be a more productive artist, to reach others through my writing, to give more of myself to everyone whom I encounter, to change the world for the better in whatever spheres I travel, (journey, again). These aspirations, however, are not a door out of guilt and beratement. Regret and hair shirts will not absolve the past nor undo what is done. I have acted from a place of good intention and from my best attempt. I begin to understand that I am in process. Just as a mosaic starts with broken pieces and a vision, and evolves in my hands to a completed piece, as new to me, as magical and unintentional as a farther shore, so a person progresses, with broken pieces, and illusory paths, dead ends and temporary campsites. This is the journey: let go the worry, the pressure, where is doesn't aid in your progress; tap into those emotions as they push you to your next resting place, but as with a journey, you may not reach the place you planned to get to, on the day you planned, or ever. Your path will turn with the vagaries of life, obstacles, unforeseen bridges and highways. 

I remember, anew, travelling with K, in Asia thirty-eight years ago. Each day was, in and of itself, to be lived, without thought of tomorrow or yesterday. We were where we were, we looked at what was there, who was there, how they lived. A major focus became where shall we eat today?! It did not matter that we were not at the end of the trip. That was a good thing! What learning, what joys we found, physical pleasures of delicious, sometimes strange foods, sunshine, new roads beneath our feet, homestays, hotels, hot baths and beaches. 

In Taiwan we took a side trip through Taroko Gorge, in a rickety bus, on a canyon road carved into the wall of rock, hundreds of feet above the river gorge, to a hostel deep in the wilderness, for no reason but to see it. When we got there, I met a woman who was wearing a t-shirt with the name of a school. It was the alternative Vancouver school where my brother was the principal. She had worked with my brother there. I mention it because it is one of those coincidences, or synchronicities, that happen with or without reason, somehow the universe unfolding, the journey born anew with each step, a gift given to the open eye, the open hand and mind, unexpected and joyful. [Taroko Gorge **]

In Java we observed a total solar eclipse that lasted more than five minutes, a rare length of totality. We had planned to be at this location on purpose to see it (June 11, 1983, 38 years ago, tomorrow). But we didn't plan or expect how events unfolded. We arrived on a small airplane in the town of Surabaya, Java, in company with a "convention", if that is the right term of "venery" for them, of eclipse-heads! Maybe it is an "observatory" of eclipse-heads, or a "planetarium"!, people whose hobby is travelling the world to witness eclipses wherever they occur.  The airport's single luggage carousel was littered with giant telescope lenses and tripods. The hotel dining room was brimming with European and American tourists comparing notes, discussing the viewing locations and the weather. This hotel dining room, by the way, like most Indonesian restaurants, served the most amazing foods, from western to chinese to local, that tasted EXACTLY like they were cooked in their country of origin, unmodified by local cuisine. And the local cuisine is among the healthiest I have enjoyed anywhere. [This was, incidentally, the only time one of our bags did not arrive with us. The airline had left mine behind somehow. It was only my change of clothes. Everything of value was in our carry-on bags. We were pleasantly surprised, quite amazed, when it was delivered to our hotel the next day!]

The morning of the eclipse, most of the watchers went to Borobudur, an ancient Buddhist temple nearby. To avoid the crowd we opted to take a taxi to a local beach. We disembarked, the only ones in the park, clutching our day packs and our welder's glass contrivances for safe viewing. On posts in the town were signs that showed a person looking directly at the sun and having his eyes zapped by the light. They didn't want anyone going blind and advocated watching the eclipse being broadcast live on tv. The park was a curious and bizarre place for a such a magical and rare event. There was a circle of small statues: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, like lawn-ornaments, and a monument of a giant bok choy with two arms: its hands making peace signs. In the distance we made out a wharf, with a row of cabins in the shade of which several young women loitered: a brothel, idle on a weekday morning. Alone on the immense treeless expanse of lawn and beach we stood waiting. The sky began to turn pale sunset colours, the horizons became twilit; the wind dropped and the birds stopped singing. We watched as the moon's shadow crept across the face of the sun, until there was a black sun in an evening sky. Five minutes and eleven seconds we stood silent. And then the moon moved on: daylight returned abruptly with the first naked rays of the sun. 

We were dazed, spent, purposeless. There was nothing left to live for. We had seen god, achieved some base animal enlightenment empty of intellect or understanding, wholly earthbound.

In the dining room at dinner, I don't think we talked much. We listened while the others, with long faces, cursed the weather which brought a cloud-covered sky to sacred Borobudur. They would soon be on their way to the next eclipse with renewed eagerness, like empty-handed hunters after an illusive deer. We were five days in Surabaya, unable to think or move on. We ate delicious meals and sat in the shade. We went to Borobudur. It was very sacred and very holy indeed, a beautiful monument with carved pictures of Buddha's life and hundreds of Buddha statues. It is the world's largest Buddhist temple, dating back to the 9th century. [Borobudur ***]

We finally travelled on, but wallowed again in inertia for three weeks at Lovina Beach on Bali, in little one-room thatched huts strung along the beach, with an open air dining room that made to-die-for french toast. Women, with their children in tow, were building a low brick wall between path and beach: toddlers, bare-bottomed, played alongside. We ate, swam, and lay on the beach and watched the goatherd walk east in the morning with his four goats, and return west with them, in the afternoon. We walked the dusty roads and visited the markets, while the equatorial sun rose at seven every morning and set at seven every evening. 

I write these memories to illustrate our journey through life. Plans there are, and destinations, but the stops on the way are filled with the curious and unexpected. Pause from time to time and look about you at the faces of your friends, the trees and the sky. Delays are met, and can overwhelm or frustrate, or dash you to the ground. But to recall that you are travelling, that this is not your final destination, that you will go on, is what sets you back on your feet. It's not a failure or an end to lose your way or take a detour through a dark passage. Ultimately, it isn't your goal or destination that will reward you with fulfillment, but the journey itself. All along you are working and loving and learning, being human, these themselves give your life meaning. The busy days, the successful days, the rest-times, the fruitless times, they are stages of the journey. 

We are each on our own journey, but we travel together. We love and help others along the way, carry each other's bags, hold hands, stop and wait through illness, hardship, and celebration. We carry our rituals, share them, re-invent them with our new companions. We actually use the word "baggage" for the emotional scars and burdens we "carry" in life! We tell our stories. We take what we need, leave the rest for others, discard ideas and ideals when they no longer work, and find new ones.

"We said we'd walk together, baby come what may 

That come the twilight should we lose our way 

If as we're walking a hand should slip free 

I'll wait for you 

And should I fall behind 

Wait for me 

We swore we'd travel darlin' side by side 

We'd help each other stay in stride 

But each lover's steps fall so differently...

But I'll wait for you 

And if I should fall behind 

Wait for me."

[Bruce Springsteen **** additional punctuation mine.]

Keep well. Take from this what fits with your journey and leave behind what doesn't. Thank you for visiting. 

Mumma Yaga

*****                 

lake huron stormy weather 

there was only the internal 

light of a thousand miles of stormclouds

or fires in this green deep.

                      

                   as if we were no longer of the sun 

                      we     the earthbound

                   the crawlers and 

                   this red mother

                      sat in a circle and decided

                   that the lake 

                   was crashing in a celebration

                   of joy

                      was god.

                  

beach wrecked

                   

these huron waves break me.

 - MY, July, 1982

*****

* https://www.almanac.com/solar-eclipse-folklore-myths-and-superstitions:

"In India, the demon spirit Rahu steals and consumes the nectar of immortality but is beheaded before he can swallow it. His immortal head flies into the heavens. The Sun and Moon had alerted the gods to his theft, so he takes revenge on them: When Rahu swallows an orb, we have an eclipse—but the orb returns to view because Rahu has no body!

...In Indonesia and Polynesia, Rahu consumes the Sun—but burns his tongue doing so and spits it out!" - from above article.

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur - good old Wikipedia.

*** https://wikitravel.org/en/Taroko_Gorge   - Taroko Gorge in Taiwan

**** Bruce Springsteen, If I Should Fall Behind: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9OCnm6cdZvQ&feature=share

      Linda Ronstadt also does a beautiful version of this song.