Right Speech

I don’t know if social media is causing more disconnections or making more connections or (most likely) a combination of both. But I, for one, am grateful for these little posts that appear that quote stellar human beings and give an uplift to my day. Yesterday was Mary Oliver, today is Ursula K. Le Guin. As someone in my second half of life finding that writing is as much (if not more) my passion as making music and/or teaching, her words below sing out to me. 

Socrates said, “The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” He wasn’t talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth. 

 

A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.

Not a new idea—note she begins with Socrates! She also could have invoked Buddha, whose “Right Speech” is one of the moral disciplines of the Eightfold Path. Indeed, there is no lack of authors, philosophers or religious leaders testifying to the power of language. In this day when the sword (now handguns and assault rifles) seems to be more powerful than the pen (now the computer keyboard or phone text), it indeed feels important to consider right speech alongside Buddha’s other seven suggestions—Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration. We'll need every tool in our belt to turn things around and what we say and how we say it and when we say it and to whom we say it is part of the healing process. 

So keep reading, my friends, thank your English teacher and consider writing and speaking from the heart. When you stumble on the words that are both true and needed, you indeed can make both your own and your reader's/ listener's souls "stronger, brighter and deeper."

 

Stepping Aside

 

"We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness."

When somebody—anybody— says something you know to be true better than you can articulate it, there is nothing to do but step aside and let them speak. And so I cede the floor to Mary Oliver above, that most eloquent and insightful poet. Ms. Oliver so wisely spent most of her days in company with the birds, bugs and beasts of this beautiful world and rarely had much to say about the nightmare of the news. So in the rare moments when she did, we would do well to pay attention. Here she hits every nail on the head building a house of words that express our shame. We would do well to reflect and ask ourselves: “What am I doing to contribute to this poisonous way of life, either through my actions or inactions, my words or my silence? What am I doing to resist it, to change it, to heal it? What the hell are we all doing here? And why?” 

Pilgrimage to Mecca

That’s how we spent our New Year’s Day. Not to the holy site in Saudi Arabia, but to the Mecca Hills Wilderness near Chuckwalla, California. There the sacred shrines were layers of granite, sandstone, gneiss, schist and other rocks woven in wavy patterns throughout a 600 million year time period. We hiked Ladder Canyon and Painted Canyon, in the correct order this time. Last year, we missed the turn-off to the ladders to help hikers ascend and ended up doing them going down at the end of the hike, when it was already dark. I imagine you can find a blogpost about it from last year, complete with the 10-miles dirt road for 4-wheel drive only and Talia’s car (which qualified) getting a flat while traversing it after surviving the ladder fiasco. 

 

So this year, we started earlier in the day, found the Ladder turn-off and all was going swimmingly until— I slipped on some pebbled part of the path and tore the skin of much of my left leg as if I had just slid into home base. Luckily, Talia had packed the first aid kit, so we brushed off the pebbles burrowed into the cut, wiped it clean and bandaged and taped it. On we all walked—no problem and the mixture of the expansive views and the extraordinary rock formations was balm to our souls. 

 

Despite our front wheel drive, we drove in our Prius alongside Talia’s car and on the way out, there was a confusing turnout that I took and got stuck in the sand. With all pushing and me reversing, I managed to get back to the main road, but now our front end that was already dubious got torn off further and was scraping the ground. The combination of big clips, knives cutting out car parts, a screwdriver unbolting other car parts seemed to mend it, but not enough to continue on. A passing car slowed down to see if we needed help and I asked if they had duct tape. At first, they said, “No, sorry, “and then exclaimed, “Wait! We do! You can have it!” This was the miracle we needed to patch the car together enough to drive the washboard dusty road out to the blessings of asphalt. And so we did. 

 

More interesting that the disaster story (two years in a row) are the images of this indeed holy site. Enjoy!

Good Omens

After my first morning meditation and oatmeal breakfast of 2025, I sat down for my ritual three games of Solitaire. The first is the most satisfying, as it requires intelligent choices beyond simply getting dealt good cards and I can usually win some 50-60% of the time. The second is more dependent on the lay of the cards, but still I can win some 30-40% of the time. The last is almost wholly luck driven and is the most challenging and I can only win some 5-10% of the time. If I win all three games in a row—which happens once or twice a year— I call it a Triple Crown and exult in its good omen.

 

So I’m happy to report that in my first three games of 2025, I won the Triple Crown! Made sweeter by my grandson Malik witnessing the victories. It’s a good beginning to the year.

 

Then last night our family game was the hilarious card game PIT. Six of us played it and we limited ourselves to six games. And miracle of miracles, each of us won one game!! Another good omen. Combined with my 8 for 8 beanbags in the hole a few days ago when I was practicing cornhole (a personal best), the signs are lining up that our fears and anxieties for what lies ahead may not be as horrific as we imagine, that the gods have our back. 

 

Well, we’ll see. The fact of the matter is that I had a rough couple of weeks at the end of what could be called a truly extraordinary, satisfying and joyful year (minus that date in November). Despite my hope that my dizzy diagnosis and exercises would help, it has been the most severe two weeks of the year. When I feel off, I eat more compulsively and then my belly swells and that bums me out and then I make the mistake of looking in the mirror without the generosity of feeling life’s wisdom has walked over my face and start to think about plastic surgery. Yesterday’s 6-mile-hike seemed to help and my daughters’ insistence that I drink two liters of water a day a simple remedy I’m willing to try. 

 

But it was Mary Oliver’s reminder in the poem below that helped lead me off the path of self-pity and remind me that the mere fact of the miracle of life is enough. A good manifesto for the year to come. 

 

                        I go down to the shore in the morning

                        and depending on the hour the waves

                        are rolling in or moving out       

                        and I say, oh, I am miserable

                        what shall—

                        what should I do? And the sea says

                        in its lovely voice:

                       Excuse me, I have work to do.