Interlude

from Jim's writings 20 or so years ago

We are still working on the next chapter of our Memoir, having sent out everything we had previously written. And life has caught us up in myriad activities, including dealing with a bumper crop of fruit this year: peaches, pears, apples, and grapes.

One of my projects has been sifting through my journals and various poems and compositions to sort them out, decide what’s worth keeping and what isn’t, then editing and organizing the keepers to form the basis of a master document. In that process I came upon this piece written about 20 years ago, and realized it still seemed relevant, perhaps even more so today than it was at the time. So we’ll share it with you in lieu of our next chapter, which we hope will be manifesting in the next couple of months.

Steak and Eggs at the Hungry Moose

Snow begins to fall in Mount Shasta City as I wander into the Hungry Moose Café, drape my winter coat over the back of a chair at one of the few empty tables, and prepare to have a solo breakfast. Molly is in Sweden leading a workshop on psychosynthesis.

To compensate for my solitude, I search the menu for a dish that would be unlikely in any breakfast that Molly might prepare. Making my decision, I motion to the waitress, and place my order: “Steak and eggs.” I say, “steak medium, eggs over easy.” The waitress nods and smiles as she tops off my coffee cup, as though she recognizes the novelty of my selection, and briskly carries my order toward the kitchen.

The words I have just uttered to order breakfast plug me in, immediately, to a field created by the million repetitions, across this sprawling excessive continent, of those very words.

Surprised, I sense the shape and scope of a tangible entity forming around me—the American psyche, holding me in its jovial grip. I shudder with momentary recognition tinged with unwelcome contentment (as I might shudder walking into a family reunion attended by people I thought I was done with, yet here they are pulling from me a flash of affection). That strobe-like flash fades, though, leaving disturbing after-images: Hungry Ghosts show through the warm façades, trapped in a trance, obsessed by tense and endless acquisition.

In their state of agitated half–sleep these ghosts, these sunken cousins (so easy to manipulate!) permit and participate in grotesque erosions of noble, hard–won, value-adding human achievement (consensual governance, compassion, clear thinking, preservation of the commons, fearless, loving, creative expression, you name it). Hard not to back away in dismay and disappointment from the multitudes, holed up in the collective reptilian brain, rattling their primitive convictions, like swords to ward off the evil du jour concocted by the more cunning among them–-and worse, ratifying and wielding real swords . . . the kind that cut to pieces at long distance.

Sonofabitch! How did it get this bad? Rage, rage against the dying . . . but look: here and there some are stirring from their sleep, feeling anguish, yes, but seeing awake and wanting to see. Rage; but breathe and join hands with cousins who are waking up enough to sense the hand held out in friendship–-a connection, not a threat. Breathe, and reach across. Focus the rage together, and look directly at the ones still numb and thrashing in their sleep. Sustain that gaze; breathing, let it soften if it will. Even hungry ghosts may not be able to remain asleep when such a lamp is shone.

These thoughts have rolled through me unbidden while I chewed. Finished now, I pick up my copy of the City Lights Review, rise, and head toward the cashier’s counter, then remember my coat draped on the back of the chair. Turning back to get it, I meet the gaze of a gent about my age seated at the next table, who nods at the snow swirling outside. "Wouldn't have gone far out there without missing it", he says.

In his eyes I see wakefulness stirring.