March 27, 2016, Marana-  He has only been among us, here in Arizona, for about ten days, along with his two brothers and two sisters.  None of the kids speaks English, and they only know a smattering of French. Swahili is their mainstay.  Shante (SHAN-tay), age 3, and his siblings, have come to us from DR Congo, by way of Tanzania. The children, and their caretakers, joined thirty-four others of us, at a Unity in Diversity musical festival, on this bright, but thankfully breezy and cool, Easter Sunday.

Despite all his family’s travails, Shante walks with a swagger, and a purpose.  His take on life is strictly one day- or one moment- at a time.  That is the joy of being three, nothing has assumed an air of permanence in life, as yet.  He looks up at the tall, well-built drummers, themselves having come here from the Republic of Congo-Brazzaville, speaking just enough Swahili to make the kids feel welcome.  They show Shante their drums, and lift him up, so that he may tap on the skin and feel his own rhythm start to stir.

After a few minutes of this, and a ping-ping, on the keyboard of a Cuban musician, fresh from the city of Holguin (visited by Pope Francis I, last Fall), Shante comes back down, off stage, and lingers by my seat for a bit, then goes along his way, back to be with his sisters.

They take part in a second-round hunt for plastic eggs, filled with jelly beans.  The girls manage to find all remaining eggs, within two minutes of search.  Shante gets his share of the take- four plastic, jelly-bean filled delights.  He eats one jelly bean, and that’s enough.  For a child who has seen, and tasted, little of sweetness, a little bit goes forever.

Shante has his dream- as yet locked behind the door of linguistic disparity, and development.  A three-year-old’s Swahili is, after all, no more proficient than would be his contemporaries’ Norwegian, Spanish, or Kwa Zulu, in other parts of this hard, but exquisite home of ours.  His eyes, though, are scintillating.  This boy is sharp, and will make his way in the world, regardless of circumstances.  He shows interest in the music, whether African, Caribbean or Bluegrass, and dances to whatever tune is being offered.  He examines a blind man’s Australian bush hat, carefully fingering its strap and felt covering, as the patient man abides the probing. He works the crowd, and sizes each of us up, by looking us in the eye, for a minute or two, before moving on to the next person of interest.  He offers a brief opinion of what he has seen and heard, to his oldest brother, who nods in assent and holds Shante close, for a few minutes.

I keep saying this:  We, the elders, are in good hands with the rising generations.

The Light spoke:  “I came unto you, and offered Myself unto a crucifix,

upon the Plains of Ganges,

and you slumbered.

Later, I showed you Light and Darkness,

and you made them into caricatures.

I then showed you the Eight-Fold Path,

and you found it too complex.

When I came to you, as a Carpenter, a Fisher of Men,

you asked for Barabbas, and worshiped Mithras.

So, I again let Myself be crucified, that you might be saved.

You responded by quarreling, as to which of you heard Me correctly.

I came to you, in a time of darkness, and showed you the ways to

nationhood, and the gathering of knowledge.

You were  most interested in the battle techniques of My generals.

Still, each time I came, there were those who heard the truth.

Their genetic memory was strong enough, that I came yet again,

and through a life of great heartache and sacrifice, I have brought

you the way to unity, a path towards reaching the Day that shall not

be followed by Night.

As you commemorate My prior sacrifice, will you listen to Me now?”

(This is offered as testament to the Truth, which sacrificed Its

Messenger, on this day, some 1,983  years ago.  It has never left us

alone.)

March 24, 2016, Prescott- I watched an episode of a network television show, on my laptop, this evening.  It dealt with the abuse of teenaged girls by a sex-trafficking ring.  The piece was outlandish, on the surface, having, as its antagonists, two powerful members of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy in New York. The piece was fictitious, yet showed how diligent police work, and an appeal to the humanity of a low-level operative in the ring, gave up the culprits.

It was no surprise, though, that during the early stages of the investigation, the ringleaders turned to obfuscation, to role reversal, and smoke-screening, in their attempts to get out from under the encroaching detectives. This is a common modus operandi  of wrongdoers with means.

This stays in my mind, because yesterday I read an article in the Global Post, an online news magazine I have trusted for several years.  The article takes issue with widespread concern over sex trafficking, specifically in the country of Cambodia. The author quotes an “expert”, who has “lived with the sex workers” in that country, as saying that a Cambodian woman who enlisted the aid of U.S. journalist Nicholas Kristoff, in shining a light on the problem of sex trafficking in her country, was exaggerating, had falsified and embellished her reports, and that making human trafficking a cause celebre was, in the case of Cambodia at least, a misrepresentation of the facts.

This is what the powerful do, when their activities, and the income they derive from those, are threatened:  Obfuscate, discredit and go back to business as usual. Maybe there are plenty of women who choose a life of compensated sexual promiscuity, whether out of economic despair or the sense that this is the only way that they will ever know physical intimacy with a man.  They, however despondent their lot, are not the primary focus of those who have taken up the cause of bringing an end to human trafficking.

The shameful attempt by Global Post to becloud this whole matter will never stop those of us who are committed to ending the imprisonment and torture, to which  thousands of women and children are subjected, world-wide, day by excruciating day.  I urge each person reading this to stand up to those beguiled by their own perceived power and authority, and work to free those, in every nation on Earth, who are held in virtual slavery.

Bruxelles, mon amour,

I hear your screams

As the hosts of tyranny

Hose your streets with blood.

You welcomed me warmly,

Giving a festival of peace,

French, Flemish, Algerian,

Standing side by side,

As the games of comradeship and hope,

Played out, in front of my eyes.

Paris, mon amour,

I recall your sons and daughters,

Taking time out of their frenetic days,

To help an oft bewildered Americain

Find my way across your arrondissements,

With nary a hint of hauteur, in their demeanours.

Rouen, ma cherie,

I think of all you endured,

As the scene of travesty,

When the Light of All France

Was immolated,

Just a stone’s throw from where

My paternal ancestors were first blessed.

Damascus, my friend,

I have not had the honour of your presence.

Yet, I hear and feel your anguish,

And, yes, I know these horrors are

Not what you wish,

For yourself, nor for the cities

Which weep alongside you.

All my friends and beloved ones,

Know the horrors and cruelty,

Will pass, must pass.

Soon comes the day,

Which will not be followed

By night.

March 21, 2016, Prescott-

As I mentioned yesterday, this table is an integral part of the Naw-Ruz, or "New Day" festival.  It is common to Iranians of Zoroastrian background, Kurds, Parsees and Baha'is, the world over.  It has been adopted by Shia Muslims in Iran, and by the people of Afghanistan, as well.

Thanks to http://altreligion.about.com/od/ritualsandpractices/a/haftsin.htm, I was able to learn further about the elements of the table.

Clockwise, from lower left, are:

Sib (apples)- symbolizing beauty and health;

Senjed(floral water)- symbolizing love; (Sometimes, these are oleaster fruit.  This table used rose water.)

Solbol (hyacinth)-symbolizng Spring;

Sabza (sprouts)-symbolizing renewal;

Sekka (newly minted coins)-symbolizing wealth;

Somaq (sumac berries)-symbolizing renewal;

Sir (Garlic)-symbolizing medicine;

Candles, symbolizing light, mirrors, symbolizing honesty and coloured eggs, symbolizing rebirth, are also included at the table.  Note that the egg is placed with the apples.  Sepand (wild rue) is also in the front of the arrangement, for use as incense.  We did not burn that, as an oxygen tank was in use by one of the participants. (Yes, the candle image was artificial.)

This is one of the nicest Naw-Ruz tables I have seen, in several years.  It's always gratifying when we dig deeper into the fine traditions of what we are observing.

March 20, 2016, Prescott- I had the good fortune, this weekend, of being in two amazing places, locally.  The first was Chapel Rock Conference Center, of which more in a coming post.

Today being Naw-Ruz, the first day of the Baha’i  calendar, as well as an ancient Persian cultural festival (which used to last twelve days, I’m told, in the time of Zoroastrianism), I focus now on our community’s local celebration.

It was held, on this glorious afternoon, at the self-built home of two amazingly inventive and eclectic people, who I have been honoured to call friends, for over twenty years.  Each time I visit here, there are new items either added to the house, inside or out, or in the works, in one studio or another.

When we sat for the devotional part of our celebration, the hostess was asked whether recorded music would be part of the program.  She said “No”, and at that moment, the house itself began its music- in the form of three sets of wind chimes taking turns.

The chimes were not overly clangy, which would have not set a good mood, but gently interspersed our readings.  Afterwards, we had a light meal, which sufficed this one’s appetite for the rest of the day.  Some days are just meant for one meal, supported by snacks.

Here are some scenes of this lovely home, atop a bucolic hill.

Yard art, Prescott

The Seven “S’es” of Naw-Ruz

(See my next post, for a detailed description of this elegant holiday arrangement.)

Here are a couple of the reasons my friends were drawn here, in the first place.  Note the embedded iron ring, atop the crag.

So, another fine year has begun  for us Baha’is.  I wish all my friends north of the Equator a lovely Spring, and all to the south, a bountiful Fall.

March 19, 2016, Prescott-  I see  on the news that a large crowd amassed, in front of a Trump rally, in an attempt to make the would-be participants turn back.  This was a bit like asking  a leopard to shed his spots, rather than merely change them.

The whole incident shows what happens when one group of like-minded people become so fearful- of another fearful group- that all reason goes by the boards.  Isn’t this how wars get going, full-on?  The fact is, as I mentioned on a conservative friend’s page, elsewhere:  There is a First Amendment, that allows people to gather, and give voice to their opinions, no matter how odious those might seem to others.

The key is to let them rant, while holding one and all to a civil code that draws the line at violence.  Not letting people speak, because one is afraid of what they might say, is pretty much a guarantee that they will say it more often, and louder.  I think the man who slugged another man, at a rally in N.C., was crossing the line.  Yet, so too, was the mob that blocked traffic in a town west of Phoenix, this afternoon.

I have friends who support a variety of candidates for President.  Each has the right to their opinion, and I, to mine, which I am keeping to myself.  I would not deign to presume that a given person should vote differently than the way they feel.  All I know is, giving in to one’s darkest fears is no way to solve a problem-ever.

March 17, 2016, Prescott- 

Paddy, my brother,

what did you find,

while walking the fair isle’s countryside?

Brigid, dear sister,

it gleamed up at me,

a golden shamrock,

which I’ve brought home to thee.

Paddy, o brother,

I fear that you’ve erred.

The golden stone surely

was meant to be interred.

Brigid, dear sister,

do you mean to say

the sprite named Liam

shall spirit it away?

Aye,

I sense his presence,

on the roof.

Liam! Stop,

let us have the shamrock.

Sorry, kiddos-

POOF!

March 16, 2016, Prescott- I’ve had an affection for things Celtic, since long before things Celtic became trendy.  My half-English mother forbade the playing of Irish music in the house, but she’s come around to at least allow its play, on the music channels of her cable service.

My own affection for such is part of a lifelong connection with those who are close to the soil.  So, I feel bonds with the indigenous- not only my Penobscot ancestors on my paternal grandmother’s line, but all Native Americans, Inuits, Siberians, Hawaiians, Australian aboriginals and those whom I called, in my childhood ignorance, “the natives” (tribal Africans).

I associate Celts, ancient Teutons, Slavs and the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppe with the land, also.  It seems they ravaged one another, in wave after wave, and usually just as the one group was settling into sedentary life, there came the next horde.

That’s been the way of humanity, since we headed up, out of Africa, and wherever else we may have mastered the art of upright mobility, and spread across the continents.  We have so often looked to the other’s yard, for prosperity- or at least for a change of scene. Indigenous people had these conflicts, too, though when the Europeans came to these shores, with visions of commerce and gain, the American peoples were in the process of establishing a peaceful network of trade routes, from southeast Alaska and the taiga of Canada, to Tierra del Fuego, and so many points in between.  It is highly likely that there was trading between the Aleuts and the people of Japan; between the Greenland Inuit and the peoples of Scotland and Norway (even before Iceland was settled); and, possibly, between the seafaring people of what is now northeast Brazil and the kingdoms of western Africa.   Then, too, nobody could hold a candle to the masters of the ocean:  Those who went east, from the Malay Peninsula, and became the Micronesians and Polynesians, or west, and became the Malagasy.

We face, possibly in my lifetime, if not in my son’s, a decision about the proper use of the resources on our planet’s Moon, then those of at least the near planets of our solar system.  Green- the colour of many of our wardrobes, tomorrow, will continue to have different connotations to different people.  Mean green, or gentle green?  Commerce, at any cost, or careful stewardship?  It seems this has gone on, since Croesus minted his first coins, or even since the nations that pre-dated the Great Flood, if one believes in such things.

Where are you, in this debate?  (My Xangan friends, in particular, please know that I don’t take umbrage at contrary opinions, even if I get a little spirited once in a while.)  Express yourselves, and Erin Go Bragh!

March 13, 2016, Prescott- “It is not yours to keep, this ever-changing trail”- Laura and the Killed Men, “The Ever-Changing Trail” (All rights reserved, Laura Kepner- Adney and Sam Golden, 2015).

http://www.lauraandthekilledmen.com/

I sat, joyfully, in one of my favourite evening live music venues, The Raven Cafe, and listened to this Tucson country-folk band’s first set.  The line above is from their a capella set closer.

They excel with instruments, also.

Include the video, as it happened that the evening was a fine counterpoint to two hikes I took this weekend, on Prescott Circle Trail.  Yesterday afternoon, the spontaneity of which I wrote, a few posts ago, kicked in.  I accepted the urge to do a “fill-in-the blank” hike, to the top of Badger Peak, which is circumnavigated by Section 7 of the Circle.  The peak is also called “P” Mountain, owing to the large white first letter of my adopted town’s name.

Here are some scenes.  The first two were taken from the access road, to which I transferred from Prescott Circle, at the half-way mark to the summit.

The third photo shows a communications station, atop the peak.  The white circular arrangement is the top of the P.  There is no access to the arrangement, in its entirety, without permission of the Yavapai Nation, which owns the mountain.  The final photo shows Watson Lake and the Granite Dells, from the summit.  This hike was four miles, round trip.

This afternoon, a friend, who had wanted my help with a remodeling project, postponed it until next week.  This gave rise to spontaneous hike # 2:  Segment 5 of the Circle.  It is a ten-mile round trip, something I’ve not done during the Fast.until today.  I was inspired in this by another friend, who is both older and physically smaller than I am, and who hikes and runs during this time period.  So, out of my comfort zone I went- with enough water on which to fall back, in the event I felt weak.  As it happened, that was not a problem, as the air was cool this afternoon, and the Sun was hidden by clouds, most of the time.

This segment goes from a point south of Upper Goldwater Lake, around the south and west shores of that body of water, above the west shore of Lower Goldwater Lake, which is closed to the public and through Prescott National Forest, to White Spar Campground. This hike was ten miles, round trip.  Sitting here tonight, I feel refreshed and focused.

Here are some scenes of Segment 5.

Note the “Tree-Pod”, on the right.

Gray granite boulders, south of Goldwater Lake

South shore, Upper Goldwater Lake

On the left are a pair of daisies, seen along the way, above Lower Goldwater Lake.  The heart-shaped stone memorial, on the right, is dedicated to the 19 firefighters who died at Yarnell Hill, in June, 2013.  It is atop a ridge, 1 1/4 miles southeast of White Spar campground.

The Sierra Prieta range can be seen from Monument Ridge.  On the right, is the trailhead at White Spar Campground.  I spent only ten minutes, resting, at this very full facility.  There were 2 hours’ back journey left.

On the way back, I stopped for several minutes at this lovely nook, Banning Creek.

There had been a fair crowd here, when I was headed towards White Spar.  When I returned, only one lone bicyclist and I had the place to ourselves- and he was about to leave.  I saw very few other people, the rest of the way, until I got back to Upper Goldwater.

Now, with the next two weekends booked, I will wait until April to take on the next segments of Prescott Circle- unless things get canceled and spontaneity calls.