Zelda's Inferno exercise: I. write a poem that is a list of things (abstract or concrete)

the bees that died to bring you this honey
the slush seeping into my running shoes
the frost on the glass of a streetlight
the reason why I keep around pens that are out of ink
blue ink
the first use of the word "sitcom"
the third word I misspelled today
the process of measuring and recording thought
the women I've gone to bed with, and the intersection of that
     set with the set of women I've loved
the tarnish on my guitar's strings
a chocolate soda
the nerve impulse of an itch over my left 7th rib
a string of costume jewelry beads
the slowly building urge to urinate
a wistful sigh over a certain woman
worries about money and business
the anticipation of spring
the news out of Egypt
the stubble on my cheeks
reflections of reflections
things too vague to name or label
a face that looks familiar but, upon further consideration, is
     not the person I thought
the process of aging
an abundance of Mikes
a small soda belch
a chilly draft
my inability to fingerpick guitar
the nature of this poem
the shop in Osaka where I bought this hat
colored chalk
the bag of dry dog food sitting in my kitchen
the outdated temporary "No Parking" sign across the street
and the desire for some interesting thing with which to end this poem

part II: connect those lines! Drawn at random from those contributed by other participants: "Fear danced my soul backwards while my body remained" and "The path was darker now as I turned back once more, smiled and continued down the road"

fear danced my soul backwards while my body remained
and my mind stretched out between them like taffy
"turn back! turn back!" said the ethereal voices of
     doubt and confusion
but the grounded earth body maintained momentum
the immovable one remained at rest
the courage of the flesh
and slowly the mind pulled the soul back until all
     were unified again
the path was darker now as I turned back once more, smiled
     and continued down the road

Today -- and every January 30th from now on -- is officially recognized as "Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution" in California, the first time in U.S. history that an Asian-American has been so honored.

If you're asking, "Who's Fred Korematsu?" then take that as evidence of the way that this nation still has not dealt with one of its most shameful acts, the internment of 110,000 innocent people of Japanese ancestry during WWII. (As an aside, the Census Bureau provided the U.S. Secret Service with information to help with the round-up -- something to consider when deciding how much of your census form to complete.)

In 1942, 22-year-old welder Fred Korematsu refused to go gently along to a concentration camp, and was arrested. In 1944, in perhaps the most disgusting Supreme Court decision of the 20th century, his "disloyalty" conviction and confinement were upheld.

After fighting the power for over forty years, Korematsu finally won exoneration in 1983 when a federal judge overturned his conviction for resisting internment. In 1988 the U.S. government finally made an official apology to internees and made a (wholly inadequate) payment of $20,000 to each surviving victim.

In 1998, President Clinton bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Korematsu.

It's been clear for a while that Whole Foods Markets' dedication to organic standards is shallow and motivated entirely by profit rather than by any vision of ecological responsibility. Now comes news that Whole Foods, along with big organic companies Stonyfield Farms and Organic Valley, have come together to cut a deal with that form of Pure Concentrated Evil known to man as Monsanto.

Revelations about Big Organic's betrayal come on the heels of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's announcement that the USDA has approved the unrestricted planting of Monsanto's genetically modified "Roundup Ready" alfalfa. GM crops are in general a bad idea, but "Roundup Ready" crops are the absolute worst -- the idea is essentially to make it possible for farmers to apply Monsanto's toxic herbicide glyphosate indiscriminately, killing weeds and leaving the desired crop behind. But, rather like indiscriminate use of antibiotics, widespread application of glyphosate has already led to the evolution of resistant "superweeds". Australia currently ranks first in the world for weed herbicide-resistant weeds, but if trends continue the U.S. is due to overtake them. That's in addition to Roundup's demonstrated direct harm to human health.

According to Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association:

In a cleverly worded, but profoundly misleading email sent to its customers last week, Whole Foods Market, while proclaiming their support for organics and "seed purity," gave the green light to USDA bureaucrats to approve the "conditional deregulation" of Monsanto's genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant alfalfa. Beyond the regulatory euphemism of "conditional deregulation," this means that WFM and their colleagues are willing to go along with the massive planting of a chemical and energy-intensive GE perennial crop, alfalfa; guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers and destruction of the essential soil food web by the toxic herbicide, Roundup; and guaranteed to produce Roundup-resistant superweeds that will require even more deadly herbicides such as 2,4 D to be sprayed on millions of acres of alfalfa across the U.S.

...

According to informed sources, the CEOs of WFM and Stonyfield are personal friends of former Iowa governor, now USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack, and in fact made financial contributions to Vilsack's previous electoral campaigns. Vilsack was hailed as "Governor of the Year" in 2001 by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and traveled in a Monsanto corporate jet on the campaign trail. Perhaps even more fundamental to Organic Inc.'s abject surrender is the fact that the organic elite has become more and more isolated from the concerns and passions of organic consumers and locavores. The Organic Inc. CEOs are tired of activist pressure, boycotts, and petitions. Several of them have told me this to my face. They apparently believe that the battle against GMOs has been lost, and that it's time to reach for the consolation prize. The consolation prize they seek is a so-called "coexistence" between the biotech Behemoth and the organic community that will lull the public to sleep and greenwash the unpleasant fact that Monsanto's unlabeled and unregulated genetically engineered crops are now spreading their toxic genes on 1/3 of U.S. (and 1/10 of global) crop land.

WFM and most of the largest organic companies have deliberately separated themselves from anti-GMO efforts and cut off all funding to campaigns working to label or ban GMOs. The so-called Non-GMO Project, funded by Whole Foods and giant wholesaler United Natural Foods (UNFI) is basically a greenwashing effort (although the 100% organic companies involved in this project seem to be operating in good faith) to show that certified organic foods are basically free from GMOs (we already know this since GMOs are banned in organic production), while failing to focus on so-called "natural" foods, which constitute most of WFM and UNFI's sales and are routinely contaminated with GMOs.

Woody Guthrie used to have the words "This Machine Kills Fascists" on his guitar. I've often thought that that would be a fine sticker to put on Internet-connected computers. The free flow of information is anathema to authoritarians.

Need proof? Reports are coming in that Egypt has shut down all internet access, as protests continue against the U.S.-backed regime of Hosni Mubarak.

That, I think, is pretty much a sign that the cat is out of the bag, and that this regime's days are numbered. (The question, though, it whether what replaces it will be better...)

Most states have official designated state flowers, state birds, and so on. Sometimes the "official state whatever" designations can get odd; Massachusetts has the corn muffin as its official state muffin, the slinky is the official state toy of Pennsylvania, and North Carolina has designated clogging as that state's official folk dance.

Now Utah is may become the first state with an official state gun, the Browning M1911; the Utah House passed this designation yesterday. (The state's Senate still has to vote on the measure.)

There's no question that the M1911 is a classic design. Also known as the Colt 1911 or Colt .45 ACP (Colt being the leading manufacturer of Browning's design), it was the standard-issue side arm for the U.S. armed forces from 1911 to 1985, is still carried by some units, and remains a very popular civilian gun. And it heavily influenced later semi-automatic handgun designs. It probably is appropriate for the state to honor the Utah-born inventor, John Browning, behind the design; and indeed it seems they already have a "John M. Browning Day".

But, not surprisingly, coming only weeks after the Tucson shooting, the designation has kicked up controversy. State Representative Carol Moss noted during floor debate that the primary audience for official state designations is school kids. The designation of a state gun "seems insensitive at this time when people are mourning the death of six people in Tucson and the serious wounding of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords – a friend of mine," Moss said.

Opponents of the bill suggested that a statue of Browning might be a better way to honor him, but State Representative Carl Wimmer, the bill's sponsor, said that a state designation made more sense because it wouldn't cost any money.

If Utah doesn't pass an official state gun bill, Pennsylvania may become the first state to do so, with a bill to make the eighteenth-century Pennsylvania long rifle an official state symbol. Since the Pennsylvania long rifle was a muzzle-loading flintlock, unlikely to be encountered today, I suspect this would generate much less controversy.

I am a gun owner and a supporter of the right to keep and bear arms. But on the other hand, I fully agree with Lao Tzu: "Weapons are instruments of ill omen; they are not the instruments of the princely man, who uses them only when he needs must." In this imperfect world in which we dwell, weapons are tools that are sometimes necessary, but we ought to be very careful about celebrating or glorifying them.

I've been meaning for a while to do more blogging about martial arts training and my life as a karateka. And it seems to me that a good point of departure is the traditional New Year's celebration that many martial artists who train in systems originating in Japan have engaged in over the past few weeks: Kagami Biraki.

(Before continuing -- for those who know me from other contexts, here's my karate background in brief. I started training in Seido Karate in 1985. Pretty much slacked off it in college, but got serious about karate again in grad school, and started acting as a teaching assistant when Jun Shihan Kate Stewart started the Seido program at the Howard County YMCA in the early 90s. (That program actually started at the Catonsville YMCA, and there's a whole story about that which I won't get into now...) I made black belt in 1995, and started teaching at my own tiny program in Catonsville in 2002. I hold a yondan, fourth degree black belt, ranking -- where I've just about reached the level of my incompetence!)

Kagami Biraki literally means "opening the mirror" or "breaking the mirror". Like many aspects of Japanese culture connected with Shinto, its origins seem to be lost in time -- not surprising when you realize that some of the roots of Japanese culture go back over 10,000 years, while writing didn't come in until the sixth century, brought along with Buddhism from China. But the celebration may have some connection to the winter solstice myth of Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess who hid in a cave after her brother offended her, plunging the world into darkness until the other kami lured her out with her own reflection in a mirror. According to one story, in ancient times there was actually a practice of covering up mirrors for a time around the New Year, and Kagami Biraki was the time to "open up" or "break out" the mirror.

As it's practiced in Japanese homes today Kagami Biraki tops off the New Year's holiday season. There are special kagami mochi, "mirror pastries", that are placed on the family's shrine leading up to Kagami Biraki, and then are eaten on that day. Or at least, that's the way it was until recently. Modern Japanese families may get their kagami mochi encased in a thick vinyl coating, which keeps them from going moldy but also renders them unsuitable for cooking -- when I was in Japan over New Years in 2003, not quite knowing the deal, we tried cutting them out of the wrapper and toasting them up. Not recommended! The plastic-coated mochi is sort of like the plastic Christmas tree, combining symbolism with convenience.

(Mochi, by the way, is often translated as "rice cake", but they are not at all like the puffed rice cakes you might find in the health food aisle of your grocery story. They are made of pounded rice flour; my favorite variety of mochi, yomogi daifuku, is filled with sweet red bean paste and seasoned with mugwort. Kagami mochi are just plain rice flour, though.)

In modern martial arts dojos, Kagami Biraki is celebrated as a time of renewing one's training, generally without any religious significance. Each school tends to have their own traditions. In Seido Karate, Kagami Biraki celebrations involve a good workout, lots of sweat and lots of kiai. My own instructor, Jun Shihan Kate, is fond of starting us off with 1,000 punches -- I could definitely feel that the next morning.

According to martial arts researcher (and outstanding teacher and all around fascinating fellow) Shuseki Shihan Chris Caile, a special Kagami Biraki training is a budo tradition that, like so many others, goes back to the master of masters, Jigoro Kano. Kano was the founder of judo and the man to whom we owe much of the philosophy of modern budo as well as the belt system and dan and kyu ranks.

When we consider martial arts as a path to self-improvement, the metaphor of the mirror is a powerful one. In Zen, mirror symbolism goes back to at least the Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng, who earned his position in a sort of poetry contest on the topic of mirror as a metaphor for mind. (At least, according to the legend. Scholars debate whether Hui Neng ever even existed, much less whether he said and did the things attributed to him.)

According to the twentieth century Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn, "When the mind becomes clear, it is like a mirror: red comes and the mirror is red; yellow comes and the mirror is yellow; a mountain comes and the mirror is a mountain. Your mind is the mountain; the mountain is your mind. They are not two." The mirror accepts and reflects whatever is put before it, without discrimination.

You can see that martial arts training provides a strong incentive to develop this sort of mind. When an attack comes, my mind must accept and accurately reflect the reality of the situation. No good to have a mind attached to "I just know he's going to throw that left front kick!" as my opponent's right roundhouse kick makes its way to my head. Getting hit is a pretty simple form of conditioning, suitable even for slow learners like myself. Hopefully, we can then take that reflective, non-grasping mind out into the world, and use it for higher purposes than just not getting kicked in the head. (That's not to say that not getting kicked in the head is not a good thing. I'm all in favor of not getting kicked in the head.)

The mind-mirror reflects not only the outside world, but our own self. It's part of the human condition that we each carry around in our mind a self-image, and (excepting a handful of perfectly enlightened individuals, if you believe in that sort of thing) that image is distorted to some degree. Kagami Biraki, then, is an opportunity to "break" that old mirror, let go of that distorted image.

But if this all seems too esoteric, there's another meaning to Kagami Biraki that I think is very important. Kagami mochi are not the only flat, round, vaguely mirror-shaped objects that are involved in New Year's celebrations. There's also the lid of a sake cask!

According to the website of the Gekkeikan sake company (perhaps a biased source), "Kagami refers to the lid of the sake barrel and biraki means 'to open' so kagami-biraki literally means 'opening the lid.' Because of the lid's round shape, the kagami is a symbol of harmony. The kagami-biraki, therefore, represents an opening to harmony and good fortune."

We might therefore, roughly, equate "Kagami Biraki" with "tapping the keg". And as it happened, this year our Kagami Biraki celebration at the dojo fell on the same day that I had my birthday party, so I got to experience that meaning as well!

One of my favorite Zen stories is about Ryōkan, a Japanese hermit-monk-poet of the late 18th/early 19th century. Like every good story, there are many slightly different versions, and it grows in the telling -- you may have heard me tell this one around the fire at FSG, or allude to it in one of my poems. The tale goes something like this:

Ryōkan was a hermit monk who lived a simple life in a hut up in the hills. One day he went down to the village, probably to beg a little food and play with the kids. When he got back to his tiny little hut, he found a burglar going through his meager possessions.

Now, you or I would probably be pretty pissed at this point. I can see myself grabbing up a stick and giving the burglar what-for. But Ryōkan, he was a enlightened Zen guy. He knew that anyone who was trying to rob him -- a hermit in a hut, for crying out loud! -- had to be pretty desperate.

So Ryōkan said, "You've come all this way to see me, and I'm sorry that I don't have anything to offer you! I can't let you go away empty-handed. Please," he said, taking off his robe, "take this with you."

And as the befuddled thief walked away with the robe, Ryōkan stood naked in the night and looked up at the sky. "Poor fellow!" he said. "I wish I could give him that beautiful moon."

Now that's a pretty good story, but, we might ask, is being compassionate to thieves really practical, in this day and age?

Julio Diaz thought so. I don't know if Mr. Diaz had ever heard of Ryōkan; but one night in the Brox, when a teenage mugger with a knife demanded his wallet, Mr. Diaz not only handed it over, but gave him the coat off his back as well. And then invited him to dinner.

They went to a diner. They talked. The kid gave Mr. Diaz his wallet back, and also gave up the knife. Mr. Diaz gave the kid $20. From there -- well, who knows? Like Ryōkan's thief, the kid headed off into the night, probably scratching his head in wonder and confusion.

You can hear Mr. Diaz tell the story at storycorp.org

(Thank you, Nidaime Akira Nakamura, for posting Mr. Diaz's story -- I'd seen it a while back but lost the link.)