On The Train

Deep experience is never peaceful.

Henry James
********************
Hello Bruce
********************
Watchman, tell us of the night.
---------------------------
Weeping may endure for a night
But joy cometh in the morning.

The difficulty with this poem by Mrs. M. M. Weinland is that it doesn't tell how long the night may be. This has been a period of darkness for me, particularly the last 6 months. I look forward to finding that green and grassy meadow where I can rest in the sunshine and drink from the brook of joy. I refuse to accept the idea suggested by Sophocles that one reaches a point in life where joy is no longer a possibility.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I like trains. I prefer to travel by rail than by any other means. Although I am an excellent driver, rarely had an accident and never a serious one, the highway means other drivers and their irrational ways. And, although air travel is very fast by comparison, a train will never leave you sitting on a runway for 8 hours unable to get off or take off. And, if there's trouble, it won't land on some super highway, in a farmer's corn field or turn back to the wrong airport. And it won't lose your luggage. On a train your back pack is under your feet or in the rack above you.

In News York City, as with many cities, the best way to travel is by rail. The subway, as its name implies, is mostly underground, which means frequent long dark tunnels. But unlike any other form of transportation one can be sure that the train will reach its next destination. It has no choice, the rails ensure that.

When traveling through the tunnel you are unaware of how long it is. If you are lucky enough to be in the first car and can stand looking out the front window you are staring into the long dark tunnel until you finally see faint lights of the next station in the distance that gradually grow brighter and fill all the space. I am looking forward to seeing those lights.

I can also travel to New York City by rail on New Jersey Transit or Amtrak. When approaching the city the train goes underground to traverse the Hudson River thus making for another long dark tunnel. One day while sitting on that train a woman got on with a young girl. The girl spent the entire time staring out the window at the towns, stations, fields and wet lands as we passed them. She didn't say a word until we got to the tunnel under the river, Then after a while she said "When are we gonna come outta this creepy tunnel?"

What wisdom!! I keep asking myself the same question. When am I going to stop rumbling and shaking through my creepy tunnel? When am I going to see the lights up ahead telling me that I am approaching my destination? When am I going to reach the green, grassy meadow and sip the waters of the joy that cometh in the morning?

Joy. I hear it in the music of Bach, in the words of Shakespeare, in the calling of the few birds that live around here. I believe that joy, happiness, goodness exist, they are all already there waiting for us to get through the creepy tunnels of our lives. How long are the tunnels? No man knoweth.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***********************

The Laugher

Even if there is nothing to laugh about, laugh on credit.

Unknown
***********
Hello Ernie
***********
In my novel "Brian and Christine" the Navajo chief's wife is named Laughing Woman. Someone asks the chief if she laughs and he answers, "Well, she smiles a lot." She is a character who faces life with not only a positive attitude but an ability to see the funny side of things. Her laugh is always just below the surface.

As I was preparing to write this article I thought about some people I know and have known who can throw back their heads and enjoy a good laugh when something strikes them funny. Stuart in New York, AZ in Maine and Della wherever she is, came to mind right away.

I knew a college girl named Joy. I've written about her before. She was the most appropriately named Joy I ever knew. One could tell by the look in her eye that she was enjoying life and that a good laugh was a definite probability at any moment. She was a theatre major and even when she played serious scenes she displayed a light source.

There are good laughs and bad laughs. To laugh at life's absurdities isn't bad. To laugh at yourself is good. To laugh at other people, and particularly their mistakes, is not so good. To laugh because you have no other reason than that you feel like laughing is probably the best.

I don't laugh much these day, but then I was never a big laugher. I enjoyed other people's humor and used to tell a lot of jokes just to see them laugh. These days I'm looking forward to laughter, to humor, to joy.

The last time I remember having a good laugh was in the first reading of "Best Friends" a play I did over 10 years ago. It was a comedy, of course, and we in the cast had the first laughs as we began to prepare it and then to play it well enough so the audience could laugh, which they did.

I don't hear anyone laugh around where I live now. An occasional wicked giggle is about the best this neighborhood can come up with. I'm looking for a good laugh and a good laugher. If you know of anyone, please send them here.

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
******************

The Big Search

This is the 1,737th edition of Vagabond Journeys. You might think I'm making that up, but I'm not.
---------------------------------------

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

Blaise Pascal
***************
Hello Jon
***************
I don't read philosophy to discover truth. I read it to discover the ideas of some great thinkers who are also looking for it. I don't know what Pascal finds so restful about it. My search generally puts me in a mental turmoil. The universe of ideas is full of unanswered questions and some of them are vital.

The is the "Merry Month of May" and I am very sad today, not just because it's gray and gloomy, but also because, as one recent commenter wrote: someone stole something from me more valuable than money, and also because there are too many unanswered questions.

Normally facing the ironies and ambiguities of life gives me a chuckle. I haven't chuckled or had a good laugh in many days, make that months. I look forward to some joy in my life. Sophocles writes that there will come a time when we will never know joy again. I summarily reject that idea with a swift and sturdy kick in the ass. I believe we need to eliminate those things that rob us of our joy, and if it has to be done with a scalpel, a bull dozer or a moving van so be it.

The search for truth should be a vigorous activity. It involves, observation, study, investigation and reason, both inductive and deductive, and it's not for the squeamish.

I've heard it said that if you could understand a great work of art, a Michelangelo statue or a Dostoyevski novel, so thoroughly that you knew it better than the artist did, the experience would lead you to truth, because you would be getting in touch with the universal spirit of inspiration.

Another way is to assume there is a total, universal truth and then start looking for ways in which it expresses itself.

Neither of those ways sound restful to me. But maybe there's a third way Pascal knows about, which can be done sitting in a recliner, on the front porch, at the beach. I must read on.

As for that something someone stole from me that's more valuable than money? Money can be replaced, and so can that something. Joy is another thing that deserves a sincere search. I believe it.

Remember, there is nothing that can stop, block, obstruct, delay, deflate or divert the blessing that is yours today.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
*************************

The Fire Bird

There is a phoenix inside of you. Know what to do when the flame erupts.

Dana Bate
****************
Hello Ken
****************
The phoenix is a fabled bird with brightly colored feathers. Legend has it that the phoenix lives for a long time but then one day it builds a nest. Sitting in the nest it catches fire and nest and bird are both destroyed in the fire and reduced to ashes. But out of the ashes comes an egg. The egg is hatched and the phoenix emerges to live again.

There are times in life when things don't feel right. Our mood is dark and gloomy, perhaps we are having twinges of fear and don't know why. We are disturbed and confused.

Then we try to do things to compensate and erase the gloom. We may listen to some of our favorite music or go for a walk, do some shopping, or pick up a book or magazine and try to read ourselves out of our morose mood. But those things don't help.

Some people will go off to the doctor and get a prescription for pep pills of some kind, some mood altering substance, or some will drink liquor or take illegal drugs, or some similar extreme and excessive behavior all in the attempt to ignore the signs from within ourselves that something important is taking place.

THE NEST Transitions are never easy. They usually begin with an unsettling dissatisfaction with things and at first it is hard to determine what we are dissatisfied with. We may not know until a crises occurs if we keep pushing our uncomfortable feelings out of the way. But the omens are insistent enough that we finally have to pay attention to them.

THE FIRE "Put off the old man...put on the new." When it becomes clear what the transition is that is taking place we discover changes in our lives. Old things about ourselves that we are reluctant to discard suddenly become useless and are cast off and thrown into the fire. It's difficult. Memories will remind us of the fine, former feathers we used to display. Forget them.

THE EGG Then the period of adjustment comes. We have to get used to ourselves in a new light of understanding. We may feel a sense of loss. Uncomfortable memories wail come to remind usof who we used to be and will make us want to recapture some of that life.

THE BIRTH There is a definite gestation going on now and the new person is about to emerge with a fine new set of feathers and a new life. Most of the old life is still with us but now we have a different point of view about things that are important to it. When the new birth is accomplished flap your wings in joy. The gloomy days are over.

Check you Hands of the Vagabond http://vagabondhand.blogspot.com/

Dana Bate - The Vagabond
Never Give Up

In The Morning

Live your life as though there is great joy to be experienced.

Meladee McCarty
**********************
Hello Linda
**********************
In the Sophocles play "Oedipus the King" Jocasta, Oedipus' wife and mother has a speech in which she states that she has come to that point in life where there can be no more joy, implying that it is a point we will all inevitably reach. The first time I heard that speech I had a strong negative reaction to it. A hopelessly joyless life may be what she looks forward to considering the tragedy that has unfolded before her. But that certainly doesn't need to mean the permanent loss of joy for all of us.

There is no joy in my life currently. It was taken from me in early February by an unfortunate set of discoveries and realizations just as Jocasta faced in her life. Though hers were much more tragic than mine the resultant disappearance of joy was the same. To find out as Jocasta did and as I did that we were living in a lie, living with a lie, for years and not knowing it is an agony of unspeakable depth.

Since that time I have been repositioning myself, mentally, emotionally and physically to rediscover the joy I had. Though I can sympathize with her I don't have the same attitude Jocasta had. I believe the joy is in me and I will experience it again.

There are many things that can deprive someone of their joy. Fear and pain are two big ones. In fact those two horros are major villains in everyone's life. And they must be fought against with vigor and persistence every day. The joy of standing on the summit of the mountain can only be attained by the dangerous struggle to climb it.

I go back to the metaphor of the radio that only plays two stations. One is blaring all the fearful thoughts that trouble me and cause me pain, and the other has the soothing voice of reason, harmony and truth. But the ornery dial keeps switching back to the negative station and if I'm not careful I find myself listening to it. One station speaks of loss, loss of joy, loss of everything, the fear of never again having the life you had. The other station speaks of life, future, freedom. joy. And that's the doctrine I accept.

The struggle against fear and loss is harder than I thought it would be but I've won enough battles to know I will win the fight, and that will be a joyous day.

Dana Bate - Vagabond
Never give up.
***********************

Joy

Where is the joy?

Joy is a deep and concentrating quality which can turn every errant dirty spot into humor and unimportance. It is also the result of right actions and good trails of thought. Many excellent things have happened to me since I left the nasty world of the sub humans. The devious, degenerate, dishonest, betrayers of friendship. But I still don't have my joy back.

I am successfully struggling back to health after the month of attacks of evil and I patiently await the return of joy.

I think it's time to write a blog entry about evil, something I unfortunately know something about. And what I write may surprise the evil doers.

DB - Vagabond
Never give up.

Joy, The Girl

Wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,
But presently prevent the ways to wail.

Shakespeare
********************
Hello Diane
*********************
Let's all sing of woes and sorrows, of rues and regrets, of illnesses and troubles, of heartbreaks and mistakes, of wrongs and errors, of sins and sufferings, of depression and despair, of ugliness and crime, of anger and abuse, of age and weakness, of ignorance and want, of cruelty and condemnation, of lass and lack, of fear and failure, of broken dreams.

The joy that you find here, you borrow -
You cannot keep it long it seems -
But Gigolo and Gigolette -
Still sing a song and dance along -
The boulevard of broken dreams.
***************************************
On the other had, let's not.
-----------------------------------
Life seems to be a festival of things that go wrong. The easiest thing to do is to make a mistake. One can sit around and "wail their woes" or not. A vital precept which no one thinks of until they have logged in a sufficient amount of weailing is that if you make room in your heart and mind for sorrow, sorrow will come and fill it up.

Some positive thinkers, so called, are merely doing battle with the grime and garbage that already rent rooms in their heads. The true thinker, the wise man, entertains no negative guests.

One of the happiest people I ever knew was a girl named Joy, and she was very appropriately named. She went through her days with a smile on her face or an expression that looked like it was going to break into a smile at any instant. She was certainly aware of all the wrongs and troubles in the world but she simply didn't include them on her mental menu. She expected good things to happen to her and to those around her and they generally did. Joy was unselfish. She respected other people and when she had to deal with some ignorant rat she did it with grace and ease.

One day I had lunch with her father and I could see where Joy's qualities came from. There was a man who was intelligent, friendly, solidly self assured, with the full knowledge of his positive place in the world.

Joy and her father were an inspiration. It was a lesson I took with me but didn't apply until years later. Now I'm passing it on. Keep the mind clean of the distractions of doubt and discouragement, treat people with respect as far as they can be trusted and step around the boulders in the way.

DB - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
*******************

Play The Job

You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play.

Warren Beatty
********************
Hello Beth
*********************
There once was a young man in the neighborhood who at the age of 14 discovered he had an amazing talent for dealing with animals. He was too young to be a vet or to go to veterinary school but he would go after high school to help out at the local veterinary and animal shelter.

All the creatures there took to him immediately. Those who could would come running up to him and he could pick them up and carry them around, even the nasty ones like the goose. One of the local papers did a story on him, with pictures of him and certain happy beasts.

I'm sure he has gone to school. got his degree and is practicing somewhere because he clearly loved all those critters.

Acting can frequently be very hard work (in spite of what some people think) and yet we refer to it as playing. We put on a play. We play. Even the objects on the stage are playing. "Where does the telephone play?" "On that table over there."

A friend came to see me perform Big Daddy in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" by Tennessee Williams. Afterwards he said "I don't know how much they're paying you, but it's too much, because you're having too much fun."

Imagine being paid for having fun. Imagine being paid for doing what you love to do. There are tricks to turning any job into play to one degree or another. But the real secret is to find what you love to do and do it all the time. It's a lot easier to sell if you are having fun.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to look for the joy of your life and capture it.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***********************

The Gathering

Well it's Autumn is it? It's been a hell of a Summer. Too much bad weather worldwide. Too much bad politics worldwide. Too much bad religion worldwide. Too many kidnappings, too many deaths, too many killings, too many guns in the hands of too many crackpots.

Oh, come gentleness, compassion and peace. Come to us, a bruised and terrified world and teach us to be good to each other. Let the winds of Autumn bring gratitude and respect.

Why do our public figures verbally assassinate each other with smiles on their faces? Why are there more bullies in the playground than ever before? Why are there more poor people struggling against regressive measures than ever before? Why are some churches preaching exclusivity and why are there those who practice brutality and cruelty against the innocent? Why are some communities being destroyed by tornadoes, industry and gangs? Why are passionate men and women destroying themselves in order to destroy other people? Why is hatred just and love a joke? What has sown insanity into the hearts and minds of the people? Why is self-righteous ignorance the ethic of the times?

Oh, please come Autumn winds, with the spirit of gratitude, compassion, reason, joy and true moral strength.
*************************************
Autumn is the only season with two names. I don't know why it is called The Fall. I prefer to call it The Gathering. It is harvest time in the northern hemisphere, the bringing in of crops, the going back to school, the growing up, the preparing for Winter.

I have memories of New England farmers who all seem to harvest at the same time and inches before the big freeze comes. I have memories of people happily preparing for Chanukah celebrations in New York City. I have memories of Thanksgivings where people I haven't seen for a while and some strangers gather to celebrate that life is still going on in spite of everything. I have memories of the local Halloween where parents are not loath to bring their kids into the tobacco and lottery shop because Karen, the proprietor, dresses up in a costume and prepares bundles of good things for them. I have memories of hiking in the White Mountains among the glorious scenes while down below on the highway buses pass with seniors from some place else admiring the magnificent colors. I have memories of the evergreens stacked up against the wall of the hardware store hoping to be bought to become brightly decorated Christmas trees.

The gathering of crops, the gathering of families, the gathering of life lessons and the gathering of hope. Oh, come Autumn and bring no more tears except tears ofjoy.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***********************************

The Joy Of Music, The Music Of Joy

The only obstacle to realeasing joy is the unwillingness to express love for someone or something.

Arnold Patent
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I was doing a play in central Massachusetts one summer. A friend in New Hampshire, David, who had heard me on the radio but had never seen me perform on the stage drove down to see it. After the performance we went out for a beer with a few of the cast. David jokingly said "I don't know how much they're paying you but it's too much because you're having too much fun."

One of the silliest things some directors will say, at the end of the rehearsal period when there's nothing left but to perform it, is "Have fun with it." Of course, unless it's a stupid play, in which case it probably wouldn't be done, or unless the director has messed it up, we are going to have fun with it. We enjoy the work. If we didn't we wouldn't do it because it's very difficult, if it's done right.

Over the years I have tried to share my love of music and my joy in hearing it. I don't understand why people who can enjoy popular music run and hide when a concert of classical music is about to happen. I have tried, oh how I've tried, to get friends interested in opera and orchestral music. They are usually polite but unresposive.

I have a preference for classical music, of course, but that's mainly because it stretches over a period of 600 years. I started out as an opera lover, but gradually my ears and my head opened up to include all kinds of music and I soon realized that's what a true music lover does. I was a Beatles fan at the same time I was a Beethoven fan. I remember one day amazing a young woman when I started to sing "Fist there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is." She was surprised that I knew about Donovan. "Of course I do" I said.

Today I enjoy jazz, rock, folk, country. I even have a distant relative who was a country music entertainer, Dr. Humphrey Bate and his Possum Hunters. Google them if you don't believe me.

It's a question of developing a taste for quality and expression. Some friends and I went to the Newport Jazz Festival at Carnegie Hall one year. Some of the world's best musicians came and jammed through one song for hours. Davis, Gillespie, Mulligan, Garner (one of my favorites) A rock musician who is a master guitarist is a joy to hear. I remember seeing and hearing a duet played by George Harrison and Eric Clapton, Their differences were not apparent in their music, or maybe it was resolved in the music. I came of age during the folk music revival when there was Pete Seeger and the Weavers, Joni Mitchell, Jesse Winchester, The Dillards. Country Music was taught to me by a former girl friend and I learned to love Doc Watson, Vassar Clements. I used to live in Inwood, which is the northern tip of Manhattan Island. When I crossed Broadway I was in Little Dominica, my bank was over there. On the way there was a music store. In the good weather the owner put out a speaker on which he played Salsa music. Salsa if you don't know it is music of joy and life. I loved to stop and listen along with the local folks. The late, great Tito Puente was a graduate of Julliard School, which meant he analyzed Bach fugues, composed traditional music, learned to play percussion and to conduct before he graduated.

I have written before about one of the most exciting concerts I ever was fortunate enough to attend. It was in the band shell, Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center, New York. where I saw and heard Percy Sledge and the Uptown Brass. It was an hour of pure love and joy. I will never forget it.

So, with all this great music around why do people shy away, get tight lipped and start looking for their coats to get away from classical music, why are they intimidated by it, or why do they think it's boring and not for them? It's music after all. "I don't understand it." If you listened to the Berg Lyric Suite as often as you listen to the Rolling Stones you would come to understand it and like it. If you knew the Bach B minor Mass, Mozart's Don Giovanni, the late Beethoven String Quartets, Wagner's Parsifal, the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5, Stravinski's Rite of Spring and Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht, just to name a few, you would know music like I know music.

"So much of that modern stuff just sounds like a lot of noise." It's only noise because you are not hearing what you expect to hear and so not hearing what's there. I wouldn't subject you to Webern, Berio, Stockhousen or Carter before you're ready but I can promise you once you have broken down the obstacles you have erected for yourself between you and any form of new and old music a whole world of expression, fascination, entertainment and joy will open up.

I love music, and that is one of the main sources of joy for me.

Dana Bate
The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?

Only 6 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
********************

Avoid The Swamp

Summon the power of your happiness.

Unknown
************
It is an amazing and quietly miraculous thing to realize that just under the surface of all our grief and sorrow are the thoughts and memories of things that make us happy. There is a fist of determination that can pull the plug on the sink full of nasty things if we choose to use it.

Joy is a powerful thing. It can change the way we think and since most of life's troubles come from the way we think joy can make anguish tremble in fright. A certain Jewish mystic and Kabbalist scholar once described the mind as like a radio that only had two stations, one broadcast only good news and the other only bad news. If we don't keep alert the radio will automatically switch over to the bad news station. We have to keep our hands on the knob to keep it playing the news we want and need to hear. If I let my mind wander it will soon take me into bug filled swamps of ugly thoughts and memories. I have thankfully adopted a good angel who puts up with my negatives long enough and then says, with benign scorn, "What are you thinking about?" That stops me and makes me laugh.

It's truly a matter of consciousness. A constant consciousness of good makes a better life, and consciousness is the result of disciplined and habitual thinking. That's why we have to stay close to that radio.

I'm not a great Biblical scholar but if you want a Bible reference here it is:

"whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

And stay out of the mental swamps.

DB - The Vagabond
*******************

SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?

Only 6 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
********************

Special Sessions 4/23/09

The worst sin - perhaps the only sin - passion can commit is to be joyless.

Dorothy Sayers
***************
Hi, please remain seated.
-------------------
I had a joyful day today. I was basically happy all day and at first I couldn't figure our why. I have no reason to be happy. I have a U-Haul full of troubles, what's with all this glee?

Around noon I realized that I had been thinking about people I used to know that I liked, people who were good and respectable, people whom I respected and liked, people who smiled whenever they saw me and who put a smile on my face. Some are people I don't know any more and I don't know where they are. But the memories I have of them are so beautiful that I can keep them in my life and recall them any time.

I live alone, No one is here to greet me when I come home. I have no grandchildren to climb up on my lap. There is no faithful dog wagging it's tail at me, no cat looking for food and strokes. There's no one to help me up the stairs with my groceries. I have to look at the same dirty dishes still in the sink where I left them. The life of a solitary senior citizen is a lonesome one, especially if it's filled with troubles.

But in spite of the fact that there is no one to help me solve those problems, in spite of the monsters in my mail box, the vipers on my telephone and the sadistic notices sitting on my desk, I'm smiling.

How come? Because I know and have known good people, people I cared about and who cared about me, and I can think about those people any time I want to.

DB
******************
Keep dry, or keep wet, whichever you prefer.
____________________________________
If April showers bring May flowers than next month this town is going to be a forest.