Merry Happy

Season's Greetings to all! And if you still reckon these seasons according to the traditional ways, then Merry Christmas! Also - Happy New Year, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Menorah, may your Yule Log burn brightly, may St. Nicholas have undue compassion upon you, may you even have a Festive Saturnalia (if you [or perhaps some of your acquaintances] consider yourself to be pre-Christian), just - not too festive; and if you are Buddhist, you might just want to sit quietly neither affirmng nor denying - happily so, of course.

I have changed my own personal greeting from “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” to something like this: “May you have a merry holiday season and a happy Christmas day,” This based on an examination of the two modifiers used:

MERRY (I think more suited to carefree pleasures of celebration associated with the New Year's Eve):
1 Full of high-spirited gaiety; jolly.
2 Marked by or offering fun and gaiety; festive
3 Archaic. Delightful; entertaining.

HAPPY ( I think more suited to the spirit of commemorating the arrival of the Christ.)
1 Feeling of being Fortunate .
2 Enjoying, showing, or marked by satisfaction, or joy.
3 Being especially well-adapted; felicitous.
4 Cheerful; willing: happy to help.

Also in response to the the slogan: “Remember the reason for the season” Christmas did not begin to be celebrated as a Christian holiday anywhere until the year 347 (?). For 200,000 years (this is just a wild and reckless guess) mankind has celebrated Saturnalia usually around December 21st in the northern latitudes.

Christ’s birth really must have taken place some where around the middle of April. Astrologically, one author places it on April 17, 6 BC. (Michael Molnar, "The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi". Rutgers University Press, 1999. ISBN 08135-270-5) Dr. Molnar bases his concept on belief that the Maji were not astronomers (there weren’t any back then) but they were astrologers. And if you will read his book he points out a “fantastic combination” of astrological signs around April 17, 6 B.C. I have corrensponded with Dr. Molner and pointed out to him that there is also a corresponding assertion in a book on Gnani Yoga written by Yogi Ramacharaka in 1906. Dr. Molner said he was not aware of that.

Then there is the Horned God - perhaps the oldest male deity in European history. Images of him date back to prehistoric cave drawings in Lascaux, France. He appeared as Pan Pangenitor to the ancient Greeks, and as Cernunnos to the Celts, and as numerous other horned or antlered fertility deities across Europe. On the eve of the Winter's Solstice, he was believed to impregnate the cold, dead Earth Mother, so that she would resurrect and give birth to new, green life in the spring.

The celebration of the Solstice was officially forbidden by the Christian Church, but continued on among peasants and nobles nonetheless. Finally, in the Fourth Century, Pope Julius I acquiesced and created the holiday we now know as Christmas, substituting the birth of Jesus (which many historians have placed in September [that was pre-Molner]) for the veneration of the Pangenitor in an attempt to transform the pagan holiday into a Christian one. Still, the figure of the Horned God survived into the character we today know as "Santa Claus," the "Old Man of the North," the ancient, furry, man in red who is borne aloft by a team of horned bucks and "delivers the goods" to the entire planet in one magical night....

Well, food for thought. Meanwhile, may you be blessed with a
Happy Christmas Day and a Merry New Year’s Eve!

© John Womack, 2006. All rights reserved.

Cowee Mtn Colors

The summer residents have gone back to their real homes, the Florida folk have returned to muggy Florida to feed their mosquitos. Even the LeafLookers have come and gone, and now finally the first frosts creep across our southern mountains.


As the first week in November comes to an end, the autumn color enters its fourth and most vibrant phase. Cowee Mountain is a good example. Here are a couple of pics made 6 November, 2007, about 2:30 p.m.

And the Winner Is . . . The Bumbling Brothers??

Well, yeah. I'm talking about the 2006 World Series. Some guys impersonating the great St. Louis Cardinals baseball teams of the past would up being the last man standing in some kind of a kinky game of musical chairs. You could almost hear the collective Cardinal team speak: "Yeah, I figured we would lose, well we screwed up enough to . . . what? You say we WON? Wait a minute. Let me check that out!

Oh well, somehow baseball seems the real loser. The Boys of Summer seem out of place wraped up to their chins on cold, semingly mid-winter nights, The fans seem unworldly too, all covered in great football-like parkas and coats. Where are the slanting rays of the autumn sun from my own childhood that used to coat the World Series in a golden glow? Where are the fans of yesteryear who used to relax between innings and shield their eyes from the sunlight, not the glare of the winter arc-lights? Where are the "between-innings", for that matter? Now they are gone too, the buzz of the stadiums and friendly chatting of the announcers, the calls of "Colbeer .. . Icecolbeer!", all now lost in the ka-ching of the commercial cash register that keeps increasing the profit of the TV stations and their advertisers.

Well, there was some baseball there, Pujols great play between his legs and and Webster's stomp of triumph on first base stand out. There were others as well, but what will remain in the minds of many will be the dropped balls, the pitchers who couldn't throw straight, and the noses of fans sticking out of their parkas.

Baseball deserves better.

© John Womack, 2006. All rights reserved.

Coda DaVinca

Saw the movie - really liked it. Our oldest granddaughter took us to see it.

Loved the interplay between the girl and the guy - no sexual tension - no “man versus woman” - just two folks working together, each pulling their own part to actually solve an insolvable problem.

One other problem remains though. The gal was supposed to be Jesus’ descendent. She was also supposed to be the last drop of Jesus’ “blood” left on this planet after he had married and had kids way back when. How could that possibly be? I ran with some figures after I got back to my computer and was amazed.

Because if Jesus and Mary Madeline had only two kids, and each of them had carried on the “bloodline” by having only two kids each, your computer will tell you that that “blood” will now be distributed among 2,417,851,639,229,258,350,000,000 people on the planet.

Of course the main guy in the movie was a math guy. He would have to know there are only 8,000,000,000,000 people here now. That’s probably why he went back to his lecture circuit.

I might add that I have never had a math class and know nothing about mathematics. So my figures could be off a decimal point or two, or even a coma or two. But, why quibble over details? We all liked the movie.

And one more thing. Dan Brown, if you should ever happen to read this . . . please tell me that the monk, Silas is not dead.
I would like to talk to him about working in my garden. Probably early in the springtime. Silas would be wonderful with some of the briars and cat-claws I have growing here. And I have a wonderful climbing rose fence that has gotten out of control. We could erect a crucifix out there behind the rose and Silas could do his flagellatons out there while he cleared out part of the garden I have not gotten into in years.

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.

The Problem With Religion . . .

. . .is that God, in Her great wisdom, has not yet spoken clearly to the multitude. Not in English at least, nor in Arabic, nor in Yiddish or Aramaic or Italian or Spanish or Batu-batu. Not even in French for God’s sake.

And when God has spoken it has been in secret, to priests, rabbis, Imams, shamans, roshis, itinerant preachers and other assorted receivers of the True Word, all of whom have been afflicted with the identical learning difficulty associated with masculinity.

God, however, has clearly and truly revealed Her intention to a few special prophets. Most people agree on the first five or six or seven or so, like Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed. But it doesn’t end there - there are always men (it’s always men) who have been chosen by God - such as Jonathan Edwards, Cotton Mather, Jim Jones and David Koresch, and it even gets worse. Of course not everybody would agree on the validity of all those “prophets”, but therein lies part of the problem with religion.

Even when we have winnowed down the lengthy list of potential prophets, we still are left with a few important questions, like should the sabbath be honored on Friday, Saturday or Sunday? To what tribe does the land surrounding Jerusalem really belong? Should a man cut his beard? How should a man treat his women - also, one wife only or can (should?) he have more? Only one God for that matter or more? Genesis indicates there were several, or that God was at least plural.

Well, never mind. God has provided that His/Her/Their word be truly recorded in language so that all people can have it available as a “Law” for posterity, to guide their actions and thoughts. Once the Law has been established, then it is THERE - for all eternity - no need for any more laws, ever. Therefore, no need for legislatures, we can do away with all that wrangling and bickering, and finally get rid of elected representives and democratic dialog - no need for any more elections either. All the Laws ever needed have already been “passed”. Humanity will now need only judges and police.

The Law will be available to all people at all times. The Ten Commandments will be especially available - all thirteen , or sixteen of them will be posted in all public places. The rest of the Law (fine print) can be read in the Upanishads, Bagavad Gita, Rig Veda, Zend Avesta, the Torah, the Book of Tao, Talmud, Books of Cuang Tzu and Laotse, the Qur’an, the Tao te ching, and the Holy Bible. Doesn’t matter which book you read. They’re all the same - the Judges will explain later. Doesn’t matter which bible you read either: the King James Version, the Douay, Revised Standard Edition, the New Jerusalem Bible, the New English Edition, the Apocrypha, or the ASV, BBE, BWE, CET, CEV, DKJV, TEV, the Darby Translation, or the Book of Mormon. Well, that’s just to name a few. There are at least another 53 listed on just one site on the web. But it just doesn’t matter, they’re all the same - God would not let Her people be misled. They are all really the same. But don’t try to read them all, that would be confusing. You just have to Believe - the Judges will expalin all that!

The judges will really be busy. And they will need to get right with God this time. No more screwing around like in the past. No more sanhedrins, colonialism, inquisitions, crusades, Salem witchcraft trials, slavery, segregation, and genocide against native people - like American Indians - all of which were (and still are) done in the Name of and for the Glory of God. As far as homosexuality is concerned, that too is a no- no, well - there’s supposed to something about it in there somewhere, no need to try to find it the Judges will take care of that. Female discrimination is different though, that’s OK, the Bible says so.

It is going to require a lot of judges, police and jails ( religious remediating schools). There will have to be substantial hierarchy involved here. The only thing that will handle all that will be a worldwide return to the feudal system. Then we can have a Lord who will run everything. The Lord can finally tell us which book to read and which parts of it to honor, and how to follow all that and how to live on the "Right Side of God". The Lord can appoint a coterie of wise men who will work and act in the name of the Lord. The Lord’s will will finally be done. And it will all be Catholic too. All who protest will be shot - about time! And no more Sunni, Sh**te nonsense either - that will stop! No time for Orthodoxology and certainly no need for Reform - ever! Evolution will be banished both as theory and as a fact. Nothing will ever evolve again. Anyone caught evolving will be burned at a stake! The ban on evolution will evolve to include all learning except for religion and technology. The lion will quit eating all that lamb, and they will just lie down together - never to get up again.

But the real problem with religion is that it usurps the presence of Spirit and turns glory into mere gold, wonder into mindless creeds, realization into servitude, and tells you that you are a sinful piece of clay and doesn’t even know or care that you are a beautiful being of light.

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.

The Secret Place

The room is dimly lighted but bright lights shine in certain places. They’re not really rooms, just open spaces, yet set apart from the other places, and there are other “rooms” just like this one, several of them, here and there.

We are on the fifth floor of a large hospital, in the children’s wing, and right now we’re where the premature babies hang out. Nurses and doctors work intently, standing over the young children who seem to be lying in fish tanks and who don’t really look like young children, but tiny replicas of human beings - miniscule dolls, amazingly small. The nurses and doctors stand with lights brightly focused here and there, with hands and tools moving smartly and cleverly like they might be crafting precious jewels.

I’ve lost track of time and space; the world whirls and I wonder if I may be present in that mythical place where babies are made. And I sense the presence of power, incredible amounts of power, coming not from the electricity in the room, or the knowledge of the doctors working here, or from the the hospital itself, but from prayers; some coming from a room near-by, others like great sailing ships arriving from far, far away.

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Secular Sacraments

My spiritual journey began with my mother. Until I began school, she and I spent many happy, wonderful hours together in our house and yard, she doing the endless amount of housework that was required to run a house in the 1930’s, and me helping her. Well, not necessarily with the housework ... let’s just say that I helped her more in her worship - our worship - and we worshiped joyfully together all day long, every day.

An outsider might have thought that she was familiar with Buddhist or Zen methods of teaching, where the student moves in with the teacher and while no formal classes are conducted, the great lessons of life are mutually “discovered” by student and teacher together in the process of being human beings, while doing human work.

So we found God in everything: ants, rocks, clouds and sky; flowers, of course, and me -even (she claimed) in my older sister - but God’s presence was clearly evident in my mother’s every thought, word and deed. So that’s where my cosmology and metaphysics come from today, from walking alone, out in the garden while the dew is still on the roses, along with my mother who is there singing softly and tenderly by the old rugged cross near the rock of ages; both of us leaning on the everlasting arms with the lower lights burning, rescuing the perishing and then gathering at the river and marching onward to Zion. She (we) sang all those wonderful words of life in many sweet hours of prayer.

And the influence of these hymns were evident in all she did around the house. For example, I remember how she used to sweep the carpets. First she would carefully check the broom, and pull out any dirt or broken straws or anything like that, and then she would clean the carpet with love and respect for the carpet. She would sweep with respect for the broom, with respect even for the dirt and dust. Everything had a place in her life. Dirt was part of living, and you had to collect it with care and then put it back onto a suitable place in the yard. Dirt didn’t belong in the “trash” where it would be hauled out to the dump; no, it “needed” to go back into the yard. Not, of course, where it would be immediately tracked back into the house, but still, back where it belonged; she would find a good place for it, a place where it would “fit in”. So she would carefully carry it back to the yard like it was a privilege.There was a balance to life, and a flow, and a give and a take, and helping to keep things in balance was a task well worthy of respect and honor. Sometimes I could carry the dirt out to the yard in the dust pan myself. What a privilege it really is when you carry everything as if it were being carried to God in prayer.

Years later I would watch Episcopal priests consecrate the bread and wine for communion. I used to watch them intently, trying to remember where I had seen that combination of love, respect, honor and sacredness before - I knew it was a long time ago, buried somewhere deeply in my past. But those actions and attitudes and reverent manners seemed so familiar. Then it dawned on me one Sunday morning: that was the way my mother kept house - that was the way she swept her carpets and made the beds!

I began to wonder if other people could conduct at least part of their daily lives in such a sacred manner? I came to call such actions by a name: Secular Sacraments. Then I started doing trying to do some Secular Sacraments myself and found they were a lot harder to do than they looked like they would be. I came to realize that I would need help! So I went back into my memories again to see what she did; what did she do to help herself?

Of course there was a lot more than just dirt to be swept; there were clothes to be cleaned and ironed, meals were important; and while she was not a gourmet cook she know how to put love and spirit into the food she prepared for her family. More Secular Sacraments. So how did she do all that? Then I recalled that much of her work was done to the sound of hymns. Great, glorious old hymns that reached deep into you, deep into the food, deep into our home. How did she play them? Radio? Phonograph? No, she sang them. Just as she was, without one plea.

But that was back in the 1930’s and 40’s; how can that possibly be of any importance to us today? Most homes don’t have brooms, or irons anymore, and many people really don’t “cook” anymore, they just “heat up”. And if you live in an apartment, and take a dust pan of dirt down in the elevator, you’ll be thought of as weird, and if you pour the dirt out down at the street level, you may be arrested for littering!

So the work that we do has changed over the years, but it is not just what we do, but the way we perform our tasks, whether new or traditional, that makes the difference.

What are the essential elements of Secular Sacraments? First, there is that matter of respect. Respect for your task, your tools and your methods. Respect for your own body and who you are. Then there is the matter of dignity - dignity that you freely give to the universe, and dignity that you understand the universe freely gives back to you. Somewhere, there is the element of Joy. Joy in making real the presence of God in everyday things. And that brings us to the matter of Sacredness. For my mother, that was easy, because she always stood on hallowed ground. What about us in our work? How can we attune ourselves so that we can recognize that the ground we stand on is also sacred and how can we make its presence real to us and others?

I remember a remarkable pitching performance in a World Series when a very young Orel Hershieser put on a remarkable performance He started that year in AA baseball; and wound it up winning three games in the world series. How did he withstand all that pressure? He later said that between innings he sat alone on the bench with his eyes closed and hummed hymns to himself. What did that do? It helped attune him. It helped him focus on glory instead of fear.

Hymns are not the only way. There are thoughts, mental images, other music and places that exist only in your own being. Love, Joy, Peace, Happiness, Beauty, all are part of your own being, and you can seek them and bring them to realization in any place! Not easy! Indeed no! Making ground hallowed is truly work fit for a god. But it is not work that any god can do - it requires both God and man working together.

Here’s one way you can begin: First, you carefully check your broom, while you hum a grand old hymn, and know that when you are finished with the work, your world will be bright and beautiful, and that amazing grace can be found in the most simple things..

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Flower Festival Spring 2006

To the Great Smoky Mountains Peace Pagoda, near Newport Tennessee, to take part in one of their annual Flower Festivals.
The ride is an easy interstate run across the land of Anywhere. 1:40 minutes, most of which is driven through a trance, of sorts.

We exit the Interstate at the small town of Newport at a gasoline station/restaurant that looks as if it crashed while trying to land on the highway.

The next part of the trip is steep. As scripture warns, it is a narrow way indeed, but sadly none of it is straight. Our directions keep us safe though, and lead us through a baffling array of parked All Terrain Vehicles, huge garages, trampolines, semitrailers and doublewides. The further we go, the steeper becomes the road. Finally we enter a dark, wet, cold and dismal world of thick clouds. Our world becomes tiny, gray and gravelly.

We exit the cloud cover into a band of winds - are these are the fabled winds that protect the approaches to heaven? All of a sudden we don’t know - not sure of anything. The world seems changed somehow, no longer a place we have ever been.
Suddenly the Temple rises boldly out of the clouds, riding into the wind like a great ship. Slender flag poles, some planted along the road, and others tied to the deck are bent by that wind, their flags slapping and popping. We park and walk through a door surrounded by discarded shoes into the temple.


Laughter, gold and glitter, gaiety, friendship, hugs and sometimes even kisses, the people here all know each other well, even if we have never really met before. We all have come from far away. most have been here before but that was always long ago. The room is large. A very thick rug lies over its hand-hewn, polished floor. Prayer rugs lie over the carpet and also are scattered along the floor. Seating (or kneeling) mats are available all over the floor, a few chairs are also available for those who require that. The Temple is filled with the smell and sight of floating incense.

A chime rings out high and clear, and people settle upon mats and into chairs. More incense is lighted accompanied by a series of chimes. Then a gong sounds, its vibrations uniting the temple, the furnishings and the people into a harmonic unity.

Br. Utsumi kneels before a prayer lectern, and begins the celebration in Japanese. The congregation has a bulletin printed in “Anglo-Japanese” so we can take these holy words Utsumi says and try to make holy word-sounds, if we wish to try. We do a pretty good job.


The ceremony concludes as those of us who wish approach the altar. We bow on prayer cushions before a small golden Buddha which stands in a small flat bowl filled with sweet tea. A wooden ladle is provided to pour the tea over the Buddha three times. Meanwhile, Utsumi is chanting words which roughly translate to: “Now I am sprinkling this sweet tea on the Eternal Buddha. Praise to the Eternal Buddha, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the One of Wisdom and Practice, the Knower of the World, the Teacher of Gods and Humans, the Buddha, the World-Honored One.” Chimes ring out, two deep gongs sound, the sunlight flashes from endless golden objects and we are all washed in incense.
Miso soup, hummus, marinated green and red pepper slices, flat bread, beans and tofu, crackers and salad follow. All of this is consumed with laughter and happy talk. Plans are made, anticipations and revelations revealed. Later we all tour the substantial complex that comprises and supports the Temple. Finally we walk up to to the top of the mountain - the site of the Pagoda-to-be. The land is cleared now. Cement blocks, stacked two high are scattered 10 - 15 feet apart, forming a circle some 80’ in diameter. They support weathered wooden planks that reach from one stand of blocks to another and provide a glimpse of the size of the Pagoda.

Then it is time to go. Good-byes, farewell hugs, and two hours later we are walking our doggies in our own woods at own home.

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Metaphysical Fundamentology

I have always known that I was raised in a fundamental church. Basic Baptist, way down south - hot sweaty Sunday nights in a Mississippi church in the late 1930s with old women crying and fanning their tears with funeral parlor fans and acknowledging themselves to be miserable sinners and “wretches”. Long altar calls, with a tired choir singing “just one more verse” and tearful grandmothers boldly walking up to you, squeezing your arm tightly, and asking again: “Are you SURE you’re saved, young man?”

After high school, I began drifting away from that Muggy Fundamental Ocean, and in my 25th year I sailed full steam into the Episcopal seas of Refinement and Contentment, and spent another 25 years riding those carefree and eloquent religion-cruise ships. But I slowly began to see the church less and less as a sanctuary, and more and more as some kind of a beautiful cage. Part of me recognized that feeling, but I repressed both it and its significance, and concentrated on the fine beauty of those glorious anthems and the solemn pulse of its ancient rituals.

However, one spring morning, while sitting up front, where lay readers sit after they have read, and while looking out over a sleepy and bored congregation which was pretending to listen to a new, young priest explain Paul’s message in II Corinthians (the “ ... wives, submit to your husbands” part), and while he was pointing out how that part of Paul’s message was generally misunderstood, because Paul was really, in fact, one of the very first “womens’ libbers”, I was paid a visit by Casual Question who walked up to me and asked “What are you doing here?” I was astonished that I not only had no ready answer, but could not even fashion one; in fact, my silent search for a rebuttal amazingly began turning into a soliloquy in which I found myself explaining to myself why I was going to leave the Episcopal Church. To my credit, I did not get up and leave at that instant, but when I did leave the church later that morning, it was for good.

Now, looking back from even further away, I can realize that my religious beginnings way back in that hot, sweaty Baptist church were really very metaphysical, even mystical, and for that matter absolutely occult! A lot was expected of a young man on those faraway southern nights, and little was graphically explained. “Are your garments spotless, young man? Ah, but are they white as snow? And how about you? Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?” Well, how metaphysical, mystical, or occult can you get? It was a puzzle. I remember wondering if one’s “garments” should be white or should they be red? I knew that blood was red, and also knew that it stained, and for a year or two I was shamed to realize that my “garments” probably were “white as snow” because I had clearly not washed them yet in any kind of blood. In fact, they probably weren't even spotted!

I finally asked someone in the church about this and thought I was going to be burned at the Baptist stake; at least I finally knew that white was good. But the mystery deepened: how could dirty garments be made white by washing them in blood? And then, there was the preacher: a man of enormous girth, jowls, and eyebrows; swept by wild winds of passion, given to slamming his bible onto the pulpit, and rising on his tiptoes, to shake clenched fists, and shout at the ceiling - it was hard to imagine him wearing garments white as snow; even when he smiled, he seemed wrapped in blood-bright crimson cloth. Well, I never asked another question in church again, even to this day.

“Rock of ages, cleft for me; let me hide myself in thee ...” That old song carried mystic worlds of meaning to a generation that was still only seventy years from the War between the States, and which was still sunken in the great depression and also quickly falling into a war whose outcome seemed likely to have already been secured by the Germans and Japanese. We didn’t sing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, (that was for Yankee Heaven), and we didn’t sing “When the Saints Go Marching In “ (Negro Heaven), but we could march in place to “Onward Christian Solders”, “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”, and “Holy, Holy, Holy!” And there was not a lot of mysticism in some of those songs. Others though, like: “ ... Crown him, ye martyrs of our God, Who from his altar call: Extol the Stem-of-Jesse’s rod, And crown him Lord of all!” Well, who knew what all that meant? I finally figured it out about 50 years later, but by then it really didn’t make any sense, because by then I also knew that Doctrine had inserted the Gabriel/Joseph hiatus in the Jesse/Ruth link with Jesus, so it never had been real to begin with, and what about Mary? From whom had she descended? Well, the Jesse link was mainly to show the Jewish connection, and I’ve seen Mary’s picture, hanging in a French gallery, and she was clearly a blue-eyed blond, probably from somewhere in Holland.

And what is the “saved” bit? In order to be “saved”, one must “believe ON the Lord Jesus Christ.” Well, I believed IN Jesus - did that count? Of course, by now I was afraid to ask, but it did sound awfully easy and simple. If you were not saved, then, when you died, your soul went to hell for all eternity. If you were saved, then your soul would go to heaven for all eternity. I can remember wanting to go to heaven, but not right away, because it sounded awfully boring. I began to envy those preachers who talked about the life of sin they had led before they were saved, and it seemed to me that if I had to be saved right now, I would miss out on a lot; such as why I would want to be saved in the first place. I was told that when I got to heaven I would have a harp and walk on streets of gold, and that if we all were saved, then we would all be reunited as a family after death. There would be my mother and father, and their mothers and fathers would also be there, and we would all live together. There would also be their mother’s and father’s mothers and fathers too, and so on. And then there would be my kids, if I ever had any, and in time, their children and their children’s children; and we would all live together in heaven as one great big family, walking on streets of gold with everybody else’s families and forever playing all those harps.

So heaven was not a major objective in my young life. It was better than hell, but still not much of a prize for an 8 year old. Besides, my mother had let the mystical cat out of the bag when she had convinced me that God loved me and would always take care of me. That made it hard to believe in hell, and even heaven didn’t look quite so bad.

©John Womack, 2006, All Rights Reserved

Earthright

It is indeed self-evident that all humans are created free and equal: free, because our souls are a gift from heaven; equal, because we are created equally out of the Earth; we wear it’s fabric on our faces, carry its breath within our lungs, its minerals are in our bones and its sea pulses within our veins. We have truly been endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights – and all that follows from that belief does appear to be soundly based.

But It also seems self-evident that there is a prior claim which takes precedent to that free-and-equal clause. That claim is the right of the Earth to sustain and renew itself, for if that sustain-and-renew right is ever denied or lost, then all other rights, privileges, grants, precedents, and pleas will sweep across empty spaces devoid not only of reason, but also beyond all recourse.

We now know that seen from a distance in space, the Earth does appear to be a spaceship. Where is it bound? What is its course and destination? When will it arrive, and where? How much is it worth? It carries a cargo of gold, and has silver trim, and zinc and copper and many things of value. But it also has precious things: owls and rivers, mountains and deserts, forests and frogs. We know that gold and silver and zinc and copper are scattered throughout the universe, but where else can you find an owl or a frog?

How can anyone think that the Earth belongs to them? How can they imagine that it is theirs to torment? Did a merciful God give us this great gift to destroy? That we may “own” it and sell it, and whip it and scour it and poison it and kill all that is on it and make it do our bidding and whim, that it should work for us until it fails? That we should shred it and rip it a part and squeeze its great wealth, converting that to money for us to put in out pockets or bank accounts and discard the rest?

Or could we pay it the least compliment possible and declare it to be a “person,” and thus protected by our constitution, be considered equal to commercial corporations and entitled to enjoy life, liberty and to pursue it’s own happiness?

Or shall we wait until the last owl is in a zoo, and the last wild river in an amusement park? And where will we keep the last human being?

Are we that dreadful creature?

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.

GreatDaddy

Dad died in the waning crescent of the harvest moon during the year of his wife’s Lord, nineteen hundred and ninety two, and in the first week of his own ninetieth year. It was just before the election, but he had already voted - Absentee now, in the most emphatic meaning of that word. Fitting though, that he was still fixing and trying to make work, those things which to his mind, weren't working right.

He could fix anything. Even in his later years, when his physical abilities had somewhat diminished, he would apologize at not being able to help, then get that faraway look in his eyes and slowly, as if he were reading something, and with his crooked finger tracing steps in the air, he would tell you how to do what you needed to do. It was as if he could still see and do it in some kind of a close-up spiritual world.

He was a man of many names: Dad, Daddy, Grandfather, Granddad, Grandpa, the Big Cheese (from his grandson) the Leader of the Clan, Granpops, Sweetheart (from his wife), and of course, (to everyone else) Mister Womack; and then finally, Greatdaddy (from his great-granddaughter, Jessica).

He was a farm boy who left home. The farm was hard, and he always remembered that. He found everything was hard, but then he had to build everything he ever got, and he had to build most of it from scratch. There was never a desire to go back, everything else was better than the farm. The depression and the war, he took in stride; the farm had prepared him well for hard times. The later prosperity of the fifties, sixties and seventies were different; he wasn’t as well prepared for those as were softer men. They often did “better” than he; they were more malleable. But yet, he did very well in the stock market.

His few friends were real friends, and their friendship ran deeply; they understood each other, quietly, respectfully. He wasn’t much for small talk; he could do a little small talk if there was no work to be done, but then he would always go find something that needed fixing.

The lessons from the farm were strong. If you don’t work, you don’t eat. Money doesn’t grow on trees. The world doesn’t owe you a living. Hard work never hurt anybody. Daylight was always burning, the night was always coming.

He was tough, he was fast, and every job he ever started, he finished. And when he was through with it, you could tell he had done it. He left his signature on many things, mostly things that needed fixing. The Samurai and the Storm Troopers thought they were masters of the world, but then they had never met men who knew how to fix things that had gone wrong and could not only defeat their armies but would rebuild their countries.

When he was born, power came from horses and steam locomotives. He mastered those things when he was a young man, and then he made a living working on the railroad, showing the crews and men of the Roundhouse and the Train Yards how to make those overworked steam locomotives fit those tight wartime schedules. But when he was in his late prime, the only steam locomotives left were in museums; and horses were only found in zoos and rodeos. He probably didn’t see a horse during the last thirteen years of his life, and he was thirteen when he saw his first car. He could clearly remember when airplanes were rarer than spaceships were when he died.

He would rarely watch television because he was a child of the “radio set” era. He even remembered well those days before the radio set came along, back when people did all the talking and entertaining. Back then, everybody was expected to know some stories. Usually these were tales about things that had happened many years before, and everyone present not only knew about the event, but they also knew the story. Yet they looked forward to hearing it told again, and really expected to find that the telling of it had improved over the past year or two since they had last heard it. It was not completely unlike finding out that Aunt Lucille was going to fix her famous beef stew again, and you would prepare to savor the smells that you knew would come from the kitchen; so too, a good story was a savory tale that you needed to hear again: “Hey, tell about the time Uncle Fred fell off the . . .”. In this area Dad was sort of a hybrid, reflecting both the pre- and post-radio eras. He would tell long stories, and when he began telling them everybody was supposed to remain seated, be quiet, and listen attentively, and then he would scoot forward in his chair and sit hunched over with his crooked finger tracing steps in the air, while he looked at the floor in the manner of one who was listening to a radio set. So, in his later years, he was the teller of the stories and also the listener to the stories.

It’s hard to tell a long story to the sound-byte generation, but that didn’t deter him. The grandchildren would sit around the room and pretend to listen, looking like so many TV’ s themselves; quiet, impassive, blinking on and off. Staring at this man who was hunched over, looking at the floor and talking softly about living a different life in a different place.

©John Womack, 2006, All Rights Reserved

Now Hear This.

Went to WCU last night to see a production of the Vagina Monologues.

I was clearly in the minority, being male, and was subjected to some words I had not heard before, at least not in the presence of women. Strange words, crude words perhaps but they were descriptive words and they were words charged with power.

Women, I thought, had never heard any of these words or if they did they would blanche and begin shaking and tell you to “Hush! Hush!” and they would run away blushing.

Tonight they were neither blanching nor blushing and they were not running away but charging.

I heard no new words, but I learned the meaning of one of the words which was only spoken once in the entire performance. It was a word I had heard before and I had always found it to be awkward and puzzling. Tonight I learned the meaning of it.
That word is “empowerment”.

I have heard blacks use it before and thought it a bit strange then.

Now I hear women claiming they are becoming empowered and they seem to become different beings.
Slowly I began to realize that I grew up in a white, male, Christian world as a white, Christian male. I had been empowered all my life, even when I was a small boy - at least the implements of power were mine to use when I learned how to claim them.

What is that empowerment? The power to claim a thing as your own, to promote or dismiss concepts as you wish, to do as you wish with yourself. The power to assert and to contradict. The power to be yourself and the power to lead. It is also the ability to publicly dismiss the power that certain concepts and words have been used to shame you. It is the power to break free.

Out of the mouths of babes come wisdom, eh? Well, perhaps everything in the whole world is speaking. In the final result, it is not who, or what is speaking, but what it is that those who are “listening” do not recognize.

Sometimes words of power must be used to break through barriers of unawareness.

Last night I too said a new word.

“Oh!”

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.

The Mercurial Heart

An excerpt from my old nature photographers newsletter "The Dancing Trail" that I published by subscription for about 10 years back in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The Mercurial Heart

We did get a taste of winter, didn’t we! I’ll bet that all those solid black Wooly Bears I saw last year are now red with embarrassment! It was particularly touch-and-go with the electricity on the fourth weekend of the year, especially of concern to your faithful writer here, since we had not been able to get our LP truck up our driveway for three weeks- and were almost out of gas! This after last winter when we had to exist only on kerosene stoves and my four-wheel truck for two full days.

Saturday, the 29th was a day of quarter-degrees. A quarter-degree up, and a quarter-degree down; a whole half-degree was a cause for concern! The day dawned darkly at thirty-one, but soon thereafter was way down to thirty! A closer look showed it not all that bad, it was actually thirty and PROBABLY a quarter. And there was more good news ten minutes, later when it climbed up to thirty and at least a HALF!

Still later I’d pulled it back up to thirty one, and both the day and I looked a whole lot brighter. Then I glanced at the birds through the dining room window and saw that RAIN had started to fall! I raced quickly back to the temperature gauge to see where it was and saw that it was now up to thirty TWO! Oh Joy, joy! With a happy heart I went to the kitchen to brew another pot of coffee; no need now to hurry, with electricity safe, the lines won’t come down, not now - we’re safe!

A quarter-hour later, I casually checked to see how warm it had beome, and I froze as I saw it was now thirty one! Omph! I wished it would climb, and saw in my mind the temperature gauge at forty degrees! But when I looked again my heart fell to thirty, where the temperature column then rested. Five minutes later it was thirty and a quarter; five after that, it was back down to thirty, and then climbed up to thirty plus a whole complete half - whew! At thirty two my heart climbed to fifty, but when it dropped to 28, my heart dropped to twenty - and then all seemed lost as the mercury fell - incredibly - to twenty-seven and three-quarters degrees! Then twenty-seven and only a half, and twenty-seven and just one-quarter, then on down to twenty-SIX! - And now the rain had turned to ice!

In my mind I could hear the wild, lonely howl of long-hungry wolves and wondered if even our bones would survive. I found myself wishing I had some pottery to put out to help future archeologists figure it all out. Then - unexpectedly, the sun came out and the sky even became blue in places! And the day changed completely.

Now, the birdies are singing sweet songs of enchantment in the warm blue skies in my heart, and the flowers are fragrant with blossoms of springtime in that pleasant land where I spend most of my time.

So, I guess what’s going on inside is really more important than all that other stuff out there!

© John Womack, 2002. All rights reserved