Pictured above are the students from St. Michael’s Indian School.
February 1-3, 2012, I was the guest of Navajo Technical College, St. Michael’s Indian School at Window Rock, and Diné College, Tsaile, AZ. All three institutions are on the Navajo Reservation.
While visiting Navajo Technical College, Crown Point, NM, I read from my poetry, and my fiction to a large group of students and community folks. It was wonderful. My host was friend and colleague, Dr. Wesley Thomas, professor and director of Diné Studies. Dr. Thomas, anthropologist and author is one of the three editors of Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality, and Two Spirits: A Story of Life With the Navajo, (along with Walter Williams and Toby Johnson). We first met in 1994 at a conference in Iowa City, IA, and he’s an amazing scholar.
Pictured above: Dr. Wesley Thomas and students at Navajo Technical College.
At St. Michael’s Catholic School, Window Rock, AZ, I was the guest of teacher Joan Levitt’s class and her class titled, Senior British and World Literature. She held a senior Socratic seminar on my novel Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story. The students were incredibly well prepared (which speaks to the preparation of Ms. Levitt) and discussed questions of race; American Indian history; baseball among Southeastern tribes; and whether, at the end of the novel, Hope Little Leader really does change history by winning “his last game.” I was deeply impressed with their thoughtful approach to the novel.
Senior Shayney Begay designed the art sign in two languages, Choctaw and Navajo, “Hello or greetings”
On Thursday night, February 2, we left St. Michael’s at Window Rock and traveled by mini-van up, up, up, into the mountains through the snow and over the ridge to Diné College. Diné College, locarted in Tsaile was founded in 1968 and is the first of 37 tribal colleges. Frankly, I was not sure we were going to make it over the mountains to Diné College, but our driver Cleofus Nelson, a first-year secondary English teacher, was fearless and had driven the road to Diné College a jillion times. Cleofus is currently pursuing his masters’ degree in counseling while he teaches at St. Michaels.
Pictured are teachers Joan Levitt and Cleofus Nelson.
We were hosted by Diné poet Orlando White, professor at Diné College, and, head librarian Herman Peterson. The Diné College library is magnificent and I read in a room of glass, the R.C. Gorman room, both cozy and intimate. The audience was great; they came out on a snowy night to be there. By the way, if you have not read Orlando’s book, Bone Light, (Red Hen Press, 2009) rush out and get it, or Click buy it, online! Book reviewer Elizabeth Robinson writes of his poetry: “Orlando White’s Bone Light recreates poetry from the molecular level.” Writer, poet, and artist Layli Longsoldier gave an introduction to my reading that made me want to cry. She talked about art, and the landscape of writing. I can’t thank everyone enough at these three institutions for making my visit feel like I’d pulled on a warm blanket.
And Now This – the AWP
“Writing the Middle East” panelists: me, Jim Wilson, Allison Hedge Coke, Matthew Shenoda, and Hayan Charara
This year I was also chair of the AWP panel, “Writing the Middle East, Crossing Genre, Crossing Borders.” (See group shot above.) We discussed crossing “West to East” into landscapes of olives and almonds, Arabian deserts and mountains, love affairs and war zones, green lines, religions, and concrete walls that divide. Our panel explored how translation and transliteration play a role in writing the Middle East. Participants included, Matthew Shenoda, author of Somewhere Else, that brings pre-Islamic Copts to life in Egypt; Arab-American poet Hayan Charara, editor of Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry. His PhD in literature and creative writing is from the Univ. of Houston. He’s also President of RAWI, the Radius of Arab American Writers; and Jim Wilson, archaeologist, memoirist, assistant professor of English at Seminole State. He writes of seven years in Beirut Lebanon’s civil war; Allison Hedge Coke, poet, Reynolds Chair Professor at University of Nebraska, Kearney, and author of six books. She explores her Jordan travel experience. And me. I read about my year in Amman, Jordan during the 2011 Arab Spring, and about my new novel that reveals a Choctaw in the 1917 Arab Revolt.
See the cool shot video of the AWP: http://brevity.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/awp-2012-the-movie/
It’s been no secret that I’ve been under the weather for a few months, but all better now, back to blogging about what I’m up to in the universe these days. I just returned from AWP’s conference in Chicago. I want to thank Denise Low, former AWP President, for all her hard work for American Indians and Indigenous Writers during her tenure as President. Egad, 11,000 writers this year at the AWP conference with some 18 Native writers presenting at the three-day-gathering in Chicago, IL. I’ve been told by AWP conference organizers that Natives will no longer be assured of an Indigenous Caucus panel because each of the “caucus events” takes a slot away from a proposal that would otherwise have been accepted to the schedule.
Do what? Say again?
This seems odd to me since the AWP Indigenous Caucus proposal has always competed (or acted as if they were competing) for a panel slot. And I take issue with the idea that American Indians/Indigenous peoples are taking a slot away from someone else. . . (this sounds a bit sinister).
Pictured above: AWP Indigenous Caucus panelists: Gordon Henry, Bojan Louis, Phil Morgan, me.
As a response to this kind of thing, I’ve thrown down the gauntlet (glove in my case) and tried to give a rousing speech to the American Indians/Natives/Indigenous people at our AWP Indigenous Caucus panel this year. I don’t know what will happen next year, but I’m confident that Native writers at the AWP Indigenous Caucus are not going to take a slot away from a more worthy panel. Hopefully this will work itself out before the May 3 AWP proposal deadline. (Will someone please divide 11,000 attendees by 18. Native writers are growing in numbers and fast at AWP. But we are a tiny minority. )
(Pictured left is Tacey Atsitty, and far right, Layli Longsoldier. In the middle is Layli’s and Orlando White’s daughter. Someone please jog my memory for her name. She was a great listener at my Diné College reading.)
My news is that I’m working on two books, a memoir in short stories, and a novel, and finishing up some wildly overdue essays, (I know, I know I’m late, I’m more than late) and attending a spate of conferences this spring. My next upcoming conference March 28-31 2012 is the Native American Literature Symposium (NALS) http://www.mnsu.edu/nativelit/ in Albuquerque New Mexico at the Isleta Pueblo. I’ll be giving a keynote Friday evening at 7 p.m., March 30, titled: ”Writing the Crest of Revolution: A Choctaw In King Abdullah’s Court.”
Hope to see you there!
- Celebrating Dean Rader’s two new books, Works & Days, and Engaged Resistance, American Indian Art, Literature, Film from Alcatraz to NMAI
Last week, the Creative Writing program and American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois hosted poet and professor Dean Rader for a reading and a lecture on September 28 – 29, 2011.
Dean examines the broadside of his poem created by Steve and Martin at Soybeans Press Broadside at University of Illinois. Cool beans.
This coming week, members of the American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois will drive in a van [yikes, all together, one for all and all for one. Somehow that sounds all wrong to me?!] to Ohio State University to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Society of American Indians (SAI). SAI, was originally formed in 1911 at Ohio State University in Columbus to work on issues facing Native peoples in the early 2oth century. Some fifty American Indians were part of the organizational meeting. Founding members included Dr. Carlos Montezuma (Yavapai-Apache), Charles Eastman (Dakota),Thomas L. Sloan (Omaha), Charles E. Dagenett (Peoria), Laura Cornelius (Oneida), and Chief Henry Standing Bear (Oglala Lakota), among others.
Watch for two new books by Muscogee Creek poet Joy Harjo coming out this fall! Congratulations Joy.
and
MFA students, AIS and Creative Writing faculty and staff hang out at Escobar's in Champaign, IL.
Escape Artists and Other Storytellers
Escape Artists
Joy Harjo, me, and Tim Tingle - escape artists one and all.
And there we are side by side in a stolen car driving a promise road fast trying to escape the very place we’ve come from and paid good money for, and you floorboard it down the paved road until we hit the guardrail and sail across a dusty sandstone cliff onto an Oklahoma hay pasture, the car bucks to and fro like a rodeo bull but you don’t flinch; no, sir, you yank the gear shift into first, gun it, and off we go toward Big Sandy Creek, laughing. Somehow we look into each other’s eyes and I can hear you say, see, what did I tell you. . .
My poem is an attempt to explain how I feel about Oklahoma, I love it, but I often run away from it like an escape artist. On September 16, 17, at the 5 Tribes Story Conference writers, storytellers, filmmakers, performers, researchers broke all boundaries between us — and I was reminded (again) why I always return home . . .
The event was held at the famous Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma and shows why artists migrate in and out of Oklahoma, ever-returning, ever-living in Indian Territory and parts unknown.
Some things I said in my opening remarks were that for most of my life, I’ve tried to live up to what it meant to be an American Indian. When I was young, I was very ignorant of what it meant to be “Indian.” Everyone in my family was “Indian,” both my adopted Cherokee family, and my Choctaw birth family. I didn’t know that we were any different from other families. We were just people doing what people do. When I’ve stopped to think about it, I’ve had relatives that were barbers, soldiers, sheriff’s deputies, bakers, cleaning ladies, farmers, bronco riders, teachers, local feed mill workers, and Avon ladies. Two of my great aunts worked in airplane factory in California during WW2. All these people were Indians.
But does any of this sound particularly “Indian?”
As I was growing up in the 1960s, the world seemed very chaotic: the Vietnam war, the struggle for civil rights, the police beating up American Indians in Oklahoma City every Friday night, these were reoccurring events, juxtaposed against regular family gatherings in Ada, and other towns in southeastern Oklahoma. Some of my great uncles and aunts went to stomp dance, and would also host family reunions in and around Ada. Relatives would come home each summer from California, Arizona, New Mexico and even Texas. There were all night sings at Stonewall with a great aunt playing the piano, my grandfather playing the fiddle, elders feeding the spirits, and me, eating crackers and squirrel dumplings listening, watching all these goings-on until I would fell asleep on family quilt. My relatives would sing church hymns and popular songs, and I can remember my Cherokee grandmother singing Mockin’Bird Hill, a song written by Vaughn Horton, 1951. I still know the refrain.
Does any of this sound particularly “Indian?” (There’s that word again.)
Tribal peoples in Oklahoma would say “yes,” but mainstream Americans would say, “not really” because they expect Indians to look and be like “Hollywood Sioux,” riding horses and making statements like, “Today is a good day to die.” I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota peoples, I’m merely suggesting that because of Hollywood, everyone thinks we look like the Indians in John Ford films.
The 5 Tribes Story Conference showcased stories about who we are now, and who we were back when. . . I’m indebted to my Choctaw brethren, Greg Rodgers and Tim Tingle, and Mary Robinson, director of the 5 Tribes Museum in Muskogee, Oklahoma for creating this wonderful event.
Down in front, Cherokees: Les Hannah, and Robert Lewis; and, Choctaw Tim Tingle. Standing left to right: Muskogee Creek Joy Harjo; and Kim Roppolo; and Chickasaw Lynn Moroney; and Mary Robinson; Choctaws: me, and Stella Long; and Diane Glancy; and Choctaw Greg Rodgers; and Jerry Lincecum.
Phil Morgan on guitar.
- A Life in Stories
My storyteller definition includes academics, (especially theorists) no matter the discipline. The umbrella is large, but not unwieldy.
Can you name any of the storytellers in the pictures without captions? If you can, give them a shout out the blog and I’ll send you a bookmark.
You’re right, these are not the same events. AIS hosted several storytellers.
Can you name this Mayan scholar below? He was also part of the Sovereignty and Autonomy seminar last week. [AIS faculty are excluded from this offer.]
Pictured are various writers at the first Carr Series’ dinner for Rolando Hinojosa-Smith for Creative Writing at Illinois. And one pix from the 5 Tribes Story Conference. C’mon, names anyone?
Author Rolando Hinojosa-Smith from Austin Texas gave a reading for the Carr Series at Illinois.
Some Things I Did. . .
Always have paper and pen handy when you ride.
To quote the late Choctaw author Roxy Gordon, here are “some things I did” – at least since my last blog in March 2011.
In April and May, 2011 I had radiation for the nuclear reactor in my body, the thyroid. The similarities between your body’s metabolic system melting down, and a nuclear reactor meltdown are stunning. Metaphor-wise, I mean. With Graves Disease’ running amuck in one’s body, the levels of T4 and T3 rise to dangerous levels and burn out the control valves in your thyroid gland. T4 and T3 control how quickly your body uses energy i.e., the heart constantly races ahead, as you shed pounds and muscle; heart, kidneys, begin to suffer, and you think you’re losing your mind. The thyronines act on nearly every cell in the body, including those in the brain. At the time I had radiation, I was living alone in Amman, Jordan. It was during the heady days of the Arab Spring. Living a solitary life turned out to be a good thing. The first few days after radiation you can’t be in direct contact with anyone because you’re leaking radiation like a nuclear reactor.
All better now. No worries.
Always have pen and paper handy when you ride.
Left: Wintertime in Wadi Rum. Sunset.
As a Fulbright scholar for 2010-2011, I was able to finish the semester at the University of Jordan in June, 2011, but not all of my research. Yet, I had wonderful graduate students at UJ. Pictured below.
Final Class Presentation, "At the Door of Spring."
Our last class together, and with some visitors to our class presentation. Pulling these pictures together for the blog makes me weepy. My students for this class were: Rasha Shaher, (back row, third from left) Majd Al-Kayed, (standing next to me, left) Malik al Khawaldeh, (standing on my right) Zainab Al Qaisi, (second row, second from left) and, Ayah Waqqad (front row third from left). Here’s a shout out to you all! One of my students from the fall semester 2010 is also pictured here: Eman Ghanayem, (front row, second from left). Here’s a shout out to Eman! Mabruk to Rasha, Madj, Zainab, Haneen, Eman that graduated with MA degrees. And, Mabruk ya Zainab and Ahmed on the day of your wedding, September 10 2011.
In my Spring 2011 graduate class at University of Jordan students chose to show Arab transnationalism and how it works in modern context by creating five film short-shorts that were loosely woven together in a presentation we called, At the Door of Spring. Each film project was created, written, filmed, produced, by a graduate student. Titles were: Amal’s Water [set in Libya]; Guevara, the Arab [set in Syria]; Fida’s Play [set in Egypt]; Khalid’s Choice [set in Palestine]; and Ooruba [a journalist covers each of the above events and narrates them.] I miss Jordan, long to see it again, soon, and I especially miss the wonderful students and the Jordanian people, their hospitality, and all the things they taught me. Below, here we are all piled into one car, zooming around Amman — for fun of it!
Rasha in sunglasses, me, Zainab, Ayah, and Eman.
After classes finished, some other travels:
First night in Beirut, the Mosque downtown.
Flew to Beirut, Lebanon, for some additional research at the American University of Beirut.
Beirut, Yatiki alfia! More pixs, far below, and left.
Beirut, Lebanon. Standing in front of Pigeon Rock, the gleaming Mediterranean Sea behind me.
Before leaving the Middle East, Jim Wilson and I devised Writing in Petra, a 10-day creative writing retreat in Petra, Jordan, June 2012. We hope to bring writers from England, Canada, the U.S. and other countries to write in a retreat in Petra, a city as old as time. If you’re interested in a cross-cultural writing adventure, check out our itinerary and website. We’re just now beginning to market the writing retreat to writers. We have 9 spaces left!
Always have pen and paper handy. Watching camels in the distance, Spring, 2011 Wadi Rum.
Saying good-byes, we left Amman, and headed straight for Alaska to the Kachemak Bay Writers Festival. Some 14-city stops later, we arrived in Homer, Alaska.
There were two eagles outside the hotel room window. I took that as a good sign, an eagle’s welcome.
At swim two eagles. Homer, Alaska, June 2011.
The sun never sets in Alaska in June. So from desert sands reds to blue water and snow covered mountains. I gave readings, and creative writing lectures in Homer, Alaska, and suffered from jet lag, at least I think it was jet lag. I also got to see a dear friend of mine, Rigoberto Gonzales, fiction, CFN, and poet of six books. We also had a sing-along and bon fire in the land of midnight sun. A kind of dreamcycle moment for those of us not accustomed to midnight sun.
Poet Rigoberto Gonzales and me in a restaurant in Homer, Alaska for the Kachemak Bay Writers Festival.
Pictured far below are authors to the left, and right and all around, with author Hannah Tinti (The Good Thief) on ukulele, singing with friends “If I had a hammer.”
And Rita Dove sings back-up. Homer, Alaska.
Then back to Oklahoma in late June for Salon Ada: This year 8 writers and visual arts came together for a literary weekend in Ada, Oklahoma. Four new books that are out from Salonaires this year are: Hanging Men, by Alvin Turner; Spare Parts by Ken Hada, winner of the 2011 Western Heritage Award for poetry, Dynamic Chickasaw Women, by Philip Carroll Morgan, (Choctaw-Chickasaw) and Indios, by Linda Hogan (Chickasaw). Please give them a hand, or better yet, buy a book and read aloud to one another. Beats TV!
Speaking of new books, Illinois colleague Jodi Byrd, (Chickasaw) has a new book, Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism.
Her book sails out scross the heavens, September 15, 2011. Here pasted from the website: “In 1761 and again in 1769, European scientists raced around the world to observe the transit of Venus, a rare astronomical event in which the planet Venus passes in front of the sun. In The Transit of Empire, Jodi A. Byrd explores how indigeneity functions as transit, a trajectory of movement that serves as precedent within U.S. imperial history. Byrd argues that contemporary U.S. empire expands itself through a transferable “Indianness” that facilitates acquisitions of lands, territories, and resources.”
Also, colleague and friend, Dean Rader has a new book out, Engaged Resistance: American Indian Art, Literature, and Film from Alcatraz to the NMAI. Here’s a true confession. My copy just arrived this past week so I’ll be reading it before he transits from the University of San Francisco to University of Illinois next week. Pasted in from the University of Texas Press website: From “Sherman Alexie’s films to the poetry and fiction of Louise Erdrich and Leslie Marmon Silko to the paintings of Jaune Quick-To-See Smith and the sculpture of Edgar Heap of Birds, Native American movies, literature, and art have become increasingly influential, garnering critical praise and enjoying mainstream popularity. Recognizing that the time has come for a critical assessment of this exceptional artistic output and its significance to American Indian and American issues, Dean Rader offers the first interdisciplinary examination of how American Indian artists, filmmakers, and writers tell their own stories.”
Dean will also be reading in the Carr Reading Series, September 28, 4:30 p.m. at IUB on the Illinois campus. His first book of extraordinary poems, Work and Days, was winner of the coveted T. S. Eliot prize in poetry 2010. Look for the schedule of events on the Illinois’ Creative Writing website under “Carr Reading Series.” We’re delighted to host him.
Finally, I’m working on a new theater project with playwright and performer Monique Mojica. (Grandma Builds the Fire, Smoke Signals.) We’re working on a new play, Sideshow Freaks and Circus Injuns for which we (six principle investigators/researchers) were funded $238,500 by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines Research/Creation Grants in Fine Arts: November 2010 Competition Awards in Ontario Canada. The project is to research Indigenous knowledge, contemporary performance over the next three years. This past week we trekked across four states and visited mound sites. From mound sites outside of Toronto Canada, our travels took us to Cahokia Mounds, Poverty Point Mounds, Spiral Mounds, and finally Tuskahoma for the Choctaws Labor Day Festival.
Monique Mojica, a cotton field, and Jackson Mound in the distance, Epps, Louisiana.
Of course, once at the Choctaw Nation’s homelands, we hung out with ball players, and visited the Choctaw Museum and gift shop at Tuskahoma.
Always have pen and paper handy.
Above, Monique signs autographs while we talked to Jay Watson, coach of the Chahtas Women’s ball club. The Chahtas were winners of the 2011 Women’s Fastpitch Softball tournament at Red Warrior Park in Tuskahoma. Go Chahtas!
Pitcher for the Chahtas. Winners of the Women's Tournament at Tuskahoma, 2011
Working, writing, working, writing on new play, a new collection of short stories, nearly complete, a memoir, a scholarly book on base and ball, and a new novel. Okay sometimes I am all hat and no cattle, I admit. However, Seeing Red: American Indians and Film will be out next year, fingers crossed, from MSU Press, edited by Harvey Markowitz, Denise Cummings and myself. Whew, that’s all folks.
Beauty in front of me, beauty all around. Beauty in all things. . . achukma.
Short Notice!
On Sunday, March 20, I’ll be giving a talk at Jordan University about my life as an American Indian author, and the craft of creative writing, filmmaking, and poetry. Here’s the notice from UJ.
Later this week, I’ll be posting the fast-pitch softball tourneys for summer in Oklahoma courtesy of Jay Watson. Go Jay! Can’t wait to come to some of the games this summer.
You know. And I know. And all of our friends know. We are all very knowledgeable people *
The ear of Petra
Things are pretty quiet here although since January protests have been ongoing in the ballad [downtown Amman] each Friday after prayers at al-Husseini Mosque. People are angry over the extremely high prices of vegetables, gasoline, heating oil, and many other essentials. Wages are low. As I wrote on FB, the price of sugar in January was five dinars a bag, about $6.70 US dollars. In the last month sugar prices have now come down to 2.99 dinars a bag. Of course, things are more politically complex than just the price of sugar, but the government is working on the problems. Just like in America, middle class people everywhere are scraping by, and just like in America, there’s a wide gap between rich and poor. (Anyone want to talk about Wisconsin?) Just like Americans, people everywhere want good jobs, food on the table, health care, and good educations for their children.
Crimony, watching American politicos and pundits on cable news networks blather about the Middle East is mind numbing. Kinda like watching Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons. For those who’ve never seen the series from Looney Tunes, each episode has Coyote scheming to cause the downfall of his “friend,” Road Runner, (a bird). Over and over Coyote uses flimsy “Acme Corporation” devices to try and trick Road Runner. Same scenario again and again in every cartoon. And right now it seems to me that US politicians use the same weak narrative to try and disguise what they really want from the Arab world . . . See The Palestinian Papers released in January 2011. http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/2011/01/201112214310263628.html.
You know. And I know. And all of our friends know. We are all very knowledgeable people *
Perhaps there’s another analog even more appropriate to this discussion. There’s a nineteenth-century American motto used by Christians and military men alike: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man[1].” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865 If you haven’t read any American Indian history you should. US federal Indian policy is a template for colonizers everywhere. However, American Indian resistance to being colonized is a template that can be used for anyone trying to shake off the chains of colonialism. “Kill the Indian and save the man” is also emblematic of the US policy to control our minds (and our lands) in order to “save us from ourselves.” But for what? And for whom? That’s the 70 billion dollar question the Egyptians are now trying to figure out.
Ah-hum. I have just more thing to say about US politicians before moving on. Here is a special shout out to former Minnesota Republican governor Tim Pawlenty. “Shut up, sir, you don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to Arab peoples.” (Sorry I had to get that off my chest.) Pawlenty’s interview last week with ABC’s Christiane Amanpour really irked me the way he talked about all Arabs as ideologues.
The door is open
Jordanians are hospitable and generous. They’re some of the most patience people I’ve ever met, except for maybe the Lakota, and I should probably include my own tribe, the Choctaws, in these sweeping generalizations. For the most part, Jordanians are kind, even when they’re going through your UPS package at the airport. Recently I had to go pick up a small box of books at the airport. It had been tagged for “search.” I was the only woman in the airport custom’s office, sitting with security officers, UPS and Fed Ex guys, and Muhaberat. Everyone was very professional. Checking international boxes for contraband is routinely done here, and I understand why. So, I had to wait my turn, an hour or so, and eventually three men opened my book box to make sure it was only filled with books. Someone brought in breakfast, and they offered me a falafel sandwich and tea, and I must say even with my bad Arabic, and their good English, we had an excellent exchange about American Indians, tribal sovereignty, Indian fast-pitch softball, and why I teach in Jordan. I know, I know, I may have misread cross-cultural cues going on all around me. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I get it wrong. I did what I always do in these situations, I talked about sports, and soccer, er-r-r, I mean, football. “Go Jordan.” All in all, we exchanged information about our families, and ourselves even in strange places such as a custom’s office. Like I repeatedly say to friends and family, via email: it’s safe here despite what’s going on in other countries in the Middle East and North Africa. And I’m okay. Come visit me. Yeah, I mean it.
A change of point of view.
I’ve also learned that it takes a special wacky personality to want to live in a foreign place where you don’t speak the language or the cultural cues. How to manage it? You must start by replacing all you know. Everything familiar must be broken, remapped, filed away in a coffin of former memories. Living abroad is a brainfire, you burn off the old grasses so new ones can grow. That’s what I’ve been doing these past five months. My guides on this journey are the people of Jordan; the students at Jordan University, friends, bank clerks, pharmacy, and grocery clerks and yes, even the taxi drivers. Inshallah, I learn. I came here to research a novel about the 1917 Arab revolt, and twenty-first century American Indians. At first it may seem like a strange combination to write about Indians and Arabs, but you’ll be surprised. Of course, I’m revising my chapters set in 2011.
PS: The Flamboyant lives. He’s still crowing every fifteen minutes of every day.
PPS: I am not patient.
[Just FYI. My comments here are my own. I am not an official of the Department of State, and this is not an official Department of State website. The views and information presented here are my own, and do not in any way, represent the USA's William J. Fulbright Program, or the Department of State.]
[1] Studying the history of American Indian boarding schools in the US reveals how the federal government and various Christian denominations collaborated to “convert” and “civilize” Indian peoples. Under the mantle of “Kill the Indian, save the Man,” Colonel Richard Pratt founded Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1879 and worked to make manifest turning “us” into “them.”
*Apologies for botching the excellent line from The Lion in Winter.
The Conference of Birds — Take 2
Two Crows Talking, the High Place in Petra
Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:
Rays that have wander’d into Darkness wide
Return and back into your Sun subside[i]
I’ve longed been compelled by The Conference of Birds. Well, that’s putting it mildly. I’ve longed been compelled by birds. I’m not sure why. Probably because of my grandmother, but that’s another story.
In writing my first novel Shell Shaker, 2001, I used lines from The Conference of Birds, that served the plot in a variety of ways. After all these years, I continue to re-read the Sufi poem for poetic language and its dynamic spirituality: that is — what is eternal, (the God, Allah, Yahweh, the Great Spirit, the essence of the universe) is not external or separate, rather it is all that is. The totality of existence. We humans and our world are made of that existence. In the Sufi poem when the thirty birds reach their destination, they see only each other and their reflection in the lake. Hence, they are the ones they have been seeking. All that is — is with them.
Of course, there are many interpretations of The Conference of Birds. I don’t know them all.
“The Parrot longs for immortality”
I bring it up because as I’ve been watching the Egyptian people protest against the 30-year regime of President Hosni Mubarak, I realize that the poem still affects me. So far, all of the colonizing western nations, including the USA, have been wringing their hands saying, “Who will take President Hosni Mubarak’s place should he leave?” Actually, I think they mean, “How can we replace Mubarak with our man when we don’t know who our man is on such short notice?”
At first, I found myself asking similar stupid questions. “Who will lead Egypt?” Then light dawns, “Hey, this is not for me to say. I’m a foreigner living in a neighboring country. Egypt is not my homeland, not even close. The Egyptian people will solve this without outsiders.” So I again re-read the final passages of The Conference of Birds. The 30 birds find, at the end of their journey, only themselves, their reflection. Perhaps it’s the same with the Egyptians. And by extension, all of us. We may find that it’s our own highest selves we seek. I believe, (hope) that the Egyptian people will visualize a new leader for the new era, the twenty-first century. All that we are, all of existence, all atoms, molecules, sub-atomic particles, the vast expanse of space, McDonalds’ french fries, everything was created at once and integrated in us — all through the art of creation. Let’s make the most of it. Together.
Err-r-r, snap! See why I return again and again to The Conference of Birds. We’re separated; we’re connected; we’re separated; we’re connected; which is it?
“Where is the hand to pour dust on my head, Or lift me from the dust where I lie dead? Where is the foot that seeks the longed-for-place?”
There are paradoxes to be considered. Questions to be turned over and over — like our relationship(s) with everything, including the divine. Should we stick to our own bordered enclaves, or should we connect and link our stories? I’m not entirely sure, but here goes:
According to a news story in the Jordan Times, July 2010, Labour Minister Ibrahim Omoush said, “that over 100,000 out of the 338,000 Egyptian workers in the Kingdom do not have valid work or residency permits.” (It costs 400 JD to get a work permit in Jordan. The residency permit costs 69 JD.) I’m not complaining about the fees, I’m in the guest worker category as a Fulbright scholar, and immigration and visa rules are in place for valid reasons. Goodness knows in America we’re ate up with “illegal-alien-immigration” issues, even as Mexicans still do the bulk of the farm work, restaurant and domestic servant work in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. You know, mowing lawns, housekeeping, nannying, picking lettuce and tomatoes, all jobs most Americans refuse to do. According to the same Jordan Times’ article, Egyptian laborers constitute around 70 per cent of all guest workers in Jordan. In that way, Mexicans in the USA are not unlike Egyptians in Jordan. Both countries depend on cheap foreign labor. So we’re linked by our economic self-interests.
In this week’s demonstrations in Tahrir Square it’s clear why Egyptians turn to other countries for work. There are not enough jobs at home. As the most populated Arab country, two-thirds are under age 30, and ninety percent of that age group is unemployed[ii]. But as University of Illinois professor Asef Bayat writes[iii], “At stake is not just jobs and descent material welfare; at stake is also the people’s dignity and pursuit of human and democratic rights. As we have seen so powerfully in Tunisia, the translation of collective dissent into collective action and sustained campaign for change has its own intriguing and often unpredictable dynamics.”
“Being just is better than a life of worship. Justice exercised in secret is even better than liberality; but justice professed openly may lead to hypocrisy” Aaron's Tomb, Petra.
Yet another connection.
In my area of Amman, there are many young Egyptian workers. They’ve come here to work. Most send money home to their families. Sound familiar USA? Today, I paid the monthly utilities bills for my flat. I gave the money to Mohammed (not his real name), the under-thirty-year-old Egyptian who takes care of the building where I live. He speaks very little English, I speak very little Arabic. This morning when he comes to collect the bills, he looks tired and sad. I have the tv on Al Jazeera, watching the events unfold in Tahrir Square. We exchange polite greetings. I ask about his health.
“Keif el saha?”
“Tamam.” Fine.
For a brief second we lock eyes. There’s a glint of a tear. He looks away.
“I am sorry,” I say.
“I go now.” As he’s about to head to the next apartment he turns, “Mubarak go.” He says it firmly so there is no misunderstanding as to what he means, or how he feels.
“Mubarak khallas,” I say. Mubarak finished.
Later, as I watch the continuing media coverage around Egypt, I know that I don’t really know whether Mubarak is finished or not. Since I write mainly for my friends, maybe this story is for you to connect with.
“The journey of the birds takes them through the seven valleys of the quest, love, understanding, independence and detachment, unity, astonishment, and finally poverty and nothingness.”
And as we are told in countless stories, nothingness is everything that is.
[Just FYI. My comments here are my own. I am not an official of the Department of State, and this is not an official Department of State website. The views and information presented here are my own, and do not in any way, represent the USA's William J. Fulbright Program, or the Department of State.]
[i] The Conference of Birds, Farīd ud-Dīn, 1177.
[ii] These figures are disputed by the Egyptian government.
[iii] Professor Bayat teaches in the departmentof Sociology and Middle East Studies at the University of Illinois. His article appears in Truthout. “A New Arab Street in Post-Islamic Times” Wednesday, January 26, 2011. http://www.truth-out.org/a-new-arab-street-post-islamist-times67356
