Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Reflections of Big Sur
Now the fog is burning away and with it the worries. Bars of sunlight puncture the clouds. The ocean appears again, down steep cliffs, with diaphanous wisps of white vapor foam. I study the shore and the coastal stone monoliths of Big Sur and feel a pull deep inside me. Visions from distant memories come flooding back and I know I have visited here before, this place like in dreams, and with my family sleeping soundly, away in their own lands, and me just driving with a thrumming tickly feeling in my guts and heaven all around and the sea and the sea cliffs and the world wide sun god radiant jubilation everywhere; I recall, in fragments, little moments of my life: laughter, singing, dancing, crying, fighting, loving, giving and forgiving and no one can say if it’s right or wrong, not gods not men and the shadows creep back into the deep forest of the redwood giants going where shadows go when they can’t hold their breath any longer…it’s right here, man; it’s not any place else but right here, the big man on the radio says and I pull the car off the road in a little gravel turn-out, lock the doors with no one even stirring; running now, down the embankment, across the rubbery flower vines in the sand, and the orange flowers and the blue flowers crunching under my shoes, running as hard as I can, the ocean with its resplendent astral fabric and shore birds dipping and sand birds scattering and this is exactly a place I have visited before in a causal world of my own creation and as I run, for a moment I am not sure if I really am alive or if I have died and am now running in heaven, free, sublimely free, and filled with love, baby, big love and big freedom, and I am a voyager, a spark of energy in the cerulean landscape of subatomic dynamos, just merging, ever merging, with the space-time-wonder-love-bliss, the whoosh and roar of God out there past the breakers, me running madly skipping with childlike idiot laughter and my lungs alive with the salty refreshing sea-mist explosion of light...I had arrived.
Patience
I hate shopping. Being in a shopping mall or any department store reduces me to a zombie or borderline functioning vegetable. Some people can stay in a store for hours. My mom is one of those people. I have been in a Petco with my mom shopping for six hours. Spending six hours in Petco is not an easy task. It requires much patience. Patience is vital for staying on the path and having faith.
In this busy, fast-paced modern life we lead, sometimes we find ourselves rushing hither and thither so much it’s hard to slow down. I find myself caught up with the, “let’s go, let’s go” attitude, always having to rush off to the next thing or next appointment, new stimulation.
To overcome my impatience I go Zen shopping with my mom. Go into any store with her and she will look at EVERYTHING. She will talk to EVERYONE. She will spend hours searching for that elusive one perfect item that is never easy to find. If you go into a shoe store with her, expect to help her try on every shoe in the store. This is not an exaggeration.
It used to be my mom would ask me to take her shopping and I’d cringe. I always stamped a time frame on it by telling her I had an appointment afterwards to keep us moving along in the store. Now I look forward to her shopping sessions because it is really a massive test for my patience. It’s like a person who has fear of cats being locked in a room with cats for eight days with catnip in their underpants.
The funny part about being in Petco with my mom for six hours was the fact that, when we finally made it to the check out line, all my mom was really getting was dog food for her poodle, Molly! But understand, she didn’t just look at dog food. She looked at all the dogs, the cats, the dog and cat toys, the birds, the fish, the insects and creepy crawlies, the mice, the rats, the bedding, the cups, dishes, dispensers, shampoo, soap, cages, etc. She studied and pondered over twenty-five different types of dog food. She picked the clerk’s brains until there was nothing left to pick.
My mom doesn’t care. When she enters a store her concept of time disappears. She can go into a Wal-Mart, and if someone isn’t there to escort her out, she could be lost for months in there. Like that Japanese soldier on the island in the Pacific after World War Two is over, he has no reference point of time, so forty years after the cease fire, he’s still fighting on.
Time stands still for my mom in a store. It is never the mercenary way of get in, get out. That’s the way I like to handle my shopping. My mom is all about infiltration. Like a spy who has to personally handle every detail and talk to every contact. That’s how she gets the job done.
The other day we went into Trader Joes to get my mom’s special butter. She has to have organic, raw butter that hasn’t been pasteurized, for health reasons.
Four hours later she is leaving with a full shopping cart of food and other items she found along the way.
I am going to recommend my mom hire out her services to people who are impatient, to train them to overcome it. She could make a fortune.
My aunt sent me a gift in the mail the other day. I opened the package and found a bright yellow satin sock with tiny holes in it. Along with the sock was a box of tiny dark sunflower seeds. My aunt informed me this was a “Wild Finch Feed Sock”. My first thought was that my aunt had gone nuts. How were finches going to feed on a sock filled with seeds?
My aunt lives in Northern California and I had only seen and talked to her rarely. I pondered what could have pushed her over the deep end. Maybe some sudden traumatic event? I had no clue but I went along with it.
I assembled the feed sock and hung it from the veranda on my back porch. I watched. I waited. Nothing. The sock just hung there, gently swaying in the breeze. I called my aunt up.
“Hey, what’s the deal with this feed sock thing-a-majigger?”
“You have to be patient,” she reassured me.
“It’s been like a week and I haven’t even seen a single bird sniff around the thing. It’s a sock. I don’t think birds are finding it very appetizing.”
“You just have to be patient.”
“How long do I wait? Maybe I should move it to another spot? Put it in a tree or something.”
“Patience, Jay. They will come.”
If I build it, they will come.
Now I was really thinking my aunt had lost it. There’s no way. Plus, how is the bird going to get the seed out of the sock? Forget it.
“Alright, sounds good. I’ll check it out. Thanks for thinking about me.” Take care. Good bye. Avoid sharp objects.
I forgot about the feed sock, going about the daily rush of activities.
As I was sitting on my floor one afternoon, perusing National Geographic Magazine, I looked outside and couldn’t believe my eyes. I had to blink a few times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.
The yellow feed sock was covered with Goldfinches! They clung to the sides and pecked at the seeds in a bundle of energy and excitement. A blanket of scattered seeds decorated the cement patio directly below the sock. I watched the sock, mesmerized for a good half hour or so. I called my aunt immediately and told her my success.
“Birds! It’s covered with birds! They must have picked up the scent finally.”
“It just takes them a little time to find it.”
“Wow. I’m really impressed. I was thinking you were absolutely nuts. That there was no way birds were gonna feed on this crazy sock.”
“Have patience. You expected instant results.”
I had to admit I did think that the second I strung it up, it would be a feeding frenzy.
In this busy, fast-paced modern life we lead, sometimes we find ourselves rushing hither and thither so much it’s hard to slow down. I find myself caught up with the, “let’s go, let’s go” attitude, always having to rush off to the next thing or next appointment, new stimulation.
To overcome my impatience I go Zen shopping with my mom. Go into any store with her and she will look at EVERYTHING. She will talk to EVERYONE. She will spend hours searching for that elusive one perfect item that is never easy to find. If you go into a shoe store with her, expect to help her try on every shoe in the store. This is not an exaggeration.
It used to be my mom would ask me to take her shopping and I’d cringe. I always stamped a time frame on it by telling her I had an appointment afterwards to keep us moving along in the store. Now I look forward to her shopping sessions because it is really a massive test for my patience. It’s like a person who has fear of cats being locked in a room with cats for eight days with catnip in their underpants.
The funny part about being in Petco with my mom for six hours was the fact that, when we finally made it to the check out line, all my mom was really getting was dog food for her poodle, Molly! But understand, she didn’t just look at dog food. She looked at all the dogs, the cats, the dog and cat toys, the birds, the fish, the insects and creepy crawlies, the mice, the rats, the bedding, the cups, dishes, dispensers, shampoo, soap, cages, etc. She studied and pondered over twenty-five different types of dog food. She picked the clerk’s brains until there was nothing left to pick.
My mom doesn’t care. When she enters a store her concept of time disappears. She can go into a Wal-Mart, and if someone isn’t there to escort her out, she could be lost for months in there. Like that Japanese soldier on the island in the Pacific after World War Two is over, he has no reference point of time, so forty years after the cease fire, he’s still fighting on.
Time stands still for my mom in a store. It is never the mercenary way of get in, get out. That’s the way I like to handle my shopping. My mom is all about infiltration. Like a spy who has to personally handle every detail and talk to every contact. That’s how she gets the job done.
The other day we went into Trader Joes to get my mom’s special butter. She has to have organic, raw butter that hasn’t been pasteurized, for health reasons.
Four hours later she is leaving with a full shopping cart of food and other items she found along the way.
I am going to recommend my mom hire out her services to people who are impatient, to train them to overcome it. She could make a fortune.
My aunt sent me a gift in the mail the other day. I opened the package and found a bright yellow satin sock with tiny holes in it. Along with the sock was a box of tiny dark sunflower seeds. My aunt informed me this was a “Wild Finch Feed Sock”. My first thought was that my aunt had gone nuts. How were finches going to feed on a sock filled with seeds?
My aunt lives in Northern California and I had only seen and talked to her rarely. I pondered what could have pushed her over the deep end. Maybe some sudden traumatic event? I had no clue but I went along with it.
I assembled the feed sock and hung it from the veranda on my back porch. I watched. I waited. Nothing. The sock just hung there, gently swaying in the breeze. I called my aunt up.
“Hey, what’s the deal with this feed sock thing-a-majigger?”
“You have to be patient,” she reassured me.
“It’s been like a week and I haven’t even seen a single bird sniff around the thing. It’s a sock. I don’t think birds are finding it very appetizing.”
“You just have to be patient.”
“How long do I wait? Maybe I should move it to another spot? Put it in a tree or something.”
“Patience, Jay. They will come.”
If I build it, they will come.
Now I was really thinking my aunt had lost it. There’s no way. Plus, how is the bird going to get the seed out of the sock? Forget it.
“Alright, sounds good. I’ll check it out. Thanks for thinking about me.” Take care. Good bye. Avoid sharp objects.
I forgot about the feed sock, going about the daily rush of activities.
As I was sitting on my floor one afternoon, perusing National Geographic Magazine, I looked outside and couldn’t believe my eyes. I had to blink a few times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.
The yellow feed sock was covered with Goldfinches! They clung to the sides and pecked at the seeds in a bundle of energy and excitement. A blanket of scattered seeds decorated the cement patio directly below the sock. I watched the sock, mesmerized for a good half hour or so. I called my aunt immediately and told her my success.
“Birds! It’s covered with birds! They must have picked up the scent finally.”
“It just takes them a little time to find it.”
“Wow. I’m really impressed. I was thinking you were absolutely nuts. That there was no way birds were gonna feed on this crazy sock.”
“Have patience. You expected instant results.”
I had to admit I did think that the second I strung it up, it would be a feeding frenzy.
Waiting For Tom: Birdwalk To Malibu Canyon
Tom Coughlin from the Conejo Valley Audubon society called me the other day. “J-1, you want to see a Vermillion Flycatcher?”
This caught me off guard because I didn’t even remember giving him my phone number or last name. Tom was the guide on the walk to the Saticoy ponds that ended badly with him ruining his knee. Tom was not a friend of mine and I had no idea what would motivate him to call me. I was nervous because Tom scared me. He was a scary guy. It’s just who he was.
“Who is this?” I asked even though I instantly recognized that low, gruff, quasi-macho voice.
“Tom Coughlin. We went on a bird walk excursion to Saticoy Ponds coupla months ago. You gave me your business card.”
“Your knee? Wasn’t it thrashed?”
“Yeah. It’s better now, I put this Tiger Balm stuff on it and keeps it kinda numb so I get around.”
“Are you talking about a birdwalk? Is that why you called?”
“Private quest. This is a rare bird. Very illusive. Very illusive.”
“Is this local?”
“Malibu Canyon. We’ll meet at Burger King at seven thirty. Drive out to the spot. I got a few other people on my list but I thought of you because you and your son are good people.”
My first thought was, he was trying to scam me and sell me something. My second thought was, he was going to assassinate me for having a son who called him a “douche” and an “effin idiot” loud enough for him to hear at the Saticoy ponds bird walk.
“This is a rare deal, man. Vermillion Flycatcher’s a ghost. You see this bird maybe once in your life. It’s a lifebird, definitely.”
This was a Sunday morning and my soccer game would be sacrificed.
“I don’t know, Tom. Sunday’s a tricky day.”
“This will be mythical status, J-1. That’s what we’re talking. People megatick on this bird more than any other because you simply do not see him around. Ever. He’s gotta lay low because of his plumage. You know, kestrals and falcons.”
“Um, yeah, that’s cool but, I actually have plans Sunday morning.”
“No you don’t.” There was a tense pause then he chuckled. “That’s a joke. No sweat, man. You were just at the top of my list. I’ll call somebody else, J-1. Peace.”
He didn’t hang up right away and there was another tense pause for a few seconds. In those few seconds my mind scrambled back to opportunities in my past for growth, renewal, new discoveries that pop up every so often that we either choose to take, or choose to pass. Most of the time we choose to pass because we like to play it safe. I took a chance.
“How long do you think we’ll be there?”
“No longer than a hour, hour and a half, max.”
I parked at Burger King at Los Virgenes Canyon and waited twenty minutes for Tom, as expected. I was there at seven thirty sharp. He was there at ten to eight. I rode in the back seat of his truck. Seated with him was Art, a heavy-set Native American with thick glasses who breathed really loudly. I figured if I was going to get whacked, Art was the shovel man.
“Art’s one quarter Pawnee. His great grandpa fought with Geronimo.”
“I thought Geronimo was Apache?”
“That’s correct but his grandpa joined up with him. Isn’t that right, Art?” Art just grunted. He didn’t say much and when he did, it was in a monotone, gruff voice that seemed rarely used.
“You sure this bird’s gonna be there? The Flycatcher?”
“Vermillion Flycatcher. He’ll be there. Art’s got a good eye for ‘em. You tell him any bird and he’ll take you right to it. Spot ‘em a mile away.” I looked at Art’s reflection in the sun visor mirror. His glasses were thick as Coke bottles. I wasn’t sure if he could spot the end of his nose. Art shakily lit a cigarette and rolled the window down. The wooded canyons and open grasslands of Malibu Canyon flowed by. Curious, ornate white towers of the Hindu Temple loomed through the trees. We parked in the lot.
“Why are we at the Hindu Temple?”
“This is it.”
I was just here a few months back with my guru so it was familiar territory. I hadn’t remembered any Vermillion Flycatchers on my previous visit though.
Tom parked his truck beside an older Toyota with an angry-looking, frumpish woman leaning against her hood. A young girl balanced on the curb nearby.
“Thank you,” the plain woman said testily and jumped in her car, tires shrilling.
The little girl was left blinking with uncertainty toward us.
“Sosh, you bring another pair of shoes?” She shook her head. “All you got are sandals?”
The girl nodded, glancing at the rubber sandals on her feet. “I’m gonna kill your mother. I told her six god damn times. I had her repeat it back to me. HEY JENNIFER! JENNIFER!” Tom bellowed at the top of his lungs while the banged up Toyota cruised to the bottom of the lot, waiting to pull onto the side street. His voice echoed across the grounds of the temple. I noticed shocked devotees, turn abruptly, startled by his voice, as if it was the disembodied voice of a wrathful God.
The Toyota shrilled into the street and was gone.
“She heard me. You see that? She even looked back. Classic,” Tom laughed scornfully, shaking his head. The little girl sat on the curb examining a Happy Meal robot. Tom gathered his things from the back of the truck, binoculars, scope, backpack, bottled water. He gave a pair of binoculars to the little girl who just stared at them looking bored and puzzled.
“Sasha, you remember Art and this is J-1,” Tom said.
I wanted to say, “Sasha, run, as fast as you can. Into the woods and live with the wolves. You’ll be much better off.” I offered my hand for her to high-five. She didn’t understand.
“I hope the big priest isn’t here,” Art groaned.
“Doesn’t matter. This is zoned for the public which means he has to let us in there. This isn’t Pakistan.”
“He got real mad last time, Tom.” Art said in a high-pitched voice that seemed to get higher and higher, his cheeks patchy red with fear.
“I’ll handle it. Relax and move on.”
Famous last words. Art groaned again, taking a sip of water from a canteen. He didn’t bring any equipment, no scope, no binoculars, no field guide, nothing. He wore Kung Fu slippers, the kind Asians wear in martial arts movies.
“Maybe we should look someplace else?” I said wishing mightily I had gone to my Sunday morning soccer game.
“What kind of bird are you looking for, dad?” Sasha asked.
“Vermillion Flycatcher. It’s a life bird,” Tom answered.
“What’s a life bird?”
“A bird you only see once or twice in your life.”
We started up the flight of stairs to the upper level of the temple. Tom led the way. An old Indian woman in a red sari took Tom by the sleeve and pointed to his shoes.
“We’re not really here to pray, we’re looking for a bird.”
The old woman pointed a stern finger to rows of shoes lining the sidewalk.
“Alright, alright,” Tom growled and kicked off his tennis shoes. Sasha and I followed suit. Tom wore no socks with his tennis shoes and the odor wafted up spoiling the morning air. “Dang, that’s a stink bomb right there. That’ll chase off evil spirits.” Sasha giggled and held her nose.
At each corner of the square were alters to different deities within the Hindu pantheon along with a central sanctuary housing the statue of the creator God, Krishna. Tom explained that the Vermillion Flycatcher nested in a crack under the eves of the central sanctuary. One time the bird had flown inside the sanctuary and some of the priests deemed it sacred and brought it seeds and sugar water. I kept my head down feeling like we were violating the sanctity of this holy place. My other feeling was that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, we would not be seeing the illusive Vermillion Flycatcher today and this would end being a colossal waste of time. You could just look at Tom and know this to be the case. I knew it wasn’t going to happen as we were driving here. I knew it wasn’t going to happen the second he called me. I glanced at my cell phone and realized, if I rushed home right now, I could probably catch the second half of my soccer game.
Art’s pudgy, unclipped toes poked out of the holes in his socks.
“Shoulda remembered to wear the socks with no holes,” he grumbled.
We tracked Tom as he ambled in clockwise circles around each deity stationed in the corners of the square.
“Make it look like we’re here to worship then they’ll leave us alone,” Tom said confidingly.
“This place is cool. Can we go here instead of your normal boring church?” said Sasha.
“These are heathen gods. You believe in your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Sash.”
“I do?”
“Of course you do.”
“Isn’t it all the same though?” asked Sasha.
“No. Hindus believe in lots of gods and we believe in just one.”
“Isn’t Jesus a god and then there’s the Virgin Mary, she’s a god. And what about God the Father? He’s a god too…” Sasha was getting confused and so was I.
“Yeah. You’re right but these people believe there’s a lot more gods. Like ten or something.”
“Ten gods?”
“Something like that.”
Sasha stopped and counted them out. “I only see seven.”
“That’s more than three.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter. They have a whole bunch of gods. We have a few. End of story.”
Tom led us into the main altar that housed the great statue of Krishna. As we entered furtively, we noticed a shirtless, muscular priest talking loudly on a phone in Hindi at a desk only a few meters from the altar. No one else was in the sanctuary.
“Which god is this, dad?”
“That’s like their main god. You know, the head honcho god. Kinda like the Jesus for Indians.”
“The sanctuary is closed for renovations. I am sorry,” the heavily accented priest said, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece.
“Oh, actually we just came to see the flycatcher.”
“I don’t know about that but you can’t be in here. The lower Vishnu sanctuary is open. Thank you.”
“Listen,” Tom took the priest aside, “I brought these people to see the bird that was nesting here. These are ‘special needs people’,” Tom said trying to feign discreetness with the priest but he wasn’t buying. My stomach clenched at thought of me being implicated in this deception which was compounded by the fact that we stood on holy ground.
“That bird went away.”
“You didn’t kill it, did you?”
“No. It flew out. Please excuse me.”
“Prajeet said he was cool with us being in here.”
“I don’t know Prajeet. There is no Prajeet here.”
“Yeah, he was a little priest, a little Indian priest, black hair, dark skin. Prajeet. That’s his name.”
“Prajeet isn’t here. Can you please leave now or I will call security.”
Outside we waited on the steps as Tom disappeared in the lower temple looking for a supervisor. Tom was gone for a long time.
Art finally sat down on the steps and slipped on his shoes, lighting another cigarette. Sasha danced around the steps, singing to herself then growing bored and sitting down beside Art. I watched them for a moment and wondered what the hell I was doing with these two complete strangers at a Hindu temple on a Sunday morning away from my friends and family. I glanced at my cell phone. There was no way to make the game now. I grew very angry and impatient. I was also angry at Art and Sasha for letting themselves get suckered into this wild goose chase but more than anything I was angry at Tom for wasting all of our precious time. I paced. I kicked the stairs. I threw a rock into the woods. I sat down beside Art, Sasha on the other side.
No one knew what to say. There was an awkward silence. I looked at Sasha who picked at a hang nail on her big toe. I looked at Art who stared vacuously into the woods, the smoke from his cigarette stinging my throat.
“This is b.s., man,” I finally blurted.
“Yep.”
“I gotta get goin’. I got stuff to do today,” I said.
“Yep.”
“What am I doing here on a Sunday morning? What are any of us doing here? Where the heck is he?”
“Don’t know.”
“He’s been gone for like fifteen minutes. What’s he doing?”
“Don’t know.”
“Jeez, man.”
I stood up and pulled out my cell phone and dialed my wife’s number to come and pick me up. She would be angry because I forfeited church and family for a Sunday birdwalk with strangers in Malibu.
“I went and I returned. It was nothing special,” Art said languidly and I wasn’t sure he was talking to me or Sasha. I looked at him and realized he was directing the question toward me.
“What?”
“You wanted excitement but it was nothing special.”
“Uh, okay. I’m actually gonna call my wife and have her pick me up.”
“I went to Yosemite to see El Capitan and the Merced River.”
“Cool,” I said hitting “send” on my cell phone and waiting for my wife’s phone to ring.
“But it was just a mountain and a river.”
Art ground out his cigarette on the steps and dug some sunflower seeds out of his pocket.
“Sunflower seed?”
I shook my head. They didn’t look very appetizing, mixed with dust and pocket lint. He began peeling one with his teeth.
“You wanted excitement and something special but it wasn’t.”
Now he was stating the obvious. I listened as my wife’s cell phone went straight to voice mail and remembered they were probably in mass by now.
“And your point is?” I wasn’t trying to be mean but really didn’t care about affability any longer.
Sasha took a handful of sunflower seeds. They were both peeling them with their teeth now.
“Don’t really need to do anything or be anything or say anything,” he explained in monotone, spitting a sunflower shell on the steps.
“I don’t get it. Sorry, I’m slow.”
“You don’t have to be president of America or win an academy award to feel like you’re accomplishing something.”
“But in terms of enriching my life or learning something or feeling like I spent my time well…”
“When you’re hungry, eat. When you’re sleepy, sleep. And when you need to go to the bathroom…”
“Just go?” said Sasha with a squinty smile.
“Bingo,” he said and tried to spit a shell but it got caught on the end of his tongue.
“Well, I’d kinda like to be home with my family Sunday morning as opposed to sitting on the steps of a Hindu Temple in Malibu waiting for someone I barely know to lead me to something that doesn’t exist,” I said testily.
“Why?”
“That’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘why’?”
“Because you don’t see that this is really you. There is no place you really should be but on the steps of this Hindu Temple, waiting for Tom,” he said picking another shell off his tongue and flicking it on the stairs.
“But I’d definitely rather be home or doing something for myself.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I just would.”
“Well, that makes sense then.”
Sasha spit a shell that landed on Art’s Kung Fu slipper. She giggled and kicked it off. He didn’t seem to notice.
There was another long pause.
“Why birds?” I said. “Why do we look at birds? Are we retarded or something?”
“Why not?” he said dully, chewing the seed.
“I thought I was looking for something profound, or maybe I was trying to make some kind of connection, you know with nature, the soul, new people…” I said, softening.
“Sure.”
“But I didn’t.”
“It’s all right in here.” He tapped his forehead with his pudgy index finger.
“I was getting caught up in what I was striving for that might bring relief, inner peace…shit, I don’t know.”
“No suffering required,” he said pointing to the back of a Mazda with a bumper sticker that read, No Suffering Required.
“Why do you watch birds?”
“I don’t. I just came with Tom.”
I did a triple take.
“But he said you were like the bird master. You could locate any bird. Anywhere.”
“He just said that to make you more interested. I don’t care too much for birds, personally.”
I felt my face flush with anger. At that moment Sasha leaped up and ran to Tom who was marching angrily across the plaza. She hugged him and he kept coming toward us, clearly unhappy.
“Change of plans. We’re going to Malibu lagoon.”
“What about the Vermillion Flycatcher?” I said taken aback.
Tom quickly slapped on his Air Jordans.
“Not here. I found Prajeet who’s like the janitor not a priest. He said the Flycatcher flew off like eight months ago which is a total lie but what the heck.”
“So no Vermillion Flycatcher?”
“Cerulean Warbler.”
“What?” I asked, feeling the sudden urge to hurl myself down a long flight of stairs.
“Cerulean Warbler. Very rare. It’ll be extinct in ten years. Numbers are down because their habitat is shrinking...old growth forests.”
“That’s great but I need…”
“Saw one up in Big Sur. It was a vagrant but definitely a life bird.”
“What’s a life bird?” Sasha asked again.
“I told you already.”
Sasha repeated her father’s words mockingly. He didn’t notice or pretended not to.
“Um, yeah, how long do you think it’s going to take because I have to get back home?” I asked.
“Another fifteen, twenty minutes. Thirty, tops.”
“Uh, where’s the old growth forest?”
“Not far.”
“How do we know we’re even going to see a Cerulean Warbler?”
“It’s guaranteed.”
Art glanced at me with a cocked eyebrow that translated, “Don’t hold your breath.”
I sat on the steps for a moment and watched Art lumber behind Tom who draped an arm over Sasha’s shoulder, still clinging to him. They got to the truck and Tom began packing his gear. Sasha danced and Art lit a cigarette.
I went and I returned. It was nothing special.
This caught me off guard because I didn’t even remember giving him my phone number or last name. Tom was the guide on the walk to the Saticoy ponds that ended badly with him ruining his knee. Tom was not a friend of mine and I had no idea what would motivate him to call me. I was nervous because Tom scared me. He was a scary guy. It’s just who he was.
“Who is this?” I asked even though I instantly recognized that low, gruff, quasi-macho voice.
“Tom Coughlin. We went on a bird walk excursion to Saticoy Ponds coupla months ago. You gave me your business card.”
“Your knee? Wasn’t it thrashed?”
“Yeah. It’s better now, I put this Tiger Balm stuff on it and keeps it kinda numb so I get around.”
“Are you talking about a birdwalk? Is that why you called?”
“Private quest. This is a rare bird. Very illusive. Very illusive.”
“Is this local?”
“Malibu Canyon. We’ll meet at Burger King at seven thirty. Drive out to the spot. I got a few other people on my list but I thought of you because you and your son are good people.”
My first thought was, he was trying to scam me and sell me something. My second thought was, he was going to assassinate me for having a son who called him a “douche” and an “effin idiot” loud enough for him to hear at the Saticoy ponds bird walk.
“This is a rare deal, man. Vermillion Flycatcher’s a ghost. You see this bird maybe once in your life. It’s a lifebird, definitely.”
This was a Sunday morning and my soccer game would be sacrificed.
“I don’t know, Tom. Sunday’s a tricky day.”
“This will be mythical status, J-1. That’s what we’re talking. People megatick on this bird more than any other because you simply do not see him around. Ever. He’s gotta lay low because of his plumage. You know, kestrals and falcons.”
“Um, yeah, that’s cool but, I actually have plans Sunday morning.”
“No you don’t.” There was a tense pause then he chuckled. “That’s a joke. No sweat, man. You were just at the top of my list. I’ll call somebody else, J-1. Peace.”
He didn’t hang up right away and there was another tense pause for a few seconds. In those few seconds my mind scrambled back to opportunities in my past for growth, renewal, new discoveries that pop up every so often that we either choose to take, or choose to pass. Most of the time we choose to pass because we like to play it safe. I took a chance.
“How long do you think we’ll be there?”
“No longer than a hour, hour and a half, max.”
I parked at Burger King at Los Virgenes Canyon and waited twenty minutes for Tom, as expected. I was there at seven thirty sharp. He was there at ten to eight. I rode in the back seat of his truck. Seated with him was Art, a heavy-set Native American with thick glasses who breathed really loudly. I figured if I was going to get whacked, Art was the shovel man.
“Art’s one quarter Pawnee. His great grandpa fought with Geronimo.”
“I thought Geronimo was Apache?”
“That’s correct but his grandpa joined up with him. Isn’t that right, Art?” Art just grunted. He didn’t say much and when he did, it was in a monotone, gruff voice that seemed rarely used.
“You sure this bird’s gonna be there? The Flycatcher?”
“Vermillion Flycatcher. He’ll be there. Art’s got a good eye for ‘em. You tell him any bird and he’ll take you right to it. Spot ‘em a mile away.” I looked at Art’s reflection in the sun visor mirror. His glasses were thick as Coke bottles. I wasn’t sure if he could spot the end of his nose. Art shakily lit a cigarette and rolled the window down. The wooded canyons and open grasslands of Malibu Canyon flowed by. Curious, ornate white towers of the Hindu Temple loomed through the trees. We parked in the lot.
“Why are we at the Hindu Temple?”
“This is it.”
I was just here a few months back with my guru so it was familiar territory. I hadn’t remembered any Vermillion Flycatchers on my previous visit though.
Tom parked his truck beside an older Toyota with an angry-looking, frumpish woman leaning against her hood. A young girl balanced on the curb nearby.
“Thank you,” the plain woman said testily and jumped in her car, tires shrilling.
The little girl was left blinking with uncertainty toward us.
“Sosh, you bring another pair of shoes?” She shook her head. “All you got are sandals?”
The girl nodded, glancing at the rubber sandals on her feet. “I’m gonna kill your mother. I told her six god damn times. I had her repeat it back to me. HEY JENNIFER! JENNIFER!” Tom bellowed at the top of his lungs while the banged up Toyota cruised to the bottom of the lot, waiting to pull onto the side street. His voice echoed across the grounds of the temple. I noticed shocked devotees, turn abruptly, startled by his voice, as if it was the disembodied voice of a wrathful God.
The Toyota shrilled into the street and was gone.
“She heard me. You see that? She even looked back. Classic,” Tom laughed scornfully, shaking his head. The little girl sat on the curb examining a Happy Meal robot. Tom gathered his things from the back of the truck, binoculars, scope, backpack, bottled water. He gave a pair of binoculars to the little girl who just stared at them looking bored and puzzled.
“Sasha, you remember Art and this is J-1,” Tom said.
I wanted to say, “Sasha, run, as fast as you can. Into the woods and live with the wolves. You’ll be much better off.” I offered my hand for her to high-five. She didn’t understand.
“I hope the big priest isn’t here,” Art groaned.
“Doesn’t matter. This is zoned for the public which means he has to let us in there. This isn’t Pakistan.”
“He got real mad last time, Tom.” Art said in a high-pitched voice that seemed to get higher and higher, his cheeks patchy red with fear.
“I’ll handle it. Relax and move on.”
Famous last words. Art groaned again, taking a sip of water from a canteen. He didn’t bring any equipment, no scope, no binoculars, no field guide, nothing. He wore Kung Fu slippers, the kind Asians wear in martial arts movies.
“Maybe we should look someplace else?” I said wishing mightily I had gone to my Sunday morning soccer game.
“What kind of bird are you looking for, dad?” Sasha asked.
“Vermillion Flycatcher. It’s a life bird,” Tom answered.
“What’s a life bird?”
“A bird you only see once or twice in your life.”
We started up the flight of stairs to the upper level of the temple. Tom led the way. An old Indian woman in a red sari took Tom by the sleeve and pointed to his shoes.
“We’re not really here to pray, we’re looking for a bird.”
The old woman pointed a stern finger to rows of shoes lining the sidewalk.
“Alright, alright,” Tom growled and kicked off his tennis shoes. Sasha and I followed suit. Tom wore no socks with his tennis shoes and the odor wafted up spoiling the morning air. “Dang, that’s a stink bomb right there. That’ll chase off evil spirits.” Sasha giggled and held her nose.
At each corner of the square were alters to different deities within the Hindu pantheon along with a central sanctuary housing the statue of the creator God, Krishna. Tom explained that the Vermillion Flycatcher nested in a crack under the eves of the central sanctuary. One time the bird had flown inside the sanctuary and some of the priests deemed it sacred and brought it seeds and sugar water. I kept my head down feeling like we were violating the sanctity of this holy place. My other feeling was that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, we would not be seeing the illusive Vermillion Flycatcher today and this would end being a colossal waste of time. You could just look at Tom and know this to be the case. I knew it wasn’t going to happen as we were driving here. I knew it wasn’t going to happen the second he called me. I glanced at my cell phone and realized, if I rushed home right now, I could probably catch the second half of my soccer game.
Art’s pudgy, unclipped toes poked out of the holes in his socks.
“Shoulda remembered to wear the socks with no holes,” he grumbled.
We tracked Tom as he ambled in clockwise circles around each deity stationed in the corners of the square.
“Make it look like we’re here to worship then they’ll leave us alone,” Tom said confidingly.
“This place is cool. Can we go here instead of your normal boring church?” said Sasha.
“These are heathen gods. You believe in your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Sash.”
“I do?”
“Of course you do.”
“Isn’t it all the same though?” asked Sasha.
“No. Hindus believe in lots of gods and we believe in just one.”
“Isn’t Jesus a god and then there’s the Virgin Mary, she’s a god. And what about God the Father? He’s a god too…” Sasha was getting confused and so was I.
“Yeah. You’re right but these people believe there’s a lot more gods. Like ten or something.”
“Ten gods?”
“Something like that.”
Sasha stopped and counted them out. “I only see seven.”
“That’s more than three.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter. They have a whole bunch of gods. We have a few. End of story.”
Tom led us into the main altar that housed the great statue of Krishna. As we entered furtively, we noticed a shirtless, muscular priest talking loudly on a phone in Hindi at a desk only a few meters from the altar. No one else was in the sanctuary.
“Which god is this, dad?”
“That’s like their main god. You know, the head honcho god. Kinda like the Jesus for Indians.”
“The sanctuary is closed for renovations. I am sorry,” the heavily accented priest said, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece.
“Oh, actually we just came to see the flycatcher.”
“I don’t know about that but you can’t be in here. The lower Vishnu sanctuary is open. Thank you.”
“Listen,” Tom took the priest aside, “I brought these people to see the bird that was nesting here. These are ‘special needs people’,” Tom said trying to feign discreetness with the priest but he wasn’t buying. My stomach clenched at thought of me being implicated in this deception which was compounded by the fact that we stood on holy ground.
“That bird went away.”
“You didn’t kill it, did you?”
“No. It flew out. Please excuse me.”
“Prajeet said he was cool with us being in here.”
“I don’t know Prajeet. There is no Prajeet here.”
“Yeah, he was a little priest, a little Indian priest, black hair, dark skin. Prajeet. That’s his name.”
“Prajeet isn’t here. Can you please leave now or I will call security.”
Outside we waited on the steps as Tom disappeared in the lower temple looking for a supervisor. Tom was gone for a long time.
Art finally sat down on the steps and slipped on his shoes, lighting another cigarette. Sasha danced around the steps, singing to herself then growing bored and sitting down beside Art. I watched them for a moment and wondered what the hell I was doing with these two complete strangers at a Hindu temple on a Sunday morning away from my friends and family. I glanced at my cell phone. There was no way to make the game now. I grew very angry and impatient. I was also angry at Art and Sasha for letting themselves get suckered into this wild goose chase but more than anything I was angry at Tom for wasting all of our precious time. I paced. I kicked the stairs. I threw a rock into the woods. I sat down beside Art, Sasha on the other side.
No one knew what to say. There was an awkward silence. I looked at Sasha who picked at a hang nail on her big toe. I looked at Art who stared vacuously into the woods, the smoke from his cigarette stinging my throat.
“This is b.s., man,” I finally blurted.
“Yep.”
“I gotta get goin’. I got stuff to do today,” I said.
“Yep.”
“What am I doing here on a Sunday morning? What are any of us doing here? Where the heck is he?”
“Don’t know.”
“He’s been gone for like fifteen minutes. What’s he doing?”
“Don’t know.”
“Jeez, man.”
I stood up and pulled out my cell phone and dialed my wife’s number to come and pick me up. She would be angry because I forfeited church and family for a Sunday birdwalk with strangers in Malibu.
“I went and I returned. It was nothing special,” Art said languidly and I wasn’t sure he was talking to me or Sasha. I looked at him and realized he was directing the question toward me.
“What?”
“You wanted excitement but it was nothing special.”
“Uh, okay. I’m actually gonna call my wife and have her pick me up.”
“I went to Yosemite to see El Capitan and the Merced River.”
“Cool,” I said hitting “send” on my cell phone and waiting for my wife’s phone to ring.
“But it was just a mountain and a river.”
Art ground out his cigarette on the steps and dug some sunflower seeds out of his pocket.
“Sunflower seed?”
I shook my head. They didn’t look very appetizing, mixed with dust and pocket lint. He began peeling one with his teeth.
“You wanted excitement and something special but it wasn’t.”
Now he was stating the obvious. I listened as my wife’s cell phone went straight to voice mail and remembered they were probably in mass by now.
“And your point is?” I wasn’t trying to be mean but really didn’t care about affability any longer.
Sasha took a handful of sunflower seeds. They were both peeling them with their teeth now.
“Don’t really need to do anything or be anything or say anything,” he explained in monotone, spitting a sunflower shell on the steps.
“I don’t get it. Sorry, I’m slow.”
“You don’t have to be president of America or win an academy award to feel like you’re accomplishing something.”
“But in terms of enriching my life or learning something or feeling like I spent my time well…”
“When you’re hungry, eat. When you’re sleepy, sleep. And when you need to go to the bathroom…”
“Just go?” said Sasha with a squinty smile.
“Bingo,” he said and tried to spit a shell but it got caught on the end of his tongue.
“Well, I’d kinda like to be home with my family Sunday morning as opposed to sitting on the steps of a Hindu Temple in Malibu waiting for someone I barely know to lead me to something that doesn’t exist,” I said testily.
“Why?”
“That’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘why’?”
“Because you don’t see that this is really you. There is no place you really should be but on the steps of this Hindu Temple, waiting for Tom,” he said picking another shell off his tongue and flicking it on the stairs.
“But I’d definitely rather be home or doing something for myself.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I just would.”
“Well, that makes sense then.”
Sasha spit a shell that landed on Art’s Kung Fu slipper. She giggled and kicked it off. He didn’t seem to notice.
There was another long pause.
“Why birds?” I said. “Why do we look at birds? Are we retarded or something?”
“Why not?” he said dully, chewing the seed.
“I thought I was looking for something profound, or maybe I was trying to make some kind of connection, you know with nature, the soul, new people…” I said, softening.
“Sure.”
“But I didn’t.”
“It’s all right in here.” He tapped his forehead with his pudgy index finger.
“I was getting caught up in what I was striving for that might bring relief, inner peace…shit, I don’t know.”
“No suffering required,” he said pointing to the back of a Mazda with a bumper sticker that read, No Suffering Required.
“Why do you watch birds?”
“I don’t. I just came with Tom.”
I did a triple take.
“But he said you were like the bird master. You could locate any bird. Anywhere.”
“He just said that to make you more interested. I don’t care too much for birds, personally.”
I felt my face flush with anger. At that moment Sasha leaped up and ran to Tom who was marching angrily across the plaza. She hugged him and he kept coming toward us, clearly unhappy.
“Change of plans. We’re going to Malibu lagoon.”
“What about the Vermillion Flycatcher?” I said taken aback.
Tom quickly slapped on his Air Jordans.
“Not here. I found Prajeet who’s like the janitor not a priest. He said the Flycatcher flew off like eight months ago which is a total lie but what the heck.”
“So no Vermillion Flycatcher?”
“Cerulean Warbler.”
“What?” I asked, feeling the sudden urge to hurl myself down a long flight of stairs.
“Cerulean Warbler. Very rare. It’ll be extinct in ten years. Numbers are down because their habitat is shrinking...old growth forests.”
“That’s great but I need…”
“Saw one up in Big Sur. It was a vagrant but definitely a life bird.”
“What’s a life bird?” Sasha asked again.
“I told you already.”
Sasha repeated her father’s words mockingly. He didn’t notice or pretended not to.
“Um, yeah, how long do you think it’s going to take because I have to get back home?” I asked.
“Another fifteen, twenty minutes. Thirty, tops.”
“Uh, where’s the old growth forest?”
“Not far.”
“How do we know we’re even going to see a Cerulean Warbler?”
“It’s guaranteed.”
Art glanced at me with a cocked eyebrow that translated, “Don’t hold your breath.”
I sat on the steps for a moment and watched Art lumber behind Tom who draped an arm over Sasha’s shoulder, still clinging to him. They got to the truck and Tom began packing his gear. Sasha danced and Art lit a cigarette.
I went and I returned. It was nothing special.
A Near Death Experience
A billion and a half heartbeats. That’s all we get. It seems like such a short time. Think about how many heartbeats you have already had. A million or so? Ten, twenty million? A couple hundred million more and your time here will be drawing to a close.
They always say “beware what you wish for.” Not long after the incident on the mount, I almost died. This was after my wife had gone through the grueling chemo and radiation therapy and was well and clear of her cancer and my son was older and my second child, my daughter, was born.
To stay in shape, I was playing indoor soccer at a local stadium. I am hyper by nature and love competition and any kind of athletic challenge. Indoor soccer can be a violent game, depending on the skill level, and I found myself shoulder to shoulder with high school and college guys every week who wanted to slaughter me. It got to the point where every week I’d come home with a new injury.
During a particularly violent and heated game, running full out, I went hard for a ball and was “body checked” from behind against the barrier, my chest striking the corner of the door to the substitution area that was left open, perfectly level to where my heart is, with the full force of body weight going top speed, behind the blow. Imagine running as fast as you can and someone pushes you from behind into the corner of a table which strikes you dead center in the chest. That is basically what happened. A freak accident.
When adrenaline is rushing through your body, you often don’t notice the extent of your injury until after you have cooled down.
I felt a pain in my chest and just figured it was bruised or cracked ribs, which I have suffered on numerous occasions. Having this injury can cause pain when you simply breathe or turn your hips.
When I arrived home later that night, the pain in the center of my chest grew sharper, like a cramp, and I felt tingling in my left arm, like it was going numb. I tried to inhale deeply but was unable to regain my normal breathing rate.
I took a hot shower to relax my overstrained muscles but nothing seemed to make the cramping in my chest subside. It came in waves. Lightly, then more intense. My labored breathing grew worse. I looked at my face in the mirror and the color was gone from my cheeks. I felt my ribs and sternum for external bruising but the pain was deep inside my chest.
I laid down on my bed and tried to read a book. My wife thought it was strange because I usually retire around one a.m. and it was not even nine thirty. I told her I was just tired and she didn’t think twice about it.
I didn’t really know anything about heart attacks and was only in my early thirties and in relatively good health. I was not overweight. I didn’t eat poorly, smoke or take drugs. How could I be having a heart attack? I had heard reports of athletes dying from heavy blows to the chest by things like softballs, baseballs, knees, a fist, but couldn’t comprehend this actually happening to me in something as innocuous as a recreational indoor soccer game.
I didn’t mention it to my wife at the time because I didn’t want to worry her. With her having recently gone through the trauma of cancer, I didn’t want to cause her any undo stress.
As I lay there, unable to sleep or breathe normally, the stabbing pain in my chest only became worse, I began to grow very concerned. Again I was at a place in my life where I grew depressed quite easily and things were just not going very well. Our finances were strained, my marriage was tenuous, I had suffered a series of professional setbacks, and this sense of darkness and general despair had contributed to a strained relationship with God. I really felt, deep down, that if this was a heart attack, then it was my time to go. God had elected this moment and method for me to pass on. And I really felt like maybe it was the only solution out of my misery. I didn’t want to mention it to anyone. I wanted to ride it out and go peacefully.
It crossed my mind to go into a panic and tell my wife to call an ambulance, but at the time, we had no health insurance to pay for it and were just scraping by as it was.
I found myself drifting in and out of consciousness, struggling with the pain in my chest. I tried to catch my breath but I could not. I was on the verge of hyperventilating. I tried standing and sucking deep breaths, but the pain grew worse. Then when I lay flat on my back again, I still had trouble breathing.
It was here that the dreadful feeling of my tenuous mortality hit me head on. I felt like I was actually about to cease to exist.
Dying or believing you are going to die hits you hard. It is inconceivable. It is a big-time reality check. It literally takes you out of your body and you step back and say to yourself, “Wait a second. I might actually die here. I might actually not be around anymore.”
I began to feel this incredible sense of losing all control, like a baby, I felt absolutely helpless.
I suddenly needed to grasp all these things in my life that brought me meaning and gave me identity, purpose, comfort, definition, security: my family; my friends; my possessions; my work; my beliefs; my dreams...but they were all slipping away like sands in an hour glass.
I felt connected to this earth by a thin line that was unraveling and spiraling off into infinity.
The inconceivable, unimaginable, horrifying thought of dying chilled me to the marrow.
Could it really be possible that this human being that was me, everything I was, this world and all that I knew, was no longer going to be here? Everything I ever was and everything I might have ever been -- gone. It’s a truly terrifying thought and one can only remotely envision what it’s like to stare directly into the smoldering eyes of death, without experiencing it firsthand.
All I could do was focus on my breathing. In my training in Zen, you are taught methods of controlling anger and stress through controlling your breath. I just tried to take long deep breaths and focus only on my breathing.
I prayed deeply to turn my will over to a Higher Power and let him take me if he must. I also prayed to let go of this little insignificant life that I had called Jay Nuzum, like a feather in the wind.
I saw the face of Jesus. He appeared to me like a vision, as I sank deeper and deeper into myself. He was hovering over the water as I drifted out in a little, run- down boat with gossamer, potato paper sail. The boat didn’t seem like it was seaworthy one bit. I was far out to sea, no land in sight.
I spoke to Jesus matter-of-factly, the blinding sunshine burning my eyes, reflected off the placid water.
“This is it, isn’t it?”
“It appears so.”
“I’m ready, God.”
“Are you?”
“If this is the time you have selected for me, then so be it. I accept.”
“What about those you leave behind?”
“That’s what hurts the most, knowing they’re going to be sad.”
“They’ll get over it.”
Jesus wasn’t being very supportive.
“Are you sure they’ll get over it? They won’t be too freaked out?”
“People are strong. They forget. Move on.”
“I’m sorry,” I began repeating this, over and over, flooded with emotion. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”
“Why are you so sorry?
“Because I messed up. I was lazy. I gave in to sin and temptation. I didn’t love my family enough. I didn’t love you enough. I didn’t work hard enough.”
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”
“No. I am trying to accept my failings and apologize to you.”
“You don’t need to.”
“Are you sure? I feel like I have offended you by my actions and my thoughts and a whole bunch of things.”
“I am never offended by you. How could I be? We’re one in the same.”
I was growing confused.
“How are we one in the same? You’re Jesus and I’m a small and insignificant person down on earth.”
“Don’t you realize that you and I are indivisible?“
“How do you figure?”
“There are no myriad forms, in the true nature of things. Just One.”
The whole concept of a heaven and earth and hell flashed across my mind. What about the idea of God sitting in heaven, looking down on his children of earth? And the lost, dark souls who ended up in that other place? The bad place, for eternity?
“There is no bad place for eternity. It’s all good.”
It’s all good? Did I just hear Jesus Christ tell me, “It’s all good”?
I thought for a moment about it and I heard a small voice in the back of my head: “Yes, I did.”
“I have so many more questions I need to ask you.”
“Sit in silence. Listen to your heart. Get in touch deeply with yourself and you will find all the answers.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Eventually everyone does. You are no different.”
“What if I’m not as smart as everyone; don’t have the talent, the drive, ambition, all that other stuff?”
“You too will have an awakening.”
“Like when I went to Boney Mountain to die and closed my eyes and saw something I had never seen before.”
“What you saw was only yourself.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You will not find the answers anywhere but within.”
“Did I offend you by wanting to end my own life?”
“I was sad because you are not really ending anything, the pain, the sorrow, the perceived bad luck. You’re only changing your scenery.”
My little boat lifted and swayed on the swells. The flimsy potato paper sail flapped gently against the breeze. I watched the shimmering light playing off the surface of the astral water.
“Thank you,” I said finally.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“You don’t need to thank me. Just love more, yourself and others, the rest will follow.”
“Are you really Jesus or am I just dreaming this?”
“What do you think I am?”
“I wish I knew.”
“I’m really you.”
When I finally could let go and let God, as they say, I didn’t feel so compelled to grasp onto this earthly existence any longer. It was almost as if God took me in his grasp, once I had the courage and will to let go and sail out into the vast open sea of the unknown.
He reached down, because I had begged for his forgiveness and charity, and filled me with the warming love of creation.
In my mind or in a spirit state, I don’t know which, I found myself going around and visiting all the people I had ever known and asking for their forgiveness for whatever wrong I had done to them and forgiving them for whatever wrong they had done to me. I even forgave those who hated me or abused and stole from me.
I was filled with such absolute compassion and all-consuming love that those individuals who seemed like my worst enemies, whom I had hated with a vengeance, who were only out to do me wrong, felt like my closest brothers and sisters.
I came to the eye-opening realization that we all have to swim in the same sea and ultimately we’ll all find the same divine inspiration, sooner or later. It is inevitable.
At about this point I was shot through the forehead with a bullet of piercing clarity -- a cosmic truth filled my heart and permeated my soul. The truth was: I am just happy to be walking around on this planet. The time we have here is so short and so precious, why don’t we make the best of it and stop fighting and using and abusing and complaining and just love people, help people, be kind to people and make it easier for them, give stuff away for free, volunteer our time, spend more time with family, follow our dreams however preposterous.
To just feel privileged to be a member of the human race was good enough for me. I was grateful for every single thing and every single person and every single place and every single experience and every single second on this rock. It was all heavenly bliss. It truly made me appreciate those things I took for granted so long: a great wife, loving healthy children, a roof over my head, all the right fingers and toes – all the great teachings I had learned from spiritual masters. I was so blessed just to be me. How could I be depressed? I was only depressed because of unfulfilled desires.
The next morning I awoke to the light of a new day. The pain in my chest had subsided and I was infused with a sense of pure joy in this place of all-consuming beauty and wonder -- my house, in my city of Moorpark; in my state of California; in my country, the great United States of America; in my world, the planet earth; in my solar system, the Milky Way; in my little universe, sparkling, perfect, infinite, omnigenous...
An affirmation appeared in my brain as I showered and massaged the bone-bruise at my chest. I don’t know where it came from but I began instantly repeating it: “I see, with discerning eyes, the love that surrounds me. I see the empty promise of material longings, and I see the infinite peace and everlasting joy of God and His light that wraps me and all things in heavenly, all-encompassing bliss. Amen.”
They always say “beware what you wish for.” Not long after the incident on the mount, I almost died. This was after my wife had gone through the grueling chemo and radiation therapy and was well and clear of her cancer and my son was older and my second child, my daughter, was born.
To stay in shape, I was playing indoor soccer at a local stadium. I am hyper by nature and love competition and any kind of athletic challenge. Indoor soccer can be a violent game, depending on the skill level, and I found myself shoulder to shoulder with high school and college guys every week who wanted to slaughter me. It got to the point where every week I’d come home with a new injury.
During a particularly violent and heated game, running full out, I went hard for a ball and was “body checked” from behind against the barrier, my chest striking the corner of the door to the substitution area that was left open, perfectly level to where my heart is, with the full force of body weight going top speed, behind the blow. Imagine running as fast as you can and someone pushes you from behind into the corner of a table which strikes you dead center in the chest. That is basically what happened. A freak accident.
When adrenaline is rushing through your body, you often don’t notice the extent of your injury until after you have cooled down.
I felt a pain in my chest and just figured it was bruised or cracked ribs, which I have suffered on numerous occasions. Having this injury can cause pain when you simply breathe or turn your hips.
When I arrived home later that night, the pain in the center of my chest grew sharper, like a cramp, and I felt tingling in my left arm, like it was going numb. I tried to inhale deeply but was unable to regain my normal breathing rate.
I took a hot shower to relax my overstrained muscles but nothing seemed to make the cramping in my chest subside. It came in waves. Lightly, then more intense. My labored breathing grew worse. I looked at my face in the mirror and the color was gone from my cheeks. I felt my ribs and sternum for external bruising but the pain was deep inside my chest.
I laid down on my bed and tried to read a book. My wife thought it was strange because I usually retire around one a.m. and it was not even nine thirty. I told her I was just tired and she didn’t think twice about it.
I didn’t really know anything about heart attacks and was only in my early thirties and in relatively good health. I was not overweight. I didn’t eat poorly, smoke or take drugs. How could I be having a heart attack? I had heard reports of athletes dying from heavy blows to the chest by things like softballs, baseballs, knees, a fist, but couldn’t comprehend this actually happening to me in something as innocuous as a recreational indoor soccer game.
I didn’t mention it to my wife at the time because I didn’t want to worry her. With her having recently gone through the trauma of cancer, I didn’t want to cause her any undo stress.
As I lay there, unable to sleep or breathe normally, the stabbing pain in my chest only became worse, I began to grow very concerned. Again I was at a place in my life where I grew depressed quite easily and things were just not going very well. Our finances were strained, my marriage was tenuous, I had suffered a series of professional setbacks, and this sense of darkness and general despair had contributed to a strained relationship with God. I really felt, deep down, that if this was a heart attack, then it was my time to go. God had elected this moment and method for me to pass on. And I really felt like maybe it was the only solution out of my misery. I didn’t want to mention it to anyone. I wanted to ride it out and go peacefully.
It crossed my mind to go into a panic and tell my wife to call an ambulance, but at the time, we had no health insurance to pay for it and were just scraping by as it was.
I found myself drifting in and out of consciousness, struggling with the pain in my chest. I tried to catch my breath but I could not. I was on the verge of hyperventilating. I tried standing and sucking deep breaths, but the pain grew worse. Then when I lay flat on my back again, I still had trouble breathing.
It was here that the dreadful feeling of my tenuous mortality hit me head on. I felt like I was actually about to cease to exist.
Dying or believing you are going to die hits you hard. It is inconceivable. It is a big-time reality check. It literally takes you out of your body and you step back and say to yourself, “Wait a second. I might actually die here. I might actually not be around anymore.”
I began to feel this incredible sense of losing all control, like a baby, I felt absolutely helpless.
I suddenly needed to grasp all these things in my life that brought me meaning and gave me identity, purpose, comfort, definition, security: my family; my friends; my possessions; my work; my beliefs; my dreams...but they were all slipping away like sands in an hour glass.
I felt connected to this earth by a thin line that was unraveling and spiraling off into infinity.
The inconceivable, unimaginable, horrifying thought of dying chilled me to the marrow.
Could it really be possible that this human being that was me, everything I was, this world and all that I knew, was no longer going to be here? Everything I ever was and everything I might have ever been -- gone. It’s a truly terrifying thought and one can only remotely envision what it’s like to stare directly into the smoldering eyes of death, without experiencing it firsthand.
All I could do was focus on my breathing. In my training in Zen, you are taught methods of controlling anger and stress through controlling your breath. I just tried to take long deep breaths and focus only on my breathing.
I prayed deeply to turn my will over to a Higher Power and let him take me if he must. I also prayed to let go of this little insignificant life that I had called Jay Nuzum, like a feather in the wind.
I saw the face of Jesus. He appeared to me like a vision, as I sank deeper and deeper into myself. He was hovering over the water as I drifted out in a little, run- down boat with gossamer, potato paper sail. The boat didn’t seem like it was seaworthy one bit. I was far out to sea, no land in sight.
I spoke to Jesus matter-of-factly, the blinding sunshine burning my eyes, reflected off the placid water.
“This is it, isn’t it?”
“It appears so.”
“I’m ready, God.”
“Are you?”
“If this is the time you have selected for me, then so be it. I accept.”
“What about those you leave behind?”
“That’s what hurts the most, knowing they’re going to be sad.”
“They’ll get over it.”
Jesus wasn’t being very supportive.
“Are you sure they’ll get over it? They won’t be too freaked out?”
“People are strong. They forget. Move on.”
“I’m sorry,” I began repeating this, over and over, flooded with emotion. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”
“Why are you so sorry?
“Because I messed up. I was lazy. I gave in to sin and temptation. I didn’t love my family enough. I didn’t love you enough. I didn’t work hard enough.”
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”
“No. I am trying to accept my failings and apologize to you.”
“You don’t need to.”
“Are you sure? I feel like I have offended you by my actions and my thoughts and a whole bunch of things.”
“I am never offended by you. How could I be? We’re one in the same.”
I was growing confused.
“How are we one in the same? You’re Jesus and I’m a small and insignificant person down on earth.”
“Don’t you realize that you and I are indivisible?“
“How do you figure?”
“There are no myriad forms, in the true nature of things. Just One.”
The whole concept of a heaven and earth and hell flashed across my mind. What about the idea of God sitting in heaven, looking down on his children of earth? And the lost, dark souls who ended up in that other place? The bad place, for eternity?
“There is no bad place for eternity. It’s all good.”
It’s all good? Did I just hear Jesus Christ tell me, “It’s all good”?
I thought for a moment about it and I heard a small voice in the back of my head: “Yes, I did.”
“I have so many more questions I need to ask you.”
“Sit in silence. Listen to your heart. Get in touch deeply with yourself and you will find all the answers.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Eventually everyone does. You are no different.”
“What if I’m not as smart as everyone; don’t have the talent, the drive, ambition, all that other stuff?”
“You too will have an awakening.”
“Like when I went to Boney Mountain to die and closed my eyes and saw something I had never seen before.”
“What you saw was only yourself.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You will not find the answers anywhere but within.”
“Did I offend you by wanting to end my own life?”
“I was sad because you are not really ending anything, the pain, the sorrow, the perceived bad luck. You’re only changing your scenery.”
My little boat lifted and swayed on the swells. The flimsy potato paper sail flapped gently against the breeze. I watched the shimmering light playing off the surface of the astral water.
“Thank you,” I said finally.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“You don’t need to thank me. Just love more, yourself and others, the rest will follow.”
“Are you really Jesus or am I just dreaming this?”
“What do you think I am?”
“I wish I knew.”
“I’m really you.”
When I finally could let go and let God, as they say, I didn’t feel so compelled to grasp onto this earthly existence any longer. It was almost as if God took me in his grasp, once I had the courage and will to let go and sail out into the vast open sea of the unknown.
He reached down, because I had begged for his forgiveness and charity, and filled me with the warming love of creation.
In my mind or in a spirit state, I don’t know which, I found myself going around and visiting all the people I had ever known and asking for their forgiveness for whatever wrong I had done to them and forgiving them for whatever wrong they had done to me. I even forgave those who hated me or abused and stole from me.
I was filled with such absolute compassion and all-consuming love that those individuals who seemed like my worst enemies, whom I had hated with a vengeance, who were only out to do me wrong, felt like my closest brothers and sisters.
I came to the eye-opening realization that we all have to swim in the same sea and ultimately we’ll all find the same divine inspiration, sooner or later. It is inevitable.
At about this point I was shot through the forehead with a bullet of piercing clarity -- a cosmic truth filled my heart and permeated my soul. The truth was: I am just happy to be walking around on this planet. The time we have here is so short and so precious, why don’t we make the best of it and stop fighting and using and abusing and complaining and just love people, help people, be kind to people and make it easier for them, give stuff away for free, volunteer our time, spend more time with family, follow our dreams however preposterous.
To just feel privileged to be a member of the human race was good enough for me. I was grateful for every single thing and every single person and every single place and every single experience and every single second on this rock. It was all heavenly bliss. It truly made me appreciate those things I took for granted so long: a great wife, loving healthy children, a roof over my head, all the right fingers and toes – all the great teachings I had learned from spiritual masters. I was so blessed just to be me. How could I be depressed? I was only depressed because of unfulfilled desires.
The next morning I awoke to the light of a new day. The pain in my chest had subsided and I was infused with a sense of pure joy in this place of all-consuming beauty and wonder -- my house, in my city of Moorpark; in my state of California; in my country, the great United States of America; in my world, the planet earth; in my solar system, the Milky Way; in my little universe, sparkling, perfect, infinite, omnigenous...
An affirmation appeared in my brain as I showered and massaged the bone-bruise at my chest. I don’t know where it came from but I began instantly repeating it: “I see, with discerning eyes, the love that surrounds me. I see the empty promise of material longings, and I see the infinite peace and everlasting joy of God and His light that wraps me and all things in heavenly, all-encompassing bliss. Amen.”
Meeting Divine Mother
Mother Meera is an avatar and incarnation of Divine Mother. By her simple touch and by looking deeply into your being, she offers a darshan blessing where she can clear negative blocks that have built up along your spine and open your heart and mind to the cosmic experience of God.
I drove Ryan to the U.C.L.A. campus to meet the Divine Mother. The smell of sour milk still pervaded my car from Ryan spilling his granola and made it hard to eat the banana I brought as a snack. Like the milk, I felt the relationship with my guru had soured since my refusal to smoke pot. I had to drag him along with me reluctantly after the ride he was promised by someone else fell through. I was like the consolation ride. He talked to me very little on the trip and mainly sent text messages and chatted on his cell phone.
“Are you pissed because I didn’t smoke pot?” I finally said, sensing the unspoken tension.
“No, bro. You can smoke pot or not smoke pot. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Don’t you think it clouds your mind if you want to experience God though?”
“To each his own, bro. What works for me, may not work for you.”
We arrived at the campus early and sat at the front of the line in the vestibule of the conference center. I was nervous as hell. I imagined Divine Mother gazing into my heart and seeing a huge, piled up dung heap of sins and evil curses, then, reacting to the mess, collapsing in a thrashing seizure. Or her penetrating gaze stabbing my already-delicate heart and causing me to have an attack right there in front of five hundred spiritually-minded devotees.
At our seats we removed our shoes and waited for Mother to arrive. We waited a long time. The banana I ate produced a lot of gas that I had been holding in, which built up and began to cause severe cramping. My nervousness made it worse. Soon waves of stabbing cramps forced me to squirm in my seat.
“What’s wrong, bro?”
“My stomach is cramping.”
“Ride it out, bro. She’s on her way.”
I sucked air and wondered how Mother Meera might look, if she had a divine aura or if she appeared differently, as they say, casting no shadow or leaving no footprint, characteristics of someone who has achieved God realization or avatar status.
We were instructed to stand as Mother Meera entered the hall. I was terrified I might rip one as I lifted off my seat but the gas settled back into my guts. Mother Meera was surrounded by a group of assistants and nuns. She was barely visible, a tiny woman, with steepled hands, bowing her head as she walked. She wore an ochre-colored robe with a purple scarf. She was well under five feet, barely weighing ninety pounds.
A line formed and we worked our way to the dais where she performed the darshan which consisted of the individual kneeling before Divine Mother, bowing to her as she placed her hand on your head to shoot the white light of creation down your spine and then look deeply into your eyes, to see your soul and the tangled web of individual experience lurking within. I wasn’t wearing any socks and was extremely nervous about people seeing my feet. Both of my toe nails had been crushed off in soccer games. It looked grotesque. I tried to hide my feet under the seat in front of me, and as we made our way up, I sat cross-legged with my hands gripping my big toes. I caught a glimpse of an older woman checking out my feet with a disturbed look. She kept her eyes on my feet and I felt the burn of her gaze the whole way to the front. Now the cramping in my guts had reached its zenith and if I didn’t keep my butt cheeks flush to the floor, the gas was surely to escape. I writhed. I wriggled. I held my breath. Stabbing waves came that nearly forced the gases from my bowels in the cramped, crowded quarters of the line moving to the front of the room. I fought valiantly to hold it in. The woman behind me was right on my back and I knew if I let one rip, it would spoil the whole affair.
I crawled up to the dais where Mother Meera was seated in an ornate chair. My heart was racing. Five hundred people were watching in rapt attention, many were praying, many in deep meditation. My stomach coiled and uncoiled like a snake with razor blade scales. I thought I might faint. I noticed she was spending more time with some people and others she sped through in a few seconds. I was thinking if she spent more time on the blessing, it probably signified the individual needed more work. I was hoping my darshan would be quick and painless. Another sharp cramp tore through my insides and I stretched my legs out in front of me.
My turn came and I shuffled in front of Divine Mother. She looked about ten feet tall. A colossal figure. I squeezed my butt cheeks together. I bowed and she placed a gentle hand on my head and I felt an electric current race through my body. I didn’t breathe. I think my heart stopped beating. When she withdrew her hand I looked up into her piercing eyes spearing into my soul. My whole body was trembling. It seemed almost impossible to hold her gaze. She remained focused into my eyes for a long time. A really long time. So long a time I almost turned around and looked at the long line behind me to apologize for it taking such a long time. My stomach started doing back flips and another wave of cramps rolled in from the sea.
I held my breath and squeezed my butt cheeks together tighter. It felt like an eternity that she stared into my eyes.
I said a prayer to myself, inside my head, and I hope she didn’t hear it: “Please God, don’t let me pass gas in front of Divine Mother.” I repeated this over and over.
Then the wave of cramps passed as if magically and her eyes dropped and I noted a disappointed twinge in her expression, pursing her lips faintly, as if she knew what was really going on in my twisted soul. Jeez, I wonder what train wreck she saw in there? I hope it didn’t freak her out too much. I bowed to her a last time and stumbled off the stage almost tripping down the stairs and flinging myself headlong into the row of plants near the exit. In my sudden loss of control, I farted but the banging down the short flight of stairs masked the sound...I hoped. The movement of my body carried the smell to the exit. The middle-aged woman behind me only took a few seconds for her blessing and walked right through the invisible gaseous cloud. I watched her out of the corner of my eye to see if she reacted. Her head was down as she stepped off the dais but suddenly shot up, scowling a little as she looked right at me. Oh no. She caught the whiff and definitely knew it was me. I hurried to my seat and put my face in my hands to meditate and hide. Then I hurriedly threw on my shoes and sat squirming impatiently.
Ryan appeared smiling brightly with the corners of his eyes glinting with tears.
“How’d it go, bro?”
“I think good. Yeah. I got a weird vibe though.”
“She took away your pain, bro.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“She took it. You’re good. I’ll tell you what you need to do when we leave. She told me.”
“She did?”
“What Jay needs to do to let the light shine through,” he said smiling radiantly and affectionately punched my shoulder.
It was recommended everyone stay inside the blessing hall until the very end, after the last person in line had received their darshan. Ryan asked me if I wanted to go and I said it was up to him, but I really wanted to go. We left early. I stopped in the bathroom and let out a long oozing sigh of gas. It was that god damn banana. Never eat a banana before visiting a saint.
Later, we went to Subway to eat dinner. Over a six inch chicken teriyaki with Italian herb and cheese bread, my guru told me what I had to do to find the eternal answers I was seeking.
“Smoke pot.”
“I thought we already went over this?”
“Bro, I’m just going by what she said.”
“She really said, ‘Jay needs to smoke pot’?”
“Correct.”
“I don’t like that advice too much.”
“Like it or not, bro. It’s what you need.”
“I don’t think I can accept that.”
“You have to, if you want to grow.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“What were Divine Mother’s exact words? He needs to toke out to be free?”
“No, bro. I sensed what she was thinking. She sent me a vision.”
“Maybe it got lost in translation?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Wash birds,” a man at the table next to us said. He was a small, muscular, African American man in a “Tap Out” T-shirt with the peculiar flattening and thickening of the nose and ears marking he was a fighter.
“Wash birds?”
“Watch birds, man. Forget the drugs. Watch birds.”
The fighter was sitting with another skinny man in glasses who looked like an artist. “That’s where you’ll find it.”
“So I just go outside and watch a bird in a tree or something? Watch them fly around?”
He shook his head looking for a napkin to wipe the vinegar running down his chin.
“Guided birdwalk.”
“That doesn’t sound so great.”
“It’s nature, man. Birds are the soul.”
“Birds are the soul?”
“Birds are the soul. And freedom.”
“How often do you guys go on guided birdwalks?”
“Every weekend. I’m an MMA fighter. That’s my quiet time. My meditation time. He doesn’t go. He’s my manager and he plays poker every weekend.”
“How do I find a guided birdwalk?”
“How do you find anything? Get online.”
I looked at Ryan. “Have you ever gone on a guided birdwalk?”
“No.”
“Would you?”
“Not right now. I’m pretty busy with my son and a lot of projects.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by “a lot of projects” because he didn’t work and usually woke up around noon and his only real activity was smoking and selling pot.
“Get online and find a group, man. That’s how you connect,” said the fighter taking another big bite. “If I didn’t I’d just walk around knocking people in the head.”
The guy was about five foot five but ripped. I’m sure he could do some damage even though he was small.
My only experience watching birds was when I was around ten-years-old and found a dusty copy of the Peterson’s Field Guide on our book shelf. I loved the colorful illustrations and would venture into the outlying forests around Mud Bay in northwestern Washington State identifying fantastical and magical species of birds such as the giant Pileated Woodpecker, Kingfisher, Flicker, the tiny House Wren, the Mourning Dove, Goldfinch, Killdeer, the Great Blue Heron, Chickadee, Steller’s Jay, Cedar Waxwing (one of my favorites), all of which I knew well by my tenth year. I would sketch little drawings of the birds and make notes of their identifying marks and calls. One of the most awe-inspiring experiences I had birding as a youth was coming upon a series of Great Blue Heron nests atop a grove of cottonwood trees and seeing the magnificent creatures in large numbers shadowed in silhouette, trumpeting and squawking, like giant, mythic sentinels from some lost prehistoric epoch.
“What about the Kryia yoga initiation?” I asked Ryan as we drove home up the congested 405.
“I asked Babaji and he said it wasn’t a good idea yet.”
“What do I need to do to get it, man?” Kriya yoga was at the forefront of my spiritual goals. I really felt driven to receive the technique, not only to heighten my meditation practices, evolve spiritually, and get closer to God, but also to suppress some of the greasy, neurotic, fear-desire, slipstream, teeth-gnashing, high-low, hate burgers bringing me down.
“I don’t know, bro. I don’t really know anything.”
I drove Ryan to the U.C.L.A. campus to meet the Divine Mother. The smell of sour milk still pervaded my car from Ryan spilling his granola and made it hard to eat the banana I brought as a snack. Like the milk, I felt the relationship with my guru had soured since my refusal to smoke pot. I had to drag him along with me reluctantly after the ride he was promised by someone else fell through. I was like the consolation ride. He talked to me very little on the trip and mainly sent text messages and chatted on his cell phone.
“Are you pissed because I didn’t smoke pot?” I finally said, sensing the unspoken tension.
“No, bro. You can smoke pot or not smoke pot. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Don’t you think it clouds your mind if you want to experience God though?”
“To each his own, bro. What works for me, may not work for you.”
We arrived at the campus early and sat at the front of the line in the vestibule of the conference center. I was nervous as hell. I imagined Divine Mother gazing into my heart and seeing a huge, piled up dung heap of sins and evil curses, then, reacting to the mess, collapsing in a thrashing seizure. Or her penetrating gaze stabbing my already-delicate heart and causing me to have an attack right there in front of five hundred spiritually-minded devotees.
At our seats we removed our shoes and waited for Mother to arrive. We waited a long time. The banana I ate produced a lot of gas that I had been holding in, which built up and began to cause severe cramping. My nervousness made it worse. Soon waves of stabbing cramps forced me to squirm in my seat.
“What’s wrong, bro?”
“My stomach is cramping.”
“Ride it out, bro. She’s on her way.”
I sucked air and wondered how Mother Meera might look, if she had a divine aura or if she appeared differently, as they say, casting no shadow or leaving no footprint, characteristics of someone who has achieved God realization or avatar status.
We were instructed to stand as Mother Meera entered the hall. I was terrified I might rip one as I lifted off my seat but the gas settled back into my guts. Mother Meera was surrounded by a group of assistants and nuns. She was barely visible, a tiny woman, with steepled hands, bowing her head as she walked. She wore an ochre-colored robe with a purple scarf. She was well under five feet, barely weighing ninety pounds.
A line formed and we worked our way to the dais where she performed the darshan which consisted of the individual kneeling before Divine Mother, bowing to her as she placed her hand on your head to shoot the white light of creation down your spine and then look deeply into your eyes, to see your soul and the tangled web of individual experience lurking within. I wasn’t wearing any socks and was extremely nervous about people seeing my feet. Both of my toe nails had been crushed off in soccer games. It looked grotesque. I tried to hide my feet under the seat in front of me, and as we made our way up, I sat cross-legged with my hands gripping my big toes. I caught a glimpse of an older woman checking out my feet with a disturbed look. She kept her eyes on my feet and I felt the burn of her gaze the whole way to the front. Now the cramping in my guts had reached its zenith and if I didn’t keep my butt cheeks flush to the floor, the gas was surely to escape. I writhed. I wriggled. I held my breath. Stabbing waves came that nearly forced the gases from my bowels in the cramped, crowded quarters of the line moving to the front of the room. I fought valiantly to hold it in. The woman behind me was right on my back and I knew if I let one rip, it would spoil the whole affair.
I crawled up to the dais where Mother Meera was seated in an ornate chair. My heart was racing. Five hundred people were watching in rapt attention, many were praying, many in deep meditation. My stomach coiled and uncoiled like a snake with razor blade scales. I thought I might faint. I noticed she was spending more time with some people and others she sped through in a few seconds. I was thinking if she spent more time on the blessing, it probably signified the individual needed more work. I was hoping my darshan would be quick and painless. Another sharp cramp tore through my insides and I stretched my legs out in front of me.
My turn came and I shuffled in front of Divine Mother. She looked about ten feet tall. A colossal figure. I squeezed my butt cheeks together. I bowed and she placed a gentle hand on my head and I felt an electric current race through my body. I didn’t breathe. I think my heart stopped beating. When she withdrew her hand I looked up into her piercing eyes spearing into my soul. My whole body was trembling. It seemed almost impossible to hold her gaze. She remained focused into my eyes for a long time. A really long time. So long a time I almost turned around and looked at the long line behind me to apologize for it taking such a long time. My stomach started doing back flips and another wave of cramps rolled in from the sea.
I held my breath and squeezed my butt cheeks together tighter. It felt like an eternity that she stared into my eyes.
I said a prayer to myself, inside my head, and I hope she didn’t hear it: “Please God, don’t let me pass gas in front of Divine Mother.” I repeated this over and over.
Then the wave of cramps passed as if magically and her eyes dropped and I noted a disappointed twinge in her expression, pursing her lips faintly, as if she knew what was really going on in my twisted soul. Jeez, I wonder what train wreck she saw in there? I hope it didn’t freak her out too much. I bowed to her a last time and stumbled off the stage almost tripping down the stairs and flinging myself headlong into the row of plants near the exit. In my sudden loss of control, I farted but the banging down the short flight of stairs masked the sound...I hoped. The movement of my body carried the smell to the exit. The middle-aged woman behind me only took a few seconds for her blessing and walked right through the invisible gaseous cloud. I watched her out of the corner of my eye to see if she reacted. Her head was down as she stepped off the dais but suddenly shot up, scowling a little as she looked right at me. Oh no. She caught the whiff and definitely knew it was me. I hurried to my seat and put my face in my hands to meditate and hide. Then I hurriedly threw on my shoes and sat squirming impatiently.
Ryan appeared smiling brightly with the corners of his eyes glinting with tears.
“How’d it go, bro?”
“I think good. Yeah. I got a weird vibe though.”
“She took away your pain, bro.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“She took it. You’re good. I’ll tell you what you need to do when we leave. She told me.”
“She did?”
“What Jay needs to do to let the light shine through,” he said smiling radiantly and affectionately punched my shoulder.
It was recommended everyone stay inside the blessing hall until the very end, after the last person in line had received their darshan. Ryan asked me if I wanted to go and I said it was up to him, but I really wanted to go. We left early. I stopped in the bathroom and let out a long oozing sigh of gas. It was that god damn banana. Never eat a banana before visiting a saint.
Later, we went to Subway to eat dinner. Over a six inch chicken teriyaki with Italian herb and cheese bread, my guru told me what I had to do to find the eternal answers I was seeking.
“Smoke pot.”
“I thought we already went over this?”
“Bro, I’m just going by what she said.”
“She really said, ‘Jay needs to smoke pot’?”
“Correct.”
“I don’t like that advice too much.”
“Like it or not, bro. It’s what you need.”
“I don’t think I can accept that.”
“You have to, if you want to grow.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“What were Divine Mother’s exact words? He needs to toke out to be free?”
“No, bro. I sensed what she was thinking. She sent me a vision.”
“Maybe it got lost in translation?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Wash birds,” a man at the table next to us said. He was a small, muscular, African American man in a “Tap Out” T-shirt with the peculiar flattening and thickening of the nose and ears marking he was a fighter.
“Wash birds?”
“Watch birds, man. Forget the drugs. Watch birds.”
The fighter was sitting with another skinny man in glasses who looked like an artist. “That’s where you’ll find it.”
“So I just go outside and watch a bird in a tree or something? Watch them fly around?”
He shook his head looking for a napkin to wipe the vinegar running down his chin.
“Guided birdwalk.”
“That doesn’t sound so great.”
“It’s nature, man. Birds are the soul.”
“Birds are the soul?”
“Birds are the soul. And freedom.”
“How often do you guys go on guided birdwalks?”
“Every weekend. I’m an MMA fighter. That’s my quiet time. My meditation time. He doesn’t go. He’s my manager and he plays poker every weekend.”
“How do I find a guided birdwalk?”
“How do you find anything? Get online.”
I looked at Ryan. “Have you ever gone on a guided birdwalk?”
“No.”
“Would you?”
“Not right now. I’m pretty busy with my son and a lot of projects.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by “a lot of projects” because he didn’t work and usually woke up around noon and his only real activity was smoking and selling pot.
“Get online and find a group, man. That’s how you connect,” said the fighter taking another big bite. “If I didn’t I’d just walk around knocking people in the head.”
The guy was about five foot five but ripped. I’m sure he could do some damage even though he was small.
My only experience watching birds was when I was around ten-years-old and found a dusty copy of the Peterson’s Field Guide on our book shelf. I loved the colorful illustrations and would venture into the outlying forests around Mud Bay in northwestern Washington State identifying fantastical and magical species of birds such as the giant Pileated Woodpecker, Kingfisher, Flicker, the tiny House Wren, the Mourning Dove, Goldfinch, Killdeer, the Great Blue Heron, Chickadee, Steller’s Jay, Cedar Waxwing (one of my favorites), all of which I knew well by my tenth year. I would sketch little drawings of the birds and make notes of their identifying marks and calls. One of the most awe-inspiring experiences I had birding as a youth was coming upon a series of Great Blue Heron nests atop a grove of cottonwood trees and seeing the magnificent creatures in large numbers shadowed in silhouette, trumpeting and squawking, like giant, mythic sentinels from some lost prehistoric epoch.
“What about the Kryia yoga initiation?” I asked Ryan as we drove home up the congested 405.
“I asked Babaji and he said it wasn’t a good idea yet.”
“What do I need to do to get it, man?” Kriya yoga was at the forefront of my spiritual goals. I really felt driven to receive the technique, not only to heighten my meditation practices, evolve spiritually, and get closer to God, but also to suppress some of the greasy, neurotic, fear-desire, slipstream, teeth-gnashing, high-low, hate burgers bringing me down.
“I don’t know, bro. I don’t really know anything.”
Some of the Things That Make Me Cry
Before I had a near-death experience, then, I could never cry. My wife would ask me, “why don’t you cry?”
I didn’t cry at my dad’s funeral, or my grandmother’s or grandfather’s funeral. Or when I knew my wife was sick or from the joy at seeing the birth of my kids. I just couldn’t cry. I didn’t know how.
I grew up holding in my emotions. My brain was not hard-wired for crying. The only time I remembered crying was as a child in moments of extreme pain or anger.
Now I cry and am moved to tears often. And they are not tears of sadness; when I am flooded with immense bliss, I cannot help but cry.
Sometimes I will cry at the site of a bird, or hearing my children’s laughter, or hearing a great piece of music, or sitting in church, or watching an inspirational show, or simply reading about some of my heroes: Whitman, Jesus, Buddha, Poe, Beethoven, Yogananda, Dr. Seuss, Fellini. Or when I simply think of Mahavatar Babaji, I am moved to tears. I cannot help it. The mere thought of Babaji crushes me.
I cried recently when a friend mentioned his enjoyment of Lao Tzu’s work or when another friend discussed the Dalai Llama.
I recall going to see Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony performed by the L.A. Philharmonic and when I was sitting in the audience, without a single note being played, I couldn’t help but weep uncontrollably because of the incandescent meaning of the great master’s work -- one man’s connection and inspiration directly from God, expressed with such profound and infinite clarity and brilliance.
My family still doesn’t fully accept the fact that whenever I hear “Moonlight Sonata”, tears will unfailingly run down my cheeks. It is even a running joke when we go for long drives, they will sneak in the CD and wait for the tears to flow.
I can only describe the feeling as being “overwhelmed by the immensity of the divine” or a deeper love that fills me up with an all-pervading sense of joy and beauty in creation.
These are not tears of sadness. I cry because I feel touched deeply by something I can’t describe that moves me beyond description.
I cry because, for a brief instant, I feel in touch with the ETERNAL. I feel in touch with whatever it is, way out there, across the universe, that is also right underneath my nose.
You will know you are close to acquiring a heart of compassion when you see a bird and can’t help but weep or when you think of Jesus and his immense sacrifice and feel it deep in the pit of your soul. When a child laughing and running at the park takes you back to a time when you were closer to who you really are, and closer to God.
Some of the other things that make me cry now, not in any particular order are: the sparkle in my wife’s eyes; my daughter’s laughter or singing; watching my son play sports; attending mass or visiting a church, temple or synagogue; listening to certain music, usually classical (esp. Beethoven’s Ninth and Moonlight Sonata); seeing a parent’s love for their child; watching a bird or small animal; seeing emotional movies; hearing “The Star Spangled Banner” sung at sporting events; passages in books, mainly Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” (esp. Song of Myself, number 20); some of Jack Kerouac’s poetry; seeing the look of wonder in my son’s or daughter’s eyes when they watch a butterfly or a hummingbird or a horse run through a meadow or fish swimming in a stream; a sunset; watching the crowds of people go by at the mall or at the fair and feeling their struggle and sorrows and just wanting to take it all away...
I didn’t cry at my dad’s funeral, or my grandmother’s or grandfather’s funeral. Or when I knew my wife was sick or from the joy at seeing the birth of my kids. I just couldn’t cry. I didn’t know how.
I grew up holding in my emotions. My brain was not hard-wired for crying. The only time I remembered crying was as a child in moments of extreme pain or anger.
Now I cry and am moved to tears often. And they are not tears of sadness; when I am flooded with immense bliss, I cannot help but cry.
Sometimes I will cry at the site of a bird, or hearing my children’s laughter, or hearing a great piece of music, or sitting in church, or watching an inspirational show, or simply reading about some of my heroes: Whitman, Jesus, Buddha, Poe, Beethoven, Yogananda, Dr. Seuss, Fellini. Or when I simply think of Mahavatar Babaji, I am moved to tears. I cannot help it. The mere thought of Babaji crushes me.
I cried recently when a friend mentioned his enjoyment of Lao Tzu’s work or when another friend discussed the Dalai Llama.
I recall going to see Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony performed by the L.A. Philharmonic and when I was sitting in the audience, without a single note being played, I couldn’t help but weep uncontrollably because of the incandescent meaning of the great master’s work -- one man’s connection and inspiration directly from God, expressed with such profound and infinite clarity and brilliance.
My family still doesn’t fully accept the fact that whenever I hear “Moonlight Sonata”, tears will unfailingly run down my cheeks. It is even a running joke when we go for long drives, they will sneak in the CD and wait for the tears to flow.
I can only describe the feeling as being “overwhelmed by the immensity of the divine” or a deeper love that fills me up with an all-pervading sense of joy and beauty in creation.
These are not tears of sadness. I cry because I feel touched deeply by something I can’t describe that moves me beyond description.
I cry because, for a brief instant, I feel in touch with the ETERNAL. I feel in touch with whatever it is, way out there, across the universe, that is also right underneath my nose.
You will know you are close to acquiring a heart of compassion when you see a bird and can’t help but weep or when you think of Jesus and his immense sacrifice and feel it deep in the pit of your soul. When a child laughing and running at the park takes you back to a time when you were closer to who you really are, and closer to God.
Some of the other things that make me cry now, not in any particular order are: the sparkle in my wife’s eyes; my daughter’s laughter or singing; watching my son play sports; attending mass or visiting a church, temple or synagogue; listening to certain music, usually classical (esp. Beethoven’s Ninth and Moonlight Sonata); seeing a parent’s love for their child; watching a bird or small animal; seeing emotional movies; hearing “The Star Spangled Banner” sung at sporting events; passages in books, mainly Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” (esp. Song of Myself, number 20); some of Jack Kerouac’s poetry; seeing the look of wonder in my son’s or daughter’s eyes when they watch a butterfly or a hummingbird or a horse run through a meadow or fish swimming in a stream; a sunset; watching the crowds of people go by at the mall or at the fair and feeling their struggle and sorrows and just wanting to take it all away...
My First Birdwalk
For a successful birdwalk, you will need to gather a few items to help you along your journey. First, you will need a strong pair of walking shoes, rubber-soled with grooves for negotiating steep hills and muddy places. Long socks as opposed to shin-highs or footies are preferred as occasionally you may venture from the path and get burrs or foxtails stuck in your shoes. One pair of binoculars or a telescope (this is a must for identification and viewing rich color patterns of feathers). A copy of Peterson’s “Field Guide to Western Birds” or “National Geographic’s Field Guide to Birds of North America” to quickly reference any species you may meet along the way. One notepad and pen for documenting species and for noting other points of interest. One wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun off your face, (unless the sun is no where to be found). Long- sleeve shirt or sweater or jacket because you will be getting an early start to view birds at their most active time of day, when it can be chilly. Other items you will find useful: bottled water, sunscreen, energy bar, sunglasses, camera (long lens preferably), bug spray, map of the area, patience, generosity, courage, wisdom, open eyes, an open mind, some stamina and definitely, most of all, an open heart.
My first birding excursion was on a mild spring day, at the Thousand Oaks Botanical Garden, a misty early morning with warm dew collecting on the wind shield as we drove along Gainsborough in a middle class residential district looking for the entrance to the park. We were running late, my ten-year-old daughter, Sofia, already complaining, “I hate birds”, she exclaimed, throwing herself back in the seat.
“How can you hate birds?” I asked.
“I just do.”
I didn’t know how to respond. When you hate birds, you hate birds. There is no argument for this.
My wife was also not very thrilled at the idea of spending a cold, early Saturday morning, with a bunch of strangers on a nature walk to look at birds when she could be tucked cozily under the blankets in a warm bed.
“I can look at birds in my back yard. Why do we need to get up so early?”
“Um…”
“I worked hard all week and now we have to spend my Saturday morning with a bunch of strangers walking in the park?”
“Yeah, well…”
“We can walk in the park anytime,” she whined.
“This is special. This is like meditation,” was my answer but I didn’t really know what to expect either. I had never been on a guided birdwalk before and was a little nervous at the prospect. I was concerned that I didn’t know the proper etiquette and might say something stupid or inappropriate which I usually find myself doing anyhow, no matter what the circumstances.
At the Botanical Gardens in Thousand Oaks we circled the parking lot looking for the birding group. The park itself was situated in the rolling hills between housing developments in the Conejo Valley of Southern California. My stomach grew queasy at the fear of this new adventure and the stigma of already being twenty minutes late. Finally we spotted a cluster of cars collecting at the innermost parking lot and a group of decidedly-innocuous looking suburbanites huddled together in a semi-circle. This was not a tough crowd. I could tell by first sight. These were not gangsters, bikers or hardened criminals. These were birders, my friends, humans who don Safari outfits and inhabit parks and soft hiking trails with binoculars and cameras with long lenses. Birders are probably the last group called upon to thwart a terrorist attack or save the world from the forces of absolute evil.
There was no danger. My fear dissipated.
My contact was Roger of the Ventura County Audubon Society. I knew nothing about Roger only that he sounded white and older and somewhat kindly on the phone.
“This sucks. I can’t believe we’re doing this,” my daughter said as we exited the car.
“Just check it out. Could be fun,” I replied, trying to prime her enthusiasm to no avail.
“Yeah, right.” She made a face at me that basically said, “Dad, you’re a loser. Big time.” Ten-year-old girls these days have a lot of attitude.
Roger stood at the head of the group displaying nature photos he had snapped on a previous walk. Roger was a smallish, wiry man with a sturdy build, outwardly only partially affected by his seventy-one years on the planet -- graying hair, drooping eyelids, white stubble, but his gait and posture were that of a young man. Roger looked like he could hump the trails of the Himalayas, brave the darkest confines of the Amazon, march across an unforgiving Sahara; there was no walking trip too daunting for Roger. He was dressed in khakis of an agricultural bent, floppy-brimmed hat, hiking boots. His eyes were intense, and I instantly anticipated getting a full frontal ego assault of Alpha Male Energy at our first exchange, but this couldn’t have been further from the truth. When he spoke his face softened and kindness mixed with deep compassion shone through. He exuded an inner peace and natural openness with the world around him that I have only seen in a few rare souls. It was a look you saw in the eyes of saints.
“Hey, you must be Roger. I’m Jay. I talked to Ann and um...she told me to meet you here,” I stuttered nervously.
“Great.”
“I found you guys online through the newsletter,” I said as the words stuck in my throat. “We’re kind of new to the whole, you know, bird watching experience.”
He looked at me with infinite peace, supremely subdued, understanding instantly that I was a socially-challenged neurotic who didn’t get out much.
“Welcome. Thanks for joining us,” he replied warmly. After brief introductions, he returned to showing more photos to other birders in the group.
Everyone was very welcoming. I didn’t expect this because it was still only 8:20 in the morning and sometimes it’s tough for people, including myself, to look like they’re having a peachy-keen time.
An older woman with a Safari hat and vest approached me.
“Where are your binoculars?” You can’t see anything without binoculars.”
“Yeah, dad. Where are your binoculars?” my daughter prodded sarcastically.
“Uh, that’s the thing…”
“Oh well, we better leave,” snapped my daughter.
My heart sunk. I had actually set out a pair of old binoculars on the kitchen counter but in my rush to get out the door, I had forgotten to throw them in the car.
“I forgot them. We were running late.”
“I think Dennis has an extra pair.”
This was not thirty seconds into arrival, already someone was willing to help me secure a pair of binoculars. A few words were exchanged with a tall, geeky-looking man, Dennis, and I had secured my very own pair of Eagle Optics 6x30 binoculars for the excursion. Before I knew it, my daughter snatched the pair from my hands and threw the strap around her neck, proudly claiming herself “Keeper of the Binoculars”, doling out their use at her whim.
“Hey, I thought you hated birds?” I ask my daughter.
“I do but I’m still carrying the binoculars,” she said with a wry grin and a haughty hand on her hip.
Raw deal.
Before we advanced to the hiking trail, we were already encountering many species of birds right there in the parking lot. A small group pointed excitedly toward a distant grassy hill with a single valley oak tree twisting toward the sky. I asked someone what the excitement was. “Red-tailed hawk”. I glassed the hillside and couldn’t find anything in the jittery, limited circular field of view. A heavy-set man with 60s-style square glasses, named Matt, tapped me on the shoulder and motioned toward his telescope mounted on a tripod. I looked through the viewfinder and was utterly blown away. A red-tailed hawk was locked in the field of view unlike anything I had ever seen before. It looked like a painting, with rich, vivid coloration and vibrant detail. The speckled red feathers seemed close enough to reach out and stroke. I wanted to stare longer but a small line had formed behind me to get a peek through the scope.
I suggested to my daughter to use the binoculars to find the hawk. She shot back a facetious look that is best described as “someone who is mentally challenged looking excited”.
From the parking lot we made our way across the grass and up a slope to the hiking trail. I walked close to Roger. I had a burning question I really wanted to ask him. I also found myself drawn into his soothing, amiable aura.
“There is a little dark-colored bird, with a light body and a dark crest,” I said, trying to get ahead of the women who had crowded around him. “It’s a friendly bird and one of its behaviors is to ‘dip’ from its perch and swoop into the grass and return to its spot. I call it a ‘Grassdipper’ but I know that’s not its real name,” I explained.
“Could be a Black Phoebe. Where have you seen it?”
“Usually at my house. In my back yard. At the park,” I said.
“What kind of call does it have?”
“It’s a single tweet. And it moves its tail when it does it.”
“A Black Phoebe. It’s a type of flycatcher. When it ‘dips’ into your yard, it is catching a fly, its main diet. There’s also a Say’s Phoebe and a Vermillion Flycatcher that are similar. The Vermillion Flycatcher is pretty rare though. You’re not going to find one of those around here.”
“Is it really vermillion?”
“Bright red.”
We walked together for a moment and my mind raced for more things to say.
“What kind of work do you do? Are you retired? How long have you been doing this?” I anxiously threw out random questions to Roger so as to dwell a moment longer in his warming aura of peace.
“About twenty-eight years. I retired a few years ago.”
“So you do this. What else do you do?”
“I roam.”
We separated as two women closed in on him to ask him about a strange bird one of them had seen in her backyard that looked like a mini-hawk which he explained was probably an American Kestral or Sparrowhawk.
The trail meandered past endless fields of wild mustard, California sunflower, white alder trees, desert willows, wild lilac and a myriad of valley oaks.
As we strode along, I took note of all the birds we identified in my journal. People in the group were more than happy to make sure I got the names and spellings correct.
To my astonishment, my daughter was actually getting into the groove of bird watching, excited and enthusiastic now, spotting birds with her binoculars and being surprised by their stunning appearance when viewed at close range.
“I didn’t know they looked like that. From a distance they just look grey,” Sofia said.
“Everything looks grey from a distance,” a woman said and I wasn’t really sure what she meant by it.
We saw Alan’s Hummingbird, Western Kingbird, the bright orange-yellow Hooded Oriole, California Quail, American Goldfinch, California Towee, Western Bluebird, Red-Tailed Hawk, House Wren (although I was confused because the House Wren in California are larger than the tiny House Wren I knew from Washington State), Song Sparrow, Nutcatcher, House Finch, Acorn Woodpecker (who was named thus because he hides his acorns in little holes in oak trees. Roger pointed this out to us on the walk), American Robin, Black Phoebe (I call this a Grassdipper), Mallard (Male), Bush Titt, Mourning Dove, White-Crested Nuthatch.
We stopped for a water break near a sapphire dragon tree and I noticed there was one man off by himself, smoking. He was the only person who didn’t look like he was enjoying himself very much. He looked gruff and irritable, like someone had dragged him along and he would much rather be golfing or watching a baseball game. He was tall and slight with a shock of gray hair, wearing sunglasses and pastel clothing that appeared more functional for library wear than a nature hike. He was also the only person without a pair of binoculars or spotting scope. I heard a few people ask him questions like, “Alan, did you sell your boat yet?” or “Alan, are you going to the walk in Ojai next week?” Along the way I threw him a few questions about incidentals just to feel him out which he only answered with a grunt or groan. When he was alone with his cigarette, I mustered the courage to ask a more direct question, “Why do you do this?”
After a long pause, remaining stone-faced, he answered, “It comforts me.” I was surprised by his candor. He ground his cigarette into the dirt with his jogging shoe.
“But you’re the only one here who seems like they don’t really want to be here.” He looked at me again with mounting irritation. (Note to the reader: I am generally only this direct with people I am certain I can subdue in hand-to-hand combat)
“My wife was really into it,” Alan said finally.
“She didn’t come today?”
“She passed away.”
“I’m sorry.”
That hurt a little bit. I was being a pushy jerk because he looked like he had an attitude but he was really only still mourning the death of his wife. Talking further with Alan, I found out that he was recently retired from an executive job at a pharmaceutical company, married nearly forty years and had never gone bird watching with his wife before. He only began when his wife got sick. This was her main hobby.
“I like to come with Roger because some of the other people who lead these groups are idiots, frankly,” Alan confided.
“This is my first.”
“I know.”
“How did you know?”
“You ask way too many questions.”
I have always had the strange tendency to ask random questions of complete strangers.
As we walked further down the trail, which snaked into an oak forest along a trickling creek, I dropped the bomb:
“Do you believe in God?”
Alan glared at me with absolute incredulity as if I had asked him if he ever had butt-sex with his grandmother.
“I’m an atheist,” he replied testily.
“That’s cool.”
“I believe in the Church of High Overhead,” he said with levity.
I tried to think of something else to say and we kind of just walked alongside each other feeling that clumsy silence of two personalities who repel each other like the wrong sides of colliding magnets.
Before I moved off to join my wife and daughter who had ventured ahead on the trail, he caught me with a question of his own.
“Do you believe?”
“Sure.”
“Why?”
“I just do.”
“But what do you base that on?”
Dennis, the man who had loaned me the binoculars, chuckled uncomfortably and stepped between us like a ref between two boxers, sensing the heaviness in the air.
“How did we get on this God debate?”
“He started it,” Alan said with a hint of good humor in his expression.
“No. He did. I swear,” I said.
“Let me ask you this. Where is God? Where can I see him? No, really. Show me where God is,” Alan said with feisty eyebrows cocked in challenge.
Dennis slouched off, shaking his head and flashing an uneasy grin.
I looked at Alan’s eyes glaring through his hundred dollar Ray Bans. I saw some macho haughtiness but there was pain and anguish too.
I wanted to say something really profound here but couldn’t find the words. You know when you’re confronted with the chance to convey some earth-shattering philosophical concept that could change lives, shift realities, move mountains? But you don’t. All you can focus on is your anxiety as your mind races a million miles an hour to formulate an unequivocal statement. I was even under the delusional belief I could transform a non-believer into a believer with a single, well-delivered gem of inspiration.
I tried to formulate something and it came out all wrong: “It’s really all about, you know like, what you choose to believe...I mean, who we are as... you know...where we are going spiritually...”
He made an exasperated sound by blowing air out of his pursed lips and slouched ahead of me down the narrow trail. A few seconds later it came to me, “Everywhere!” That’s what I wanted to say. “He’s everywhere!” I wanted to run after him, take his arm and yell right in his face: “Everywhere!” Or better yet, scream at him from a distance so it echoed over the distant hills, “Hey Alan! Everywhere-where-where-where!”
Then I read his mind: Yeah, screw you! You blew it! I don’t believe, jerkface! Because of you, I will never believe! I will die a non-believer and end up in the fiery abyss of Hades because you don’t know how to communicate your ideas! I opened the door for you to say something profound and you stuttered like a school girl! You amateur! You fake! Loser!
I made an attempt to catch up with Alan and elucidate my point but a man had engaged him in another discussion about his sail boat that was collecting barnacles in Ventura Harbor. I had blown it, big time.
We never spoke again the rest of the walk and later I learned that Alan had a stroke a few months after the birdwalk and half of his face was paralyzed. I never heard if he recovered or not.
As we approached the end of the walk, the party thinned; some people had gone on ahead and left and others had dropped behind, exploring other areas of the park. My wife and daughter appeared energized. They were laughing and singing. My wife’s stress level from the previous week had melted away. She was happy and content.
“Hey Sofi, how did you like the walk?” I asked my daughter. “Did you have fun?”
“No,” was her flat answer but I knew she did by the way she was dancing and singing her favorite song.
“I actually had a really good time. I’m surprised,” my wife said. “And best of all, it’s not even eleven yet. We still have the rest of Saturday to do things.”
Roger thanked me for coming and said we should join him on a walk to the grasslands of Oxnard by the beach in two weeks. He began to list off some of the species we might encounter. I told him I would love to. When my wife and daughter were out of earshot, I cut Roger off as he continued naming various shore birds.
“Roger, tell me, why do you really do this?”
“This?”
“Birdwatching.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
He continued walking for some ways and I felt insecure at the silence.
“Why do you do it?” he asked cheerfully.
“Uh, a friend suggested I check it out and I read it was a pretty good walking meditation.”
“It’s transcendent,” he said and patted me on the shoulder with a sheepish grin that half-looked like he was joking or embarrassed by making it into something bigger than it was.
Transcendent? I hadn’t heard that word applied to nature since I studied those funny, soul brothers from the nineteenth century who practiced civil disobedience and went out to live alone by ponds.
Transcendent? How could walking through a park in southern California looking at birds be transcendent? You can see birds anytime. After all, aren’t they everywhere? I had no clue what he was referring to. None whatsoever.
“Do you still hate birds?” I asked my daughter as we reached the car and dumped out equipment in the back.
“Yes.”
My first birding excursion was on a mild spring day, at the Thousand Oaks Botanical Garden, a misty early morning with warm dew collecting on the wind shield as we drove along Gainsborough in a middle class residential district looking for the entrance to the park. We were running late, my ten-year-old daughter, Sofia, already complaining, “I hate birds”, she exclaimed, throwing herself back in the seat.
“How can you hate birds?” I asked.
“I just do.”
I didn’t know how to respond. When you hate birds, you hate birds. There is no argument for this.
My wife was also not very thrilled at the idea of spending a cold, early Saturday morning, with a bunch of strangers on a nature walk to look at birds when she could be tucked cozily under the blankets in a warm bed.
“I can look at birds in my back yard. Why do we need to get up so early?”
“Um…”
“I worked hard all week and now we have to spend my Saturday morning with a bunch of strangers walking in the park?”
“Yeah, well…”
“We can walk in the park anytime,” she whined.
“This is special. This is like meditation,” was my answer but I didn’t really know what to expect either. I had never been on a guided birdwalk before and was a little nervous at the prospect. I was concerned that I didn’t know the proper etiquette and might say something stupid or inappropriate which I usually find myself doing anyhow, no matter what the circumstances.
At the Botanical Gardens in Thousand Oaks we circled the parking lot looking for the birding group. The park itself was situated in the rolling hills between housing developments in the Conejo Valley of Southern California. My stomach grew queasy at the fear of this new adventure and the stigma of already being twenty minutes late. Finally we spotted a cluster of cars collecting at the innermost parking lot and a group of decidedly-innocuous looking suburbanites huddled together in a semi-circle. This was not a tough crowd. I could tell by first sight. These were not gangsters, bikers or hardened criminals. These were birders, my friends, humans who don Safari outfits and inhabit parks and soft hiking trails with binoculars and cameras with long lenses. Birders are probably the last group called upon to thwart a terrorist attack or save the world from the forces of absolute evil.
There was no danger. My fear dissipated.
My contact was Roger of the Ventura County Audubon Society. I knew nothing about Roger only that he sounded white and older and somewhat kindly on the phone.
“This sucks. I can’t believe we’re doing this,” my daughter said as we exited the car.
“Just check it out. Could be fun,” I replied, trying to prime her enthusiasm to no avail.
“Yeah, right.” She made a face at me that basically said, “Dad, you’re a loser. Big time.” Ten-year-old girls these days have a lot of attitude.
Roger stood at the head of the group displaying nature photos he had snapped on a previous walk. Roger was a smallish, wiry man with a sturdy build, outwardly only partially affected by his seventy-one years on the planet -- graying hair, drooping eyelids, white stubble, but his gait and posture were that of a young man. Roger looked like he could hump the trails of the Himalayas, brave the darkest confines of the Amazon, march across an unforgiving Sahara; there was no walking trip too daunting for Roger. He was dressed in khakis of an agricultural bent, floppy-brimmed hat, hiking boots. His eyes were intense, and I instantly anticipated getting a full frontal ego assault of Alpha Male Energy at our first exchange, but this couldn’t have been further from the truth. When he spoke his face softened and kindness mixed with deep compassion shone through. He exuded an inner peace and natural openness with the world around him that I have only seen in a few rare souls. It was a look you saw in the eyes of saints.
“Hey, you must be Roger. I’m Jay. I talked to Ann and um...she told me to meet you here,” I stuttered nervously.
“Great.”
“I found you guys online through the newsletter,” I said as the words stuck in my throat. “We’re kind of new to the whole, you know, bird watching experience.”
He looked at me with infinite peace, supremely subdued, understanding instantly that I was a socially-challenged neurotic who didn’t get out much.
“Welcome. Thanks for joining us,” he replied warmly. After brief introductions, he returned to showing more photos to other birders in the group.
Everyone was very welcoming. I didn’t expect this because it was still only 8:20 in the morning and sometimes it’s tough for people, including myself, to look like they’re having a peachy-keen time.
An older woman with a Safari hat and vest approached me.
“Where are your binoculars?” You can’t see anything without binoculars.”
“Yeah, dad. Where are your binoculars?” my daughter prodded sarcastically.
“Uh, that’s the thing…”
“Oh well, we better leave,” snapped my daughter.
My heart sunk. I had actually set out a pair of old binoculars on the kitchen counter but in my rush to get out the door, I had forgotten to throw them in the car.
“I forgot them. We were running late.”
“I think Dennis has an extra pair.”
This was not thirty seconds into arrival, already someone was willing to help me secure a pair of binoculars. A few words were exchanged with a tall, geeky-looking man, Dennis, and I had secured my very own pair of Eagle Optics 6x30 binoculars for the excursion. Before I knew it, my daughter snatched the pair from my hands and threw the strap around her neck, proudly claiming herself “Keeper of the Binoculars”, doling out their use at her whim.
“Hey, I thought you hated birds?” I ask my daughter.
“I do but I’m still carrying the binoculars,” she said with a wry grin and a haughty hand on her hip.
Raw deal.
Before we advanced to the hiking trail, we were already encountering many species of birds right there in the parking lot. A small group pointed excitedly toward a distant grassy hill with a single valley oak tree twisting toward the sky. I asked someone what the excitement was. “Red-tailed hawk”. I glassed the hillside and couldn’t find anything in the jittery, limited circular field of view. A heavy-set man with 60s-style square glasses, named Matt, tapped me on the shoulder and motioned toward his telescope mounted on a tripod. I looked through the viewfinder and was utterly blown away. A red-tailed hawk was locked in the field of view unlike anything I had ever seen before. It looked like a painting, with rich, vivid coloration and vibrant detail. The speckled red feathers seemed close enough to reach out and stroke. I wanted to stare longer but a small line had formed behind me to get a peek through the scope.
I suggested to my daughter to use the binoculars to find the hawk. She shot back a facetious look that is best described as “someone who is mentally challenged looking excited”.
From the parking lot we made our way across the grass and up a slope to the hiking trail. I walked close to Roger. I had a burning question I really wanted to ask him. I also found myself drawn into his soothing, amiable aura.
“There is a little dark-colored bird, with a light body and a dark crest,” I said, trying to get ahead of the women who had crowded around him. “It’s a friendly bird and one of its behaviors is to ‘dip’ from its perch and swoop into the grass and return to its spot. I call it a ‘Grassdipper’ but I know that’s not its real name,” I explained.
“Could be a Black Phoebe. Where have you seen it?”
“Usually at my house. In my back yard. At the park,” I said.
“What kind of call does it have?”
“It’s a single tweet. And it moves its tail when it does it.”
“A Black Phoebe. It’s a type of flycatcher. When it ‘dips’ into your yard, it is catching a fly, its main diet. There’s also a Say’s Phoebe and a Vermillion Flycatcher that are similar. The Vermillion Flycatcher is pretty rare though. You’re not going to find one of those around here.”
“Is it really vermillion?”
“Bright red.”
We walked together for a moment and my mind raced for more things to say.
“What kind of work do you do? Are you retired? How long have you been doing this?” I anxiously threw out random questions to Roger so as to dwell a moment longer in his warming aura of peace.
“About twenty-eight years. I retired a few years ago.”
“So you do this. What else do you do?”
“I roam.”
We separated as two women closed in on him to ask him about a strange bird one of them had seen in her backyard that looked like a mini-hawk which he explained was probably an American Kestral or Sparrowhawk.
The trail meandered past endless fields of wild mustard, California sunflower, white alder trees, desert willows, wild lilac and a myriad of valley oaks.
As we strode along, I took note of all the birds we identified in my journal. People in the group were more than happy to make sure I got the names and spellings correct.
To my astonishment, my daughter was actually getting into the groove of bird watching, excited and enthusiastic now, spotting birds with her binoculars and being surprised by their stunning appearance when viewed at close range.
“I didn’t know they looked like that. From a distance they just look grey,” Sofia said.
“Everything looks grey from a distance,” a woman said and I wasn’t really sure what she meant by it.
We saw Alan’s Hummingbird, Western Kingbird, the bright orange-yellow Hooded Oriole, California Quail, American Goldfinch, California Towee, Western Bluebird, Red-Tailed Hawk, House Wren (although I was confused because the House Wren in California are larger than the tiny House Wren I knew from Washington State), Song Sparrow, Nutcatcher, House Finch, Acorn Woodpecker (who was named thus because he hides his acorns in little holes in oak trees. Roger pointed this out to us on the walk), American Robin, Black Phoebe (I call this a Grassdipper), Mallard (Male), Bush Titt, Mourning Dove, White-Crested Nuthatch.
We stopped for a water break near a sapphire dragon tree and I noticed there was one man off by himself, smoking. He was the only person who didn’t look like he was enjoying himself very much. He looked gruff and irritable, like someone had dragged him along and he would much rather be golfing or watching a baseball game. He was tall and slight with a shock of gray hair, wearing sunglasses and pastel clothing that appeared more functional for library wear than a nature hike. He was also the only person without a pair of binoculars or spotting scope. I heard a few people ask him questions like, “Alan, did you sell your boat yet?” or “Alan, are you going to the walk in Ojai next week?” Along the way I threw him a few questions about incidentals just to feel him out which he only answered with a grunt or groan. When he was alone with his cigarette, I mustered the courage to ask a more direct question, “Why do you do this?”
After a long pause, remaining stone-faced, he answered, “It comforts me.” I was surprised by his candor. He ground his cigarette into the dirt with his jogging shoe.
“But you’re the only one here who seems like they don’t really want to be here.” He looked at me again with mounting irritation. (Note to the reader: I am generally only this direct with people I am certain I can subdue in hand-to-hand combat)
“My wife was really into it,” Alan said finally.
“She didn’t come today?”
“She passed away.”
“I’m sorry.”
That hurt a little bit. I was being a pushy jerk because he looked like he had an attitude but he was really only still mourning the death of his wife. Talking further with Alan, I found out that he was recently retired from an executive job at a pharmaceutical company, married nearly forty years and had never gone bird watching with his wife before. He only began when his wife got sick. This was her main hobby.
“I like to come with Roger because some of the other people who lead these groups are idiots, frankly,” Alan confided.
“This is my first.”
“I know.”
“How did you know?”
“You ask way too many questions.”
I have always had the strange tendency to ask random questions of complete strangers.
As we walked further down the trail, which snaked into an oak forest along a trickling creek, I dropped the bomb:
“Do you believe in God?”
Alan glared at me with absolute incredulity as if I had asked him if he ever had butt-sex with his grandmother.
“I’m an atheist,” he replied testily.
“That’s cool.”
“I believe in the Church of High Overhead,” he said with levity.
I tried to think of something else to say and we kind of just walked alongside each other feeling that clumsy silence of two personalities who repel each other like the wrong sides of colliding magnets.
Before I moved off to join my wife and daughter who had ventured ahead on the trail, he caught me with a question of his own.
“Do you believe?”
“Sure.”
“Why?”
“I just do.”
“But what do you base that on?”
Dennis, the man who had loaned me the binoculars, chuckled uncomfortably and stepped between us like a ref between two boxers, sensing the heaviness in the air.
“How did we get on this God debate?”
“He started it,” Alan said with a hint of good humor in his expression.
“No. He did. I swear,” I said.
“Let me ask you this. Where is God? Where can I see him? No, really. Show me where God is,” Alan said with feisty eyebrows cocked in challenge.
Dennis slouched off, shaking his head and flashing an uneasy grin.
I looked at Alan’s eyes glaring through his hundred dollar Ray Bans. I saw some macho haughtiness but there was pain and anguish too.
I wanted to say something really profound here but couldn’t find the words. You know when you’re confronted with the chance to convey some earth-shattering philosophical concept that could change lives, shift realities, move mountains? But you don’t. All you can focus on is your anxiety as your mind races a million miles an hour to formulate an unequivocal statement. I was even under the delusional belief I could transform a non-believer into a believer with a single, well-delivered gem of inspiration.
I tried to formulate something and it came out all wrong: “It’s really all about, you know like, what you choose to believe...I mean, who we are as... you know...where we are going spiritually...”
He made an exasperated sound by blowing air out of his pursed lips and slouched ahead of me down the narrow trail. A few seconds later it came to me, “Everywhere!” That’s what I wanted to say. “He’s everywhere!” I wanted to run after him, take his arm and yell right in his face: “Everywhere!” Or better yet, scream at him from a distance so it echoed over the distant hills, “Hey Alan! Everywhere-where-where-where!”
Then I read his mind: Yeah, screw you! You blew it! I don’t believe, jerkface! Because of you, I will never believe! I will die a non-believer and end up in the fiery abyss of Hades because you don’t know how to communicate your ideas! I opened the door for you to say something profound and you stuttered like a school girl! You amateur! You fake! Loser!
I made an attempt to catch up with Alan and elucidate my point but a man had engaged him in another discussion about his sail boat that was collecting barnacles in Ventura Harbor. I had blown it, big time.
We never spoke again the rest of the walk and later I learned that Alan had a stroke a few months after the birdwalk and half of his face was paralyzed. I never heard if he recovered or not.
As we approached the end of the walk, the party thinned; some people had gone on ahead and left and others had dropped behind, exploring other areas of the park. My wife and daughter appeared energized. They were laughing and singing. My wife’s stress level from the previous week had melted away. She was happy and content.
“Hey Sofi, how did you like the walk?” I asked my daughter. “Did you have fun?”
“No,” was her flat answer but I knew she did by the way she was dancing and singing her favorite song.
“I actually had a really good time. I’m surprised,” my wife said. “And best of all, it’s not even eleven yet. We still have the rest of Saturday to do things.”
Roger thanked me for coming and said we should join him on a walk to the grasslands of Oxnard by the beach in two weeks. He began to list off some of the species we might encounter. I told him I would love to. When my wife and daughter were out of earshot, I cut Roger off as he continued naming various shore birds.
“Roger, tell me, why do you really do this?”
“This?”
“Birdwatching.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
He continued walking for some ways and I felt insecure at the silence.
“Why do you do it?” he asked cheerfully.
“Uh, a friend suggested I check it out and I read it was a pretty good walking meditation.”
“It’s transcendent,” he said and patted me on the shoulder with a sheepish grin that half-looked like he was joking or embarrassed by making it into something bigger than it was.
Transcendent? I hadn’t heard that word applied to nature since I studied those funny, soul brothers from the nineteenth century who practiced civil disobedience and went out to live alone by ponds.
Transcendent? How could walking through a park in southern California looking at birds be transcendent? You can see birds anytime. After all, aren’t they everywhere? I had no clue what he was referring to. None whatsoever.
“Do you still hate birds?” I asked my daughter as we reached the car and dumped out equipment in the back.
“Yes.”
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