two act, so much the better. If a hundred or a thousand or a million act,
that is better yet. Our separate acts will in time become a collective adaptation, and we will become a saner species than
we are.
But that’s not my prime motivation at this moment of my life. I’m not trying to save the world; I’m trying to drive my evil
spirits away. Maybe those two objectives aren’t as far apart as they seem. Maybe the personal and political, the private and
public, are mirror images of each other. When the demons vanish, so does the destruction.
Where to begin—that’s what I must think of now. The stone I’m sitting on is wet and cold, and so am I. But if I leave now,
I know I will be attacked at once by the same old furies. They are out there waiting like swarming gnats and stinging nettles.
A suit of armor would protect me from the onslaught, but it would also weigh me down.
I have often heard it said that alienation is the curse of the modern world, but I think it is the curse of mankind and his
inquisitive mind, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. Our forebears bit deeply into the apple of knowledge, and that is
where our alienation began. Instead of accepting paradise as it was given to us, we examined it atom by atom, we built cities
of concrete and cars of steel and we stripped the earth for its fossil fuels. I don’t deny we benefited in many ways from
our industry. But where is the Garden of Eden? Where is the music of the spheres?
No other animal is as divorced from its habitat as we. If we are estranged from the land we live on, then we are estranged
from the life we lead and at war with ourselves. And the bodies strewn across the landscape aren’t bodies at all. They are
the living dead, the hollow men with eyes that don’t see and ears that don’t hear.
I am surprised at myself. I stepped into this rock with a hole in the center, intending to calm myself down. Instead, I have
worked myself up to a fever pitch of agitation. Maybe that is how it’s supposed to be. Who says meditation brings serenity?
Perhaps its purpose is to shake off sleep, to stir the blood, to rouse the mind. It’s midday now, but I am more awake than
I was when I left my bed at dawn.
I hear voices, the laughing voices of children at play. As I leave the rock I see that I share this stretch of beach with
a family of picnickers. The adults are huddled around a hibachi; I can smell the smoking coals and sizzling meat. The children
are racing down to the water’s edge and dashing back up again, tumbling over each other as they go.
There is a verity in the scene, a universality. Why do people all over the world flock to the sandy shore? I think it’s because
the instant they touch the sand, the moment they hear the surf, the evil spirits flee and they feel at home in the world.
I move slowly, deliberately, over the sand, aware that the universe is not a hostile place. “Drink your tea slowly,” Nhat
Hanh wrote. “There is a great rush in our world to get things over and done with, but there is no reverence for the work itself.”
What I need now is to immerse myself in life—to express my reverence for the moment at hand, the moment in which I dwell,
and for the beachcombing I want to do.
I follow the line of the tide along the beach, studying each shell, each scrap of shell, until I see it distinctly in the
glistening sand. I bend over and pick up a fragment that has washed ashore. It’s the skeleton of a purple sea urchin, its
surface an array of imbedded beads. I close my eyes. I lift the shell to my ears, my nose. I rub my hand across its tiny globes,
gathering its message through my fingertips like a blind man reading braille.
eight
the motions of the world
I start my van and travel down the winding Coast Highway, the ocean on my right. My vehicle is old and wheezy and it balks
like a mule when going up a hill. In my rearview mirror I see a young man at the wheel
that is better yet. Our separate acts will in time become a collective adaptation, and we will become a saner species than
we are.
But that’s not my prime motivation at this moment of my life. I’m not trying to save the world; I’m trying to drive my evil
spirits away. Maybe those two objectives aren’t as far apart as they seem. Maybe the personal and political, the private and
public, are mirror images of each other. When the demons vanish, so does the destruction.
Where to begin—that’s what I must think of now. The stone I’m sitting on is wet and cold, and so am I. But if I leave now,
I know I will be attacked at once by the same old furies. They are out there waiting like swarming gnats and stinging nettles.
A suit of armor would protect me from the onslaught, but it would also weigh me down.
I have often heard it said that alienation is the curse of the modern world, but I think it is the curse of mankind and his
inquisitive mind, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. Our forebears bit deeply into the apple of knowledge, and that is
where our alienation began. Instead of accepting paradise as it was given to us, we examined it atom by atom, we built cities
of concrete and cars of steel and we stripped the earth for its fossil fuels. I don’t deny we benefited in many ways from
our industry. But where is the Garden of Eden? Where is the music of the spheres?
No other animal is as divorced from its habitat as we. If we are estranged from the land we live on, then we are estranged
from the life we lead and at war with ourselves. And the bodies strewn across the landscape aren’t bodies at all. They are
the living dead, the hollow men with eyes that don’t see and ears that don’t hear.
I am surprised at myself. I stepped into this rock with a hole in the center, intending to calm myself down. Instead, I have
worked myself up to a fever pitch of agitation. Maybe that is how it’s supposed to be. Who says meditation brings serenity?
Perhaps its purpose is to shake off sleep, to stir the blood, to rouse the mind. It’s midday now, but I am more awake than
I was when I left my bed at dawn.
I hear voices, the laughing voices of children at play. As I leave the rock I see that I share this stretch of beach with
a family of picnickers. The adults are huddled around a hibachi; I can smell the smoking coals and sizzling meat. The children
are racing down to the water’s edge and dashing back up again, tumbling over each other as they go.
There is a verity in the scene, a universality. Why do people all over the world flock to the sandy shore? I think it’s because
the instant they touch the sand, the moment they hear the surf, the evil spirits flee and they feel at home in the world.
I move slowly, deliberately, over the sand, aware that the universe is not a hostile place. “Drink your tea slowly,” Nhat
Hanh wrote. “There is a great rush in our world to get things over and done with, but there is no reverence for the work itself.”
What I need now is to immerse myself in life—to express my reverence for the moment at hand, the moment in which I dwell,
and for the beachcombing I want to do.
I follow the line of the tide along the beach, studying each shell, each scrap of shell, until I see it distinctly in the
glistening sand. I bend over and pick up a fragment that has washed ashore. It’s the skeleton of a purple sea urchin, its
surface an array of imbedded beads. I close my eyes. I lift the shell to my ears, my nose. I rub my hand across its tiny globes,
gathering its message through my fingertips like a blind man reading braille.
eight
the motions of the world
I start my van and travel down the winding Coast Highway, the ocean on my right. My vehicle is old and wheezy and it balks
like a mule when going up a hill. In my rearview mirror I see a young man at the wheel
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