. . . this moment is all we have . . . yet each moment is brimming, bursting full of all that is . . . everything we would ever need or want . . . infinity . . . eternity . . . limitless possibility . . . and imagination is our key of entry, our tool of creation . . .
Want to see what pure love and beauty looks like? Go here:
Haiku anyone?
unwrap your present
awaken to this moment
and burst into now
stepping out in dreams
asking what and who and why
and how deep and high
A little about how I came to write This Moment Is My Home
It took me almost twenty years to complete the novel. It started as a short story about a man meditating by himself on a mountain. The idea of a prolonged vigil of meditation had captured my imagination in my college years when I first studied Zen Buddhism and learned about Bodhidharma "staring at the wall" for years. Years later, in meditation retreats I got a taste of what it was like to spend week after week just meditating, honing the skill of becoming aloof to my own thoughts instead of identifying with them.
Till I learned and practiced Vipassana meditation I was not aware that it was possible to free myself from the tyranny of the ego mind, that is, the everyday chattering mind that keeps most of us in a trance through most of our lives. It was an exhilarating revelation! It changed everything for me. And eventually I wanted to share my experience and understanding with others, so began my short story.
The short story developed and deepened and grew. Around 1990 I became acquainted with some of the people at Book Creations Inc, a book production company near my home in the rural community of Canaan, NY. My wife Jan and I had the idea of pitching a book together about the children's crusade of the 13th century. We wrote a few chapters and it felt promising. But then I met Jean Tyler, who had been looking for a writer to tell the story of her family's ordeal with Alzheimer's Disease, and we hit it off. Jean had been very active in educating the public about the disease and helping caretakers directly forming many support groups. She was eventually appointed to Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis's fact finding committee on Alzheimer's and gained considerable notoriety.
When the editors at Book Creations heard about Jean Tyler they encouraged me to write Jean's story in a full length book. So the children's crusade project was shelved, and Jan and I, sadly, never took it up again. The Book Creations people found a publisher for the Alzheimer's book when it was still just an outline and a first chapter. So all of a sudden I had a deadline and an editor. The editor turned out to be a disaster. It was her first time editing a book and she didn't have the faintest idea how to help me. And since it was my first book too, I was working at it blind. She was replaced by an experienced editor named Laurie Rosen. She helped me finish the book successfully, editing out a lot of extraneous material.
After The Diminished Mind was published I gradually returned to my short story about the solitary meditator in the woods. At some point I realized that the story was swelling out of short story territory, threatening to become a full blown novel. And I decided to go for it.
But it was an immense uphill slog because plotting was not my strong suit. And I had not planned the novel at all. Instead I embarked spontaneously on high flown ideas about my character exploring consciousness through the vehicle of meditation, and what amazing things might "happen" to a totally determined seeker of inner knowledge.
I was writing about a character, based loosely on an old friend of mine, and other characters who were in his life, friends, family, etc. But I wasn't even sure who my character was, so I wasn't sure what his life was like. I had a hard time separating myself from the character. There was a lot of him in me, but a lot that wasn't. But what to do with all the pieces I had created? I tried many avenues and hit many dead ends. I actually wrote the equivalent of three novels of material to end up with This Moment Is My Home. I threw away a lot. At an earlier incarnation of the novel the hero was a musician in a rock band. I was drawing on my own experiences as a musician, and the dynamics and uncertainties surrounding egos and clashing personalities.
Around 2004 I thought the book was done and even found an agent. That was when the musician plot was still in effect. Her first request was that I trim my manuscript by fifty thousand words. It seemed impossible at first, but wasn't that hard once I got started, because I write by profusion. I spew a lot of verbiage and edit it all down later. No one has ever accused me of being at a loss for words, writing or talking.
The agent tried for a couple of years but couldn't get a publisher interested. They always came back with the comment: "There isn't enough at stake." I guess they favored novels where someone is trying to take over the world, or something. My theme was much subtler and didn't fit into any genre. So my agent gave up and wished me the best.
I had to reassess the book yet again, and finally realized that I couldn't make the musician plot work with the central spiritual theme of the book, or the ghostly otherworldly subplot. The musical life was a whole different novel from the one I was trying to write. So I finally hit upon using my early life in New York City, when I started out as a construction laborer, drove a taxi for a while, but also worked with children at a few day care centers, and eventually as a gym teacher in private elementary schools. That suited the inner life of my character better. Also I decided to use an old enduring friendship as a central theme.
Another stumbling block was whether to write in the first person or third person, or even second person. I drove myself crazy, first it was one, then another. I changed the entire manuscript from first person to third person then back again. That's a lot of work. But I don't shrink at work.
There were many times I thought about just chucking the whole novel, because I couldn't seem to wrestle the plot into a workable form. In fact my wife, who had to live with my frustration, suggested numerous times that I give it up and start on something new. But I am stubborn, pig-headed even. I really believed in the book, and was not going to admit defeat.
I worked at it and worked at it, tried this plot line and another, and threw them away later, and tried others. I don't remember exactly how, but through some magical, subconscious means, it somehow finally congealed into a form I could live with. I persisted till it worked.
Many years ago when I was driving a cab in Manhattan I saw a quote on sign in a drug store window. It was a quote attributed to Calvin Coolidge:
"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”
So I guess I took that to heart and stayed with what I believed in.
. . . And now some relief from all this prose, a poem apropos of my novel's title:
Melanie appears
to glide from her house
into her yard
sun-drowsy dog cocks its ears
sniffs towards her
new green branches move to
changeable air, intricate rhythms
old car with clattering engine passes
on the road nearby
the breeze shifts
tossing phrases
a conversation of two children,
a jet is passing far up behind
it falls a residue of gentle thunder
at intervals, faint radio music too
weaves its way to me
and I smell dark earth, moist bark
mingle
slightly with magnolia blossoms
off a ways
white haired Mrs. Seraphini
is hanging washed sheets in the sun with clothespins,
I watch
as Melanie receives the sun on her face
with closed eyes.
We are all masters of our own lives ( though some of us don't know it . . . yet ) Don't let the chatterworld of your conditioning tell you you are powerless. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although if you believe you are powerless, that belief will make it so, until you WAKE UP!
The Universe is Listening
When new awareness sparks
excitement
in your playful soul, and you wake
from sleep like lightning
and the masks slip away,
if you truly own your dreaming,
creation is your genie,
and dreams become the drama
of the dawning day.
When the universe hears a laugh
or a sob or a shout,
worlds are born like rivers
flowing out of thoughts like mirrors
from a sea of bubbly magic
reaching out.
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| cosmic hallway |
