OLD PIRATES OF THE HEART

2020 WINNER AGELESS AUTHORS SHORT STORY CONTEST

WHO AM I?

A friend and former shipmate of mine and I, both of us old pirates on the sea of life did not pass quietly as ships do sometimes in the night. We hove-to, dropped our sails and spent a few hours juxtaposed and adrift together. It was not smoke and mirrors, cannon blasts or fancy swordplay. It was genuine, problematic intimacy. She, the world navigator reported a tumult of miracles, bombings, and Beruit taxi rides. Always the positive. Always ahead of the games. On the way to care for grandbabies between world-wide gatherings armadas of small pleasure craft-lives into workshops in which she boards, and opens treasure chests of the heart in a therapeutic ransacking.

     There is a deranged proximity about us – and the others. Some were monks, are still monks, will always be monks out of the flow. They loving their logic.  We have left them in the monasteries while we freebooters cannot sit so still for so long. We think better beneath the flysheets dealing with the flow, the forces far bigger than ourselves, the gales, the currents, the tides, apparently still surviving. Desiring for the difficult, the unsettled, the potential exotic, the flesh. The vital words without logic. The rap of lives rhymed, and always very much alive, very much flowing, flowing.

WHY AM I HERE?

Freedom. We serve no King nor flag except the tattered hearts and push the debate. There are hints of prostitution but only from those who see life as a debit-credit scheme. We are under the waterfall of life, pleased at all costs. Suspecting emotions. We are linguistically in disarray rubbing up against our apparent feelings. There are obvious conclusions.

     A glass of red wine. Two Margaritas. Grilled fish. A large bowl. And the stories, always the stories. The pitfalls. Blindsides. Near misses. We dissolve into tears. Touch as only old pirates of the heart will permit themselves to be touched by another. There is no myth of dominance. We plunge into desolation. Dive into the unfulfilled, never to be fulfilled, what were we thinking?  We short-circuit our best and most well-worn vanities. We imply old successes but tread on the deck of tragedy. And laugh. We laugh. We know we will not stay. Cannot stay. 

WHAT DO I WANT?

Piracy is not carried out in a monastic order. We are lonely. We turn our loneliness those destiny moments with others - fierce and mad enjambments. Crowd scenes where everyone but us is clothed in burkas where we only see their eyes and then comes their revelations of secret, childhood (teenage, adult, mid-life, elder) abuse they have held onto so tightly they have pressed into jewels. Their lives have been arranged around these jewels to protect them because, they would be adrift otherwise. The heart chests hold such awful jewels. And, pirates, well pirates help the agonized victims open their chests and look at the jewels of great value.

     Like an oozing, unasked snake that is fascinating and coils around us and between the piratess and I filled with venom and investment, is the question, “So, how are you, really?” with the drop into the abyss on the word “really.

     But, we don’t pry. We are shy. We know the awfulness we have in our chests and we presume the other has the same – probably worse. After all, she is older, walking the plank of age, disease, doubt, fear... or am I talking about myself again? Probably.

     That’s why we move. Move away from the coiling questions, which we give to others. We know the questions, we can shift the wind, the currents, the question. We don’t want to be faced with actually looking into what the other has in her heart. “Look at that, will ya?  What will I do about that fetid, stinking treasure I love so much?”

     Awful jewels are what people keep in their chests. Better not hurt one another. Another day. Maybe a mooring in the future. The note with the black dot. Treasure Island?

© Copyright 2015, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved

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SIGHTS

It sounds impossible or childish to speak of virtues. And, then to ask how we might SEE or SIGHT a virtue?  Really? Seeing a virtue in the world? Is this Sunday School question? Seeing a virtue in action is not something an adult in this day and age might even seriously consider in my neighborhood.

Yet, despite the apparent ridiculous nature of the idea of seeing random acts of virtue, I have just set up a blog for a Calendar of Virtues. It is a monthly exercise aimed at getting people to stop by, get the monthly  virtue transition, then look around and see if it appears in the world or in our lives. 

Here is what happens if you set aside your quite natural and quite intellectually correct assumptions about how the world works – and how things appear.

First, visit the blog between now  and August 20 and you’ll see:

 www.calendarofvirtues.blogspot.com

The Virtue for July 21 – August 20 is:  THE VIRTUE OF  COMPASSION LEADS TO FREEDOM

OPPOSITE: HEARTLESSNESS

The virtues change on the 21^st of each month.

Here’s what happened to me: I was thinking that it is impossible for this virtue – COMPASSION -  (or ANY virtue) to appear at all. How can a virtue appear?

Then a flyer came through the mail about a summer, local, free lunch program for kids 18 – years and younger – because school lunch programs are done for the school year – none for summer.

Bingo, bango, bongo – right on cue – Compassion.  Interesting. How did life do that?

Did it lead to freedom? Well, yeah! Freedom from want. Freedom from hunger. Parents working three jobs got a little freedom.

               But, doesn’t a virtue sometimes not work out so well?

I thought about people who have great compassion and care for someone; show GREAT compassion, so much compassion that they have to sacrifice their personal freedom.

The people who care for someone many times sacrifice their freedom;  through compassion. But, many times the  sacrifice of one leads to freedom for the other for whom they care – freedom from pain, maybe; freedom from loneliness, certainly; freedom to focus on recovery.

An example from nature:  momma birds have compassion (or duty), built in by Mother Nature.

In the birdie’s case, Momma’s compassion, getting the worms, day-after-day eventually leads to a nest full of fledglings and then…

Bingo-Bango-Bongo – flight! Yeah! Freedom!

I – n – t – e - r-  e – s – t – I – n – g!

How about the opposite? Heartlessness?  No prob! I got a whole election season and TV news for that. And that leads to freedom to use the off button on that baby!

(c) Copyright 2019, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved

FACING TANKS - Tinanamen Square and your grocery store parking lot

Originally published Aug 4, 2014, this post apparently caused my blog to be "banned" and have zero visitors from China for more than a year. Six  months ago, this blog had a very healthy rate of visitors from China - however, over the past three months, the number is again zero.  Perhaps this is a Google / China "thang" - however, just in case, I send the hated word of freedom down the line again - "Tinanmen Square".  Wonder what other visitors will disappear?

WHO AM I?

     June 4, 1989 - CHINA - In the quintessential photo of the Tiananmen Square stand off, one man stands in front of four heavily armored tanks and he is holding two shopping bags. The tanks are real and symbolic of technologies and power systems used by Communist Party elites in China for control of their World - the earth, the economics, cultural and the rights life.

     Tiananmen Square, which incidentally means "Gate of Heavenly Peace", was the site of June 1989 demonstrations with an estimated million participants. Following the death of Mao Desung reforms were started. But, severe economic pressures were biting. As reported in Wikipedia: "The protesters called for government accountability, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and the restoration of workers' control over industry." The results of the June 1989 demonstration was repression.

     June 4, 1989 - U.S.A - If there was a quintessential photo of the American "Tiananmen Square" stand off, it would be one woman standing in front of a series heavily armored Agro-industrial Corporate tanks holding two shopping bags.

     U.S. Tank #1 - Technology, an Agro-industrial "gene gun - a "Biolostics" (ballistic bombardment) "gun" which literally shoots metallic particles coated with genetic material into soybeans (or whatever plant). In this instance, biolostics was used to create a strain of soybeans which became immunized against a type of herbicide.

     U.S. Tank #2 - Seizing public resources. In order to own their GMO modified soybean, the Agro-industrial corporation had to patent the basic genomic stock and their modified GMO version. While they were at it, and before anyone realized what they were doing, corporate Agro-industry aggressively patented indigenous plant genomes so that they own most species which formerly were saved and freely shared for worldwide farming and gardening since the dawn of time.

     The U.S. economic, political and spiritual/cultural way of life is in many ways like a weird, reverse mirror-image of China. China was beginning to ease central control while our U.S. "free enterprise" corporate elite seized economic control. China wanted their farmers to be creative. Our corporations wanted the poorest farmers in the Third World to pay for seeds and in doing so took away farmers' rights for self-determination. Our government and courts support their action. This worldwide Agro-industrial giant now can sue farmers in any country for using their own seeds which they saved.

     Like the demonstrators at Tinanaman Square, Americans have in their own way longed for freedom of speech, freedom of the press and demand freedom of choice when made possible. To U.S. Agro-corporate interests, freedom of speech does not apply to them - they don't have to reveal "trade secrets".

WHY AM I HERE?

      The timing of GMO research and product development was nearly perfect as economic pressures in the 1980s devastated thousands of U.S. family farms. There were suicides, murders and bankruptcies by the score as banks and Agro-idustries gave no relief. U.S. farmers sought economic refuge where ever they could find it including Agro-industrial "systems" - like GMOs / herbicide combo - which reduced costs and offered technological "guarantees".

     At the same time, consumers were not informed that these manipulated genetic plants were now replacing "natural" plants in nearly all cattle feed and food production. When offered a choice, consumers rejected GMO products like rBST milk and said no to "Franken-foods" like the "Flavr-Savr" tomato with incredibly unnatural shelf-life. Consumers wanted food security and freedom to choose "true food", organic / biodynamic. Since the 80s there has been a continuing worldwide battle over organic standards and corporate control.

     A revolutionary "game changer" was introduced in the 80s by growers in the Northeast of the United States who brought a new, non-technological social form of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) from Europe. CSA shifts the farmer's relationship from Agro-industrial dependency and mass-marketing to "buying local" quality food.

WHAT DO I WANT?

     We in the U.S. can be grateful that we have achieved buy-local, CSAs, organic and biodynamic certification as these increase our ability to have some small control over at least a small portion of our food and food safety. But this is still hotly contended by Agro-industry with its very deep pockets.

     In the 25 years since Tinanaman Square, China has evolved into a worldwide economic superpower. In addition, their long sought-after social reforms have begun to move toward greater freedom of speech and the press. Interestingly, China and other countries in the far east are demanding higher quality food products imported from U.S. suppliers. GMOs and other products have been refused.

     Perhaps in some weird reverse way, China and the U.S. consumers may both be longing for greater accountability from our power systems - Socialistic and Capitalistic. In addition, we may both be demanding freedom of speech - such as labeling GMO products - freedom of the press (in our case a press not controlled by Agro-industrial related corporations.)

     Free speech, more personal freedom and reduced domination by repressive power systems - these are what the Chinese protested for and died for at Tinanaman Square 25 years ago.

     Will we need to do the same?

     Jean Yeager was the Managing Editor of the journal Biodynamics in the early 1990s.

https://goo.gl/KAynmu

(c) Copyright 2014, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved

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PINBALL CHOICE

WHO AM I?

I have been rolling downhill on my old-style, electro-mechanical pinball life. I bounced from bumper-to-bumper, location-to-location, job-to-job, crisis-to-crisis, and person-to-person. Did I really control any of this or did I really only control my desire-flippers at the bottom?

I am now propelled by the gravity of aging and the inertia of my vanities. I am now realizing that I am unable to really alter the linear direction of my descent toward “Game Over” which prior events have orchestrated. Even the speed of my fall is cumulative. My rolling silver steel ball of personality appears out of my control. I watch all that is going on behind the glass game-top and wonder if I have become a “deaf, dumb blind kid” like Tommy.

Can’t I choose anything? Do anything?

Then again, do I really want to choose? Or should I simply let the events choose? That’s the easiest. Less effort, right? Watch my little steel ball go straight down and disappear out of sight. Then I can curse “what they did to me”, those stupid bumpers. Blame someone else for my fate, my lack of opportunities. The lack of wealth of my parents, genetics that gave me an “eecch” brain. Maybe whine about the obviously rigged game of life which is not on the level. Oh sure, there were inclinations, mine on the inner and the inclined game table on the outer. And, after all, I chose this game.

And I was inclined to try to affect the outcome. I shook the table, nudged it – hard (careful not to “tilt”). But, basically, a pinball life is three balls, flashing lights, sounds, points rolling on the board as you stand there somewhat confused, unaware, naïve, numb in my heart and alone. Yeah, I flipped my desire flippers and occasionally kept the ball in play.

Choose. Huh? Yeah, right.

WHAT DO I WANT?

Let me brood in my dull anger for a moment, okay?

Do I want to choose? Yes, I do want to choose. And, I realize that if I choose, then I will pay for my choice. I will suffer. I do suffer. Your extra replays don’t come free. But, I’m brooding already, right? I have a few more games racked up on the counter – a few more years before “Game Over.”

     Deprivation because when you choose, you only get one thing – not both. I have to pick one or the other, poverty because I can’t have both (or the many). There will be labor, conflict, looming fear, addiction (to my desiring. Desiring? Hell. Longing!), regret that things will not be harmonious, rejected divinity, failing physical capacities, pissing myself. Maybe denial is easier. Just let me stand here like Tommy – deaf, dumb and blind. But, Tommy could play. Am I a player?

     Suffering. Suffering to be myself. A warrior, a player, chooses to define her/himself from the others. Can I be hostile? Independent? Push back against the inclined table of life? I can be hostile to the amorphous, undefined!

     I long for the One Thing. The One Thing we have in our hearts, our True Self. The others told me that real success was getting my steel ball into the 1,000 Points Hole. Roll your ball into that Hole and score big time, lots of lights, sounds and chatter. Woo-hoo! (“You get a replay!”) And, then the 1,000 Points Hole ejects you, shoots you across the table.

That other thing which warms your heart? That True Love? Where is that? Don’t seek that. There is no choice, they say. Stick with the 1,000 Point Hole and replays. You are what you are, the game is the game, the table is what it is, and that is that. True Self? True Love? Not here. Not in this game. This is a closed system. There is no place to go for that.

WHY AM I HERE?

I am here to awaken the True Self before I die. Before you die.

“Time, time, time, see what’s become of me...” I am a child of the 60s in my 60s. What time is it? Am I late for a very important date? “When the Moon s in the 7^th House...” Is this the dawning? I have I missed it? When was that Millennium? Y2K?

Is it ever too late to transform? If you don’t transform yourself, life will transform you. So, you have to go from the closed system to an open system.

If I am a steel ball, I am iron. Iron is malleable with enough heat. With enough passion I will undergo the agony of change. I will stand between the opposites where I’m normally not inclined to go, and feel the power of resistance. Resistance to my passion cranks up the heat. With enough passion, resistance and friction, I can change. Form a blade. A sword. The One Thing to become, my new self. Someone who does not just roll mindlessly, who can overcome the inertia of the past. A blade does not roll mindlessly. A blade cuts you away from the amorphous which clings.  Change - the one precious thing to do - the act which grows more fierce with each sun rise.

True Self awakens in the sphere of cause. Outside the box. Off the table. Choose to be the gravity, your self-motive. This is how we roll.

Copyright 2015, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved

TH3 SIMPLE QUESTIONS: Slice Open Everyday Life

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WE PRETEND WE DON’T PRETEND

WHO AM I?

We pretend our lives are richer because we are wrapped in technology. We pretend our day-to-day-ness is not carried out in a system that requires we buy things. We pretend we are free when we buy the “best” brands. We pretend that we do not define ourselves by the status which these brands bestow upon us. I mean, I feel good when someone notices the shoes I wear. I feel less at the gym, when my gear is not top of the line, but I pretend this is not so.

     Police pretend that wielding arbitrary power is observing the legal code. Social media pretends that reducing human interaction to a process of “likes” and machines is more human than, say conversation, right? I can contact lots of FB friends rather than walking down the block. More is better, right? Which one is real? Society pretends that the disintegration of home-made-ness through shopping at dollar store chains is actually the ultimate liberation of the individual – that what is freed is the time spent creating a birthday card. We pretend it is “no big deal” spending less time with each other. I actually like the cheap design rather than my own crude, hand lettered card.

     We pretend our freedom of thought does not change when we face a college-ruled pad or a Samsung Note 4 screen. If only we had this or that app, then we could do that! The software manufacturers pretend that their products make better thinking possible, and not just following commands. That word processing is not, well, processing but really more thinking. They pretend that their products are liberating for human beings even though what we do requires their products. We pretend we will probably think better if we put our naturally free thinking capacities into the thought architectures of software, but we never compare that with the alternative. Why compare? Software thinking is easier. It’s all thought out for us. It’s easier.

     Consumptive economic society pretends to respect human rights and human freedoms. We pretend our society does not strips all natural community cultures, local retailers, local values, and replace them with a “capitalistic consumer culture” and calls this progress, estimates employment opportunities, measures the potential as the gross national product and focuses childhood, education and family life to keeping this culture in place. We pretend that’s the way it ought to be. Why else are we here?

WHY AM I HERE?

We are told when we join the consumer culture we will become free. That are told, and we pretend we are liberated. From what are we liberated? What do we give up? What do we give up in our quest for freedom? Values which don’t “fit” in the corporate culture. We pretend this is good.

Corporate culture is organized around exclusiveness, exclusion, brand-specific behavior, but we pretend otherwise. It does not value groups which are organized around non-exclusive values – friends, family, music, church, locally grown food, shade-tree mechanics, garage bands, dancing in the street, baby-sitting co-ops, co-op groceries, individual freedom, human rights. We pretend these things are value-less because they come from the non-economic world.

We pretend corporations do not persecute us. We pretend that what they do is not a conscious choice. We pretend they are not like “active shooters.” We pretend that our government does not choose to value corporations over people. Our government pretends that the expansion of corporate influence is the support of the oppressed... that corporate culture is “better than” amateur, “do-it-yourself” culture.

We pretend we are not demoralized. We pretend we are not living within the corporatism lie. We pretend we have no crisis of human identity. We pretend this is not a reverse, mirror image of totalitarianism, formerly-Soviet life which then crushed human freedom. We pretend the voters in this election are not responding to this angst.

WHAT DO I WANT?

Where is the free human being? The human being not enslaved by technology? The human being living off the grid, and out of consumer culture? Living with the home-made? Living with knitting, not knitted? Living with hand-lettered? Stepping into humanity? Into the community which loves each member? Which does not need chain stores?

We exist, we “alternative” community members, in what is called a parallel polis – a parallel world. We seek out lives and training that values the human. We are creative. Inventive. Unafraid. Curious. We create browsers. We change what is built-in. We hop-up our cars. We do-it-ourselves.

You see us in co-ops, farmers markets and neighborhood child care centers. We are little retail shops. We are women who raise chickens and have egg customers. We are a society that is parallel to the outward, large, consumer society. We dare for one another, and care for one another.

The world pretends we don’t exist.

But, when the corporate / political polis collapses, you will be glad to find the egg lady. She does exist. Koo-koo-ka-chew!

© Copyright 2016, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved
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THE LABEL

WHO AM I?

     I am the label, what you get called. A code phrase, or shorthand, used to mark you in some way. Many labels are racial, sexual, or cultural. Some labels are used to mark someone or something as being part of a group with negative values in order to define, control, ridicule punish or avoid you. Or warn others about you.  We can’t pretend these kinds of labels don’t exist no matter how offensive they are.

     On the other hand, labels are used to differentiate things and add value to items that are similar – like designer labels on clothes, record labels. A brand of anything. Even personal branding – as in your names – extends your specific values to styles and ideas.

There are corporate labels. Specific job labels. Professional labels – MD, RN, LVN, PT and others. Pro sports labels, amateur team labels, school labels – high school, college! (Go Rams!) On and on. We labels get around.

     Don’t forget the medical labels – the diagnoses. They even have commercials for specific ailments. Labels help YOU sell the product by asking you to ask your doctor for something for your ED, talking bladder or elephant siting on your COPD. (That’s called “pull” marketing.)

You label yourself by how you dress, your tattoos, hair style, color, beard, nails, and age. And shoes, don’t ever forget what your SHOES say about who you are. Shoes say a lot. Self imposed labels are ways in which people find you. This post has a "label" for the search engines.

WHY AM I HERE?

     We labels exists so someone can OWN you. A "slave" to fashion? You got a diagnosis? Somebody professionally specializes in the diagnosis which you have and can make money by treating you because of your label. Labeling is a form of ownership. Ever had a medical issue? Your history, with a label attached, is in the system worldwide. Data collection by governments and corporations? Labels. Data points.

     Labels, what you call one another, how you assess one another lock you into mental categories and you lock in for others.  Advertisers know these categories, because they are based on market research and sales and they design their ads accordingly. And, you tend to judge one another accordingly. 

     But, there is another form of label which is free from all of these things. It is here to show us that ownership is not based on specific things, but not static, more ephemeral. This sort of label is fluid, moving and changing. This is the tag.

     Your first tag may have been the “tag you’re it” as you ran from one another as children. A tag is also the spray-painted graphic symbol affixed to buildings to demarcate boundaries or “turf”. But, tags are also put moving objects like rail cars, subway cars, trailers and other items which move. The ownership designated with a tag is the momentary ownership of the paint. It is not a space affixed ownership, it is not branding an item, but a proclamation, sometimes daring and dangerous, that the tagger was there and created the mark – the label or tag. “Tag you’re it.”

WHAT DO I WANT?

     Labels and tags should be living things. They must be the kind of addition which does not lock us forever into a “bondage” of designation or data collection. A “tag you’re it” kind of thing. A short term, temporary designation that is in YOUR control to change.

     Plaines Indian tribes had a custom of touching or “tagging” an enemy in battle and this was known as “counting coups”. Warriors won prestige by riding through certain death of battle to touch an opponent who could have killed them.

We labels are in favor of a new kind of label or designations of virtues which can be won by everyone.

     We labels also know that the word “tag” in German means “the day”. Tag is a tag of the future. A dawning, a new day, something creative and not a fixed label. A freedom for you not to be judged, not to be owned by somebody else. A new tag in which it is possible for you to gain prestige, re-create yourself.

     Tag, you’re it!

© Copyright 2015, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved

“TH3 SIMPLE QUESTIONS: Slice Into Everyday Life” contains more than 45 posts - the first six-months of blog posts - from this bLog. It is available in e-Book, Soft Cover and Hardcover at all major online book retailers. 
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