Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Weather is mild, calm, cloudy – neither this nor that
January, the second week of 2012

My daily personal journal contains a random collection ideas and images and information accumulated in real life, day by day.
My imagination often takes that material and runs away with it – extending the factual into the world of the possible.
Truth is at the heart of the process, but in different forms.
Here is a variety of examples – with no particular connection or theme.
The only thread is between my mind and yours.

ONE

In a small European country it is the law that all citizens must vote.
In every public election for which they are eligible.
Or, to be more precise, a citizen must appear at the voting station.
Must register, take a ballot, consider it, and place it in the ballot box.
It is, however, legal to cast a “white ballot”.
That is to say one may decide to vote for no candidate.
An unmarked ballot may be cast, as a sign that the voter does not find any candidate worthy – a vote of No Confidence.

One year the candidates for office were a woefully inadequate lot.
Extremists, clowns, fools, ego-maniacs, and corrupt incumbents.
The campaigns were a shoddy circus – an insult to intelligence.
And so.
By unspoken common consent all ballots cast were “white ballots.”
Everybody chose to vote for nobody.
Even, apparently, the candidates themselves.
Government came to a halt.
For a few months the people simply did what they knew they must do – obey the law, pay their taxes, do their work, and act with civility one to another.
The people governed themselves.
It was a good time . . . for awhile.
And then . . .

TWO

In the Navajo Indian culture there is a tradition called Chi Dio Dil.
“The Laughing Party” – held for newborns six weeks after birth.
Up until that time the child is protected from the hardness of the world.
When the time comes, relatives and friends gather to play with the child.
The first person to make the child laugh will be important in its life.

Billy Yazzie died on the Navaho reservation at age 95 last week.
In the traditional hogan where he was born and lived all his life.
“What were his last words?” people asked.
“No words – he just laughed – and died.”
“Of course,” people said, “Of course.”

Billy’s secret Navaho name was “He-who-got-the-joke-and-laughed.”
Well before his Chi Dio Dilat six weeks he was a laughing baby.
At the ceremony it was Billy who made everyone else laugh first.
And it was Billy who became important in everyone else’s life.
Not the other way around.

Billy had a funny face – clownish – high eyebrows, bubble nose.
The corners of his mouth always turned up, not down.
And his laugh was large and infectious, making him welcome everywhere.
Without his knowing he was considered a medicine man – a healer.
Navahos came from far and away to be near him and hear his stories.
Billy Yazzie was not only a laugher, but a great teller of jokes and stories and tales and myths.
Navahos always went away laughing, feeling better.
They revered him as a seer – one who has a deep vision of life.

What’s unusual about that, you may ask?
Well, for one thing, Billy Yazzie was blind from birth . . .

THREE

A tiny spider wove a web and constructed a web-sac on a CD of the music of Mozart - in my house in Crete while I was away for several months.
On the recording Dalibor Brazda played violin, with the Camerata Rheniana, conducted by Henry Adolph.
The spider’s fine, thin, silvery web was a lacy overlay of the CD.
I found her corpse when I opened the plastic box.
She died on the violin concerto No. 3 in D major, KV 211, about halfway through the 2nd movement, the Andante.
Her web sac was built on the 3rd movement, the Rondo: Allegro.

Did she know where she was and what she was doing?
Were there teeny-tiny edible insects inside the box?
Was she aboard the last time I played the disc?
Did she pick up vibrations beyond my ken and liked the music?
Is that what lured her to build her nest just there?
Did she, any more than I, have any idea of her life being lived out with great music underfoot.
Did Mozart have any affect on the lives of her children?

I wondered.

Shall I clean off the disc and go on playing it?
Or shall I set it aside as a small shrine to sacred mysteries?
What would Mozart want me to do?
Answers: Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe . . .
and I don’t know.
Yet.

FOUR

In the market of a small village in Turkey there is a Handle Man.
I have met him in person.
His wares include replacement handles for anything that has a handle.
Pots and pans, doors, tools . . . whatever.
If he doesn’t have it in stock, he will make one.
The day I watched him he crafted a new wooden handle for an axe, a shovel, a hammer, and scythe.
Cutting, shaping, scraping, sanding, polishing, and installing.
He made sure each customer tried out the handle for comfort.
Twice he reshaped a handle to fit the customer’s hand grip.
Through an interpreter I told him I wanted to get a handle on my life.
He wasn’t taken aback.
He knew what I meant.
“Ah,” he said, smiling, “Of course. So do I.
But, alas, I do not make that kind.
That is the work of Allah.
Pray.
Allah can handle anything.”

FIVE

A couple made love in the room below me in the middle of the night in the Nikos Takis Hotel on the Island of Rhodes, Nov. 11, 2011.
The floor and walls were thin, without soundproofing.
Woooo-haaaa!

I salute their enthusiasm, their passionate cries, their sense of rhythm,
their endurance, and their terms of endearment.
And I appreciate their religious sensibility in again and again calling upon God to witness their love making. “Aiee, Dios – Aiee, Dios – Aiee, Dios!”
Moreover, I appreciate their stamina.
It was a three-round, two-hour circus event.
Leaving me wide-eyed and exhausted, sitting on the edge of my bed.
Wow!

When I sat across from them the next morning at breakfast, I was surprised.
For one thing, they were sharing a bottle of red wine at 9 a.m.
For another, neither of them was young or beautiful.
Nicely dressed, neatly coiffed, politely behaved – but not young or pretty.

“Is that the couple from room 2 – the one below mine?” I asked the waiter.
“Yes. They have come every year at this time. They are not, how shall I say, married to each other.”

Later that night I was at a cafe called “Rogmi Tou Chrona” – The Crack In Time. They were there, drinking champagne and eating roast lamb.
When the musicians began playing, they danced with graceful skill out on the terrace under the full moon.

A taxi came and took them away.
That night there was silence beneath my room.

“Is the couple from room 2 still here?” I asked at breakfast.
“No, they only come for one night – every year.
“They are . . . sister and brother.”

SIX

On the beach of the Bay of Kissamos I found a bottle with a note in it.
A well-corked wine bottle – sealed with red wax.
The note was tied tightly with a string.
I fished it out of the bottle with a long wire.
Unwrapping the note, I found it was in Greek.
A friend translated:
“Stella. See previous bottle.”

SEVEN

The last donkey - gaiduria - died in the Cretan village of Avdos last year.
“Angelica” was her name – Angel.
In her younger years the lady donkey was an affable beast of burden.
A working animal known for her reliable strength and patience.
In feeble old age she became the village pet - of children and adults alike.

When she died, the village grieved.
Not just for Angel but for the passing of an era.
Donkeys were once as common as trucks are now.
And now, the last donkey was no more.

Manolis, her owner, and his drinking companions at the local taverna decided that Angel should be given a proper burial, with church rites.
Papa Antonio, a monk from the nearby monastery who served as the village priest was consulted.
“Ochi, No.” He would have nothing to do with it.

In private conversation Manolis explained to the good Father that if he would not cooperate, he, Manolis, would tell the village about what he knew of the relationship between Father Antonio and Angel, the donkey.
And that would explain why Angel was buried in solemn ceremony in a grave outside the walls of the regular cemetery, with Papa Antonio attending, along with most of the villagers.

Do not let your mind think evil thoughts - there was nothing immoral or unclean in the relationship between the priest and the donkey.
It’s just that, unknown to the village, Angel belonged to the monk.
She was Papa Antonio’s personal property.

How?
In this way.
In an overheated exchange about the championship title match between the two major Greek soccer teams, Manolis had bet his donkey against the monastery’s favorite milk goat.
In a fit of monkish madness Papa Antonio took the bet.
Manolis lost.
The monk claimed his prize by hanging a small bronze bell on the donkey, and by providing small funds to buy food for the animal from time to time.
Manolis, who was painfully embarrassed to have lost his beloved donkey to a monk, kept his mouth shut and took care of the donkey.
And the monk, who would have been in trouble with his Abbot for gambling and for owning a donkey, also kept is mouth shut

And now, Angel was dead.
The villagers were pleased with the funeral.
Papa Antonio was pleased that his secret had not been revealed.
And even more pleased that Abbot had approved of the funeral.

The Abbot had no choice, really.
Manolis had secretly covered his bet by backing the other team.
His donkey against the monastery’s milk goat.
The Abbot lost.
Manolis won.
And is the proud owner of a milk goat.
Only he and the Abbot know.
And when the goat dies . . .

These are not strange circumstances.
They are the workings of manly Cretan pride mixed with cleverness.
The spirit that underlies the so-called Greek Economic Crisis of our times.
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Enough for now – but more to come – another time.
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I end by saying I will be away for a few days.
One item on my 2012 Life List is to try and be at some special place every month to see the rising of the full moon.
I have a list.
On the evening of January 9 I’ll be on the Navajo Reservation in the iconic Monument Valley to see the moon come up.
And remain to see stars and planets and stars and the Great Open where the Navajos and Hopis carry on their lives.

Wherever you may be on Monday night, if the sky is clear, take a look . . .