{"id":66229,"date":"2015-11-09T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=66229"},"modified":"2015-11-09T11:26:52","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T11:26:52","slug":"into-the-heart-of-the-sacred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/11\/into-the-heart-of-the-sacred\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cInto the Heart of the Sacred\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Review of Vagabond Song: Neo-Haibun from the Peregrine Journals<\/em>, by Marc Beaudin. Elk River Books, Livingston, Montana, 2015. 251 pages.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI learn by going where I have to go.\u201d\u2014<\/em>Theodore Roethke<\/p>\n

\u201cA tourist doesn\u2019t know where he\u2019s been and a traveler doesn\u2019t know where he\u2019s going.\u201d\u2014<\/em>Paul Theroux<\/p>\n

\u201cA poem is a mirror walking down a strange street.\u201d<\/em>\u2014Lawrence Ferlinghetti<\/p>\n

One has to get the right grip on this book. One needs the right kind of hook. It\u2019s a book of dreams, and a book about how dreams come together on gossamer highways, and\u2014stone by stone\u2014on hardscrabble byways. Drunk on cervezas<\/em>, ganga<\/em> and poetry, Beaudin delivers travel journals that one wants to have lived– and re-live–with the author.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly connect,\u201d Forster wrote, and this is a book about connections\u2014to strangers on \u201cblue highways,\u201d stretching to the prairie\u2019s endless horizon; to kind, wise truckers on the soul-destroying maze of our Interstates; to \u201cangels\u201d on a \u201cchicken bus\u201d in Guatemala; and, encompassing all, to Nature: full moons over dark seas, ceiba trees in Copan; birds carrying sunrise on their glowing wings. And, \u201cmoonlight in the woodpulp of this page.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a book that may change the reader, deepen understanding, remain with one\u2014a vade mecum<\/em> of the soul\u2014long after one has read it. The book leaves one hungry for more books by this author: his unique blending of prose and poetry.<\/p>\n

The great Japanese poet, Basho, blended similarly in his 17th<\/sup>-Century classic, Oku no Hosomichi <\/em>(The Narrow Road to the Deep North<\/em>.) Basho girded his feet and calves with thick straw, covered his head with a pointed, straw hat, and, with bamboo staff, headed north on Honshu Island, far from the refinements of Edo (Tokyo). Beaudin is a similar type. He wants to confront life raw: he climbs a volcano into Zapatista (\u201crebel\u201d) territory in Mexico; wrestles with a wind-torn pup-tent in stormy Ireland; makes an offering of sage and tobacco at Wounded Knee, South Dakota\u2014site of the ignominious massacre of hundreds of Lakota tribal people by US Federal (i.e., imperialist) troops.<\/p>\n

In 100-degree, \u201cannihilating heat,\u201d Beaudin, alone, scans the \u201carid landscape that was once the floor of a sea. Eroded cathedrals of banded rock\u2014rust and ochre, sienna and ebony\u2014stand silent in the rage of the sun. Suddenly, I can see it, or rather feel it: the vastness of water, the strange prehistoric fish hovering in the depths. The salt scent of this ancient sea mingles with today\u2019s aromas of sage and flaking limestone\u2014or is it merely the salt of my own sweat that conjures this image?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe distinct sound of hoof beats approaches from behind. When I turn, there\u2019s nothing there. I move to continue walking and hear it again. In my imagination, I see the horse and rider. A large tobiano pinto stepping deliberately across the rock. A Lakota man in traditional dress. I can hear the jangling of claw and bead ornaments, the rain-whisper of dewclaw-covered arm and leg bands\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

A book of visions; a book of dreams; emanating\u2014not from marijuana smoke (though that\u2019s there, too)\u2014but, primarily, through life hard-lived, on the edges, in \u201cSquatemala\u201d\u2014Beaudin\u2019s and friends\u2019 less-than-paradise dwelling in broken-down Saginaw, Michigan (his hometown); and, in the best Kerouackian fashion, \u201cOn the Road.\u201d He\u2019s a word-mage, a la<\/em> Joyce\u2026, but can we trust the visions?<\/p>\n

It is trust that is garnered over time.<\/p>\n

The book is written over a 10-year period, Beaudin confides at one point, but actually it feels more like 20 years! It begins more frenetically than prophetically:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I don\u2019t get back on the road I\u2019m going to lose my dog-damn mind howling mad and barking crazy like some burning saint. Give us this night our vagrant moon. Give us this day a double yellow line flashing like a beacon of endless possibility. Kinetophilia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDog\u201d for \u201cGod\u201d is a bit of Beaudinesque word-play to which one quickly adjusts. His \u201ckinetophilia,\u201d may take a bit longer. What one feels immediately is Youth!\u2014its restlessness, sweetness, anger, hope. We\u2019re back in the 1990s, post-Reagan and into line-in-Iraq\u2019s-bloody-sand Daddy Bush. The Soviet Union has collapsed and Capitalism\/Consumerism\/Imperialism is our cup of triumphalist tea. Except\u2014it stinks! Souls like Beaudin know it\u2019s toxic. So, he\u2019s got to get out, got to move, fledge wings, don\u2019t know where–somewhere, anywhere, nowhere, everywhere!<\/p>\n

I had some trouble with the first couple of rounds of the book because of that topsy-turvy style. Younger readers might respond very differently. I had some trouble with his too-oft expressed animosity toward Catholics, and Christians in general. Surely there are some good ones somewhere? (It doesn\u2019t take long to realize: it\u2019s hypocrisy of any sort that\u2019s anathema to him!)<\/p>\n

The book is layered. It is, after all, a \u201cperegrine journal\u201d of decades. I understood the author better as I kept delving–and I did want to delve. If there are future editions of Song<\/em>\u2014and I hope there are\u2014we may see some of the info appearing on Page 204, integrated earlier; viz.:<\/p>\n

\u201cI was born into a culture defined by its lack of culture. A middle-of-the-block house in a midsized mid-Michigan Midwestern town. Dragged to a Methodist church where the singing was flat and muttered, and the slightest show of religious fervor made everyone uncomfortable. Communion felt as spiritual as the coffee and cookies after the service. For the rest of my week, school was little more than a daily taste of prison\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whitman\u2014one of Beaudin\u2019s writer-heroes\u2014re-worked \u201cLeaves of Grass\u201d for many years until it was one of the life-altering monuments of world literature. (\u201cYou must alter your life,\u201d Rilke\u2019s archaic torso of Apollo tells the curious onlooker.) With its synthesis of poetry and prose, travel writing and social and political commentary, Beaudin has created a splendid vehicle for capturing the vagabond song of life:<\/p>\n

Louder: the music of the trees.<\/em>
\nSweeter: the aroma-voices of the mountain.<\/em>
\nBrighter: the sunlight on each rock.<\/em>
\nThese are the gifts of a venomous snake<\/em>
\nsafely passed.<\/em>
\n____________________________________<\/p>\n

Marc Beaudin lives in Livingston, Montana. He is co-owner of Elk River Books, the artistic director of the Caldera Theatre Company, and the Poetry Editor of Counterpunch. More on his writing and theatre work can be found at CrowVoice.com. <\/em><\/p>\n

Gary Corseri has published novels, collections of poems, and a literary anthology (edited). His dramatic work has been produced on PBS-Atlanta. He has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library. Contact: gary_corseri@comcast.net.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI was born into a culture defined by its lack of culture. A middle-of-the-block house in a midsized mid-Michigan Midwestern town. Dragged to a Methodist church where the singing was flat and muttered, and the slightest show of religious fervor made everyone uncomfortable. Communion felt as spiritual as the coffee and cookies after the service. For the rest of my week, school was little more than a daily taste of prison\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}