The Mark Twain studio, an enclosed gazebo Twain used for writing while summering at his wife’s family’s farm in Elmira, New York.
The Room Where Tom Sawyer was written.
04-Nov-12Hurricane Sandy.
04-Nov-12I was at the cabin for the hurricane, which counts as one of the more impressive experiences of my life. I was on high ground, and all the trees within striking distance of the house are healthy and rather distant threats, all in all. That said, I was aware of their presence and experienced a fair amount of terror at what began as vast long groans of wind sweeping over the mountain, and climaxed in a continual roar of millions of moving branches for miles in every direction. I have a large picture window, which rather ominously would bulge inward like a sail in the wind. I did not have tape and so I left it as it was. It made it through in the end. In fact there was no property damage, the only change to the forest being a culling of weaker wood. The greatest damage was done Monday evening, just as the first powerful winds swept through. I stood outside in a particularly powerful gust and saw two massive maples come down within minutes of each other. The trees did not come up from the roots; the wind simply found the weaker wood and snapped it.
The rainfall was minimal – I had two inches in my gauge over three days – and the river did not flood, the condition I was most worried about. This was exactly as the meteorologists had predicted.
The area lost power, which of course does not affect me much. One of my big treefalls was right across my driveway, so I had to cut my way out. I had no particular place to go for a few days, and I had no desire to work in the rain, so I spend Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday alone at the cabin – I saw no one during that time. On Thursday no fewer than three neighbors came looking for me, so I figured it was time to get out and about. One of them was a carpenter, so I used his assistance and brainpower to figure out how to move a log weighing several thousand pounds. We cut beech-logs – straight and smooth – and put them under the trunk of the big maple. We then cut the maple, dropping it onto the logs. Then with another tree cut for a lever, and a big push, the big trunk rolled along the rails downhill to the side of the driveway. Of course I had read a thousand times about the Romans and Egyptians moving weights with rails and levers, but I couldn’t draw up the knowledge when I needed it. Experience teaches when books merely inform.
I am going to try to give the log to the carpenter for his purposes – though getting a single log milled is always tricky. It was the largest tree on my property. The figuring of the wood is lovely, true curly maple.
There are other trees down and I have all the firewood I need for next year, as you might imagine. In fact I think the price of firewood for next year in this area just went down considerably.
Elsewhere in town a number of trees are down, particularly on Red Hill, which like my cabin faces directly East into the wind of the hurricane. The east slope was planted some decades ago with red pines (Pinus resinosa). Many of those pines simply snapped in the wind. In general the damage was to weak-wooded trees, pines, aspens (which are not numerous), and red (soft) maples.
Red Hill Red pines snapped in the wind.
Hurricane Sandy.
28-Oct-12Last night there was a strange halo around the moon – one at first, then later in the evening there were three, one of them elliptical, which was unlike anything I’d seen before. It’s always hard to tell if we feel foreboding because our bodies do sense something, or if our minds are making it all up. It felt like a strange, ominous night. We have Hurricane Sandy approaching here, and the valley could hardly be in a worse position for a major storm. Floods both last year and this year have stripped the rivers of vegetation, prepping the banks for massive erosion. The ground has not yet dried out from the flood in September, and we’ve had such a wet, damp October that already the river is running high and there are puddles everywhere. The roads here have all been fixed twice already in the past two years. Another storm could really be a financial disaster for the town.
Ibn Ishaq, Herodotus of Early Arabia.
25-Oct-12On the Wizard-of-Oz-like Chosroes, king of Persia:
Now Chosroes used to sit in his audience chamber which contained his crown. According to reports his crown was like a huge grain-measure with rubies, pearls, and topazes set in gold and silver, suspended by a golden chain from the top of the dome in his hall of audience. Such was the weight of the crown that his neck could not bear it. He was hidden behind a robe until he sat on his throne; then his head was inserted into the crown, and when he was settled comfortably under it the robes were taken from him. Everyone who saw him for the first time fell to his knees in awe. (30)
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”
Names like Freelove Titus, daughter of Bathsheba Titus. From Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, where I was pleased a few days ago to find a number of old Kuhner family graves.
In monotheistic folklore – meaning the folktales of Christians and Muslims, and I bet in Talmudic Judaism as well, though I have not seen it for myself – there is a persistent theme of a powerful king persecuting a good, peaceful believer. Among the Christians the persecutors are typically Nero and Diocletian, and their victims a whole host of saints, while in the Arab tradition the evil king is typically Pharaoh or Nimrod, though there are some other local variations. These religious groups have encountered real persecution historically; but the tales themselves have clear attributes of myth and I believe should be given a psychological interpretation. Famously many of the Christian tales take Nero or Diocletian and assign them responsibility for the torture and death of people they could never have met; and the figures “Pharaoh” – which of course is only a name for those ignorant of actual history – and Nimrod are probably entirely fictional (certainly the deeds ascribed to them are).
An example of this phenomenon is the story of Abdullah, the student of the man credited with introducing Christianity to Arabia, Faymiyun. Abdullah simply means the “servant of Allah” and may well be a completely mythical figure, which may also be true for Faymiyun. I will let Ibn Ishaq, our source on early Arabian history, tell the story:
Whenever Abdullah son of Al-Thamir entered Najran and met any sick person he would say to him, “O servant of God [“Abdullah”], will you acknowledge the unity of God and adopt my religion so that I may pray to God that he may heal you of your affliction?” The man would agree, acknowledge the unity of God, and become a Muslim [technically Islam did not exist at the time, but Muhammad insisted that he brought no innovations but was merely restoring the old-time religion, and venerable figures from the past are hence considered Muslims], and he would pray for him and he would be healed, until in the end there was not a single sick person in Najran but had adopted his religion and become whole from his sickness. When the news reached the king he sent for him and said: “You have corrupted the people of my town so that they are against me and have opposed my religion and the religion of my fathers. I will make a terrible example of you!” Abdullah replied, “You have not the power to do that.” The king had him taken to a high mountain and thrown down headlong, but he reached the ground unhurt. Then he had him thrown into deep water in Najran from which no one had ever emerged alive, but he came out safely.
Having thus gotten the better of him Abdullah told him that he would not be able to kill him until he acknowledged the unity of God and believed in his religion; but that if he did he would be given the power to kill him. The king then acknowledged the unity of God and pronounced the creed of Abdullah, and hitting Abdullah a moderate blow with a stick which he had in his hand he killed him, whereupon the king himself died on the spot. The people of Najran accepted the religion of Abdullah son of Al-Thamir according to the Gospel and the law which Jesus son of Mary brought. Afterwards they were overtaken by the misfortunes [or “innovations”] which befell their co-religionists. Such is the origin of Christianity in Najran. But God knows best [what the facts are]. (Life of the Messenger of Allah, p. 17)
The elements are clear: there is the acknowledgement of unity which brings health and wholeness, the salvific kernel of all these religions, and the good part that needs to be extracted from it; then the actual religion (“the law which Jesus son of Mary brought,” whatever that is), and the trading of worldly goods (in this case healing) for religious adherence, which provokes hostility and division; and the hostile king who subjects the believer to all kinds of torments. He eventually succeeds in killing him, but after several unsuccessful attempts. What makes an attempt successful is a good question. In the Christian stories typically every form of killing is attempted but only decapitation – the destruction of one’s own individuality and capacity for thought – brings the persecution to its fatal conclusion. That is clearly a symbol of bad Christianity as it is lived in real life: it demands a sacrifice of one’s intellectual integrity. (There are conservative Catholic colleges which require a vow of “submission of will and intellect” to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Galileo himself might recognize the very text of the vow.) In this story there is some kind of collaboration between persecutor and persecuted, and the Islamic twist that a conversion to Islam gives the Muslim the power to kill, a power which Muhammed, Lord knows, used to the hilt. Islam has a strong tendency to take the unappealing parts of the psyche – such as the desire to kill, or rape – and reintegrate them into the religion by directing them outward. “Thou shalt not kill [orthodox Muslims].” “Thou shalt not rape [orthodox Muslims who are not your wife].” Outside the religious boundaries much greater latitude is given: “Kill the infidels wherever you find them, and seize them and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush.” Here the king is brought into the fold of the religion by giving him the power to kill someone else, though this is his death in the end.
The king is a common figure in myth. Typically he represents wholeness – he is the kingdom itself, the embodiment of all its subjects. In our psyches we find tendencies to fight and steal, learn and make love, nourish and destroy, serve and laugh and everything else, and these tendencies will often appear in dreams and stories as soldiers and thieves and wise men and lovers and mothers and demons and slaves and fools. In the end, however, they all are subjects of the king, who represents the whole human being, the full self, who is representative and ultimately master of them all.
It is odd – but typical of these religions – to see this positive archetype turned into a negative figure. All of them at various times have presented their ethical code – a useful and necessary learning tool (Paul’s word is “paidagogos”) – as a criterion designed to condemn large and living portions of the self’s kingdom to eternal damnation. There are many ways that this is true, but today the most obvious example is sex. The typical defining characteristic of a modern religious person as opposed to an atheist is the religious person’s condemnation of the majority of human sexual behaviors.
And if parts of the whole are evil and to be rejected, ultimately the whole has to be rejected as well, in favor of the good parts. The psyche, however, is extremely unwilling to do this – it will struggle and struggle and struggle to be allowed to develop in its wholeness. It will give what feel like orders to the conscious self – in the form of appetites and desires, sometimes only vaguely apprehended, with a sense of impending catastrophe – and so the figure of the king reappears in the psyche, now as an evil tyrant.
The end result of all these stories is always martyrdom. The king is never truly converted; he can’t be, really; the image of wholeness in our psyches has no choice but to accept everything. He is not a pliable figure that can be shaped to our own limited idea of what goodness is. The martyrdom frequently occurs when the conscious self – the martyr – cooperates somewhat with the tyrant, going in the direction of self-immolation. In the story of Abdullah the king’s “conversion” is disaster for all involved.
This is hence a story which is played out in the psyches of individual religious people. Their religion requires them to exclude something; the thing excluded will not let them alone, however; and it appears as an evil tyrant in their thoughts, and is projected out onto the world as well. People who think this way consider themselves martyrs for their faith; because their faith is stunting some part of them, which returns as a persecuting tormenting force in their lives. And then they imagine this tormenting force is somewhere outside them.
The archetype of the evil king is a fairly good indicator, I think, of this martyr and persecution complex which comes from bad religion and bad thinking. It lies behind modern conspiracy theories, for instance, which all require some evil tyrant – the Dick Cheney archetype, which different people will put different faces on – Bush or Obama or the Pope or the Elders of Zion or Monsanto or whatever else – to play the part of persecutor. Almost all senior Catholic clergy are infected with this form of bad religion, which was heard in America for their “year of faith” and “struggle for religious freedom” against Nero-Obama. Because Obama had a healthcare plan which covered all doctor-prescribed drugs, pertaining to the entire body – even the parts of the body that have a nasty tendency to lead people to hell if they are heeded – and because he was in America’s kingly office – he became a figure of this evil wholeness. Catholics were literally talking on Facebook about accepting martyrdom “if it came to that.” But you don’t need a “religion” to think this way. Plenty of atheist vegans resent being having been born omnivores rather than herbivores, and come complete with the martyr complex that shows how frequently martyrdom is self-hatred. Now this is not always the case, of course – Martin Luther King really was killed by someone else and really was martyred – but there are many more people who want to be victims than people who really are. It is one of the features of our society: women are all victims, non-white people are all victims, Christians are all victims, Muslims are all victims, Jews are all victims, Republicans are all victims, now even white males are all victims because they’re the only ones who don’t get to be victims (“reverse discrimination”).
Once you associate goodness with some kind of achievement of a standard, anyone who does not live up to that standard becomes a potential threat to the motive forces that got you to achieve it. This is what makes anyone struggling to achieve something a martyr in his own eyes, persecuted by all the people who do not even make the attempt. Their indifference calls into question whether his struggle is all that necessary in the end. The only solution is a conversion which has transformed duty into desire and delight. When you have a religion which offers you access to joy, true joy of the sort that you cannot mistake for anything else, the things you do to obtain that joy do not need “shoulds” and “thou shalts” and laws, or eternal rewards and paradises and houris, to seem worth doing. And you do not feel so much like a martyr anymore. And whenever you feel that old victim-feeling creeping back into you, you know that it is a bit of the old Adam, and you recognize it as an unmet need, in which you probably deserve some share of the blame, rather than true martyrdom.
In fact the Christian paradigm of the martyr, Saint Stephen, had no martyr-complex at all and the account of his martyrdom shows him as filled more with compassion for his persecutors than pity for himself. The Greek word “martyr” means merely “witness,” and only later perverted religious practice brought it its added connotation of making oneself a maudlin spectacle of self-immolation to arouse the pity of others.
This unhealthiness of Abdullah’s religion is actually implied in the original story, another example of the impressively correct instincts of the old myths:
Yazid bin Ziyad told me on the authority of Muhammad bin Kab al-Qurazi, and a man of Najran also told me, that according to his people they used to worship idols. Najran is the largest town in which the people of the neighboring districts congregated, and in a village hard by there was a sorcerer who used to instruct the young men of Najran in his art. When Faymiyun came there – they did not call him by the name that Wahb bin Munabbih gives him but simply said a man came there – he put up a tent betweeen Najran and the place where the sorcerer was. Now the people of Najran used to send their young men to that sorcerer to be taught sorcery and al-Thamir sent his son Abdullah along with them. When he passed by the man in the tent he was immensely struck by his prayers and devotion and began to sit with him and listen to him until he became a Muslim and acknowledged the unity of God and worshipped Him. He asked questions about the laws of Islam [again, this is before Muhammad] until when he became fully instructed therein he asked the man what was the Great Name of God. Although Faymiyun knew it he kept it from him, saying, “My dear young man, you will not be able to bear it; I fear that you are not strong enough.” Now al-Thamir had no idea that his son was not visiting the sorceror along with the other young men. Abdullah seeing that his master had kept the knowledge from him and was afraid of his weakness, collected a number of sticks and whenever Faymiyun taught him a name of God he wrote that name on a stick. When he had got them all he lit a fire and began to throw them in one by one until when he reached the stick with the Great Name inscribed on it he threw it in, and it immediately sprang out untouched by the fire. Thereupon he took it and went and told his master that he knew the Great Name which he had concealed from him. The latter questioned him and when he learned how he found out the secret he said, “O my young man, you have got it, but keep it to yourself, though I do not think you will.” (16-17)
Abdullah does not keep it to himself; unlike Faymiyun, who goes about his business without attempting to convert anyone, Abdullah becomes a missionary, healing people in exchange for their conversions as has already been shown.
The story of Abdullah has a curious conclusion, which I will share:
I was told by Abdullah the son of Abu Bakr that he was told that in the days of Omar the son of Al-Khattab a man of Najran dug up one of the ruins of Najran intending to make use of the land, when they came upon Abdullah the son of Al-Thamir under a grave; he was in a sitting posture with his hand covering a wound in his head and holding firmly to it. When his hand was removed the blood began to flow; when they let go of his hand it returned to its place and the flow of blood ceased. On his finger was a ring inscribed “Allah is my Lord.” A report was sent to Omar [the caliph] and he replied, “Leave him alone and fill in the grave,” and his orders were duly carried out. [18]
This is an old Arabian image of a what is today called a zombie, a person caught between death and life. That their own religious stories can put a good orthodox Muslim in this position – “Allah is my Lord” – is a sign of how faithfully a sick psyche will report, even unintentionally, on its own illness. As with the Christian stories, the wound is to the head; and as with all bad orthodoxy life goes on, but consists of nothing more than continually trying to stanch the wound.
Faymiyun, the Holy Man of Arabia.
24-Oct-12This is the story of Christianity in ancient Najran, in Yemen, as found in Ibn Ishaq’s Life of the Messenger of Allah. I quote almost the entirety of it in the above essay, so I figured I would put it up in its original form, as it does not appear to be easily available online otherwise. Faymiyun appears to be the Arabic form of the Greek name Phemion, a saint otherwise unknown to me.
Al-Mughira bin Abu Labid, a freedman of Al-Akhnas, on the authority of Wahb bin Munabbih the Yemeni told me that the presence of Christianity in Najran was due to a man named Faymiyun, who was a righteous, earnest, ascetic man whose prayers were answered. He used to wander between towns: as soon as he became known in one town he moved to another, eating only what he earned, for he was a builder by trade using mud bricks. He used to keep Sunday as a day of rest and would do not work then. He used to go into a desert place and pray there until evening. While he was following his trade in a Syrian village, withdrawing himself from men, one of the people there called Salih perceived what manner of man he was and felt a violent affection for him, so that unperceived by Faymiyun he used to follow him from place to place, until one Sunday he went as his wont was out into the desert followed by Salih. Salih chose a hiding-place and sat down where he could see him, not wanting him to know where he was. As Faymiyun stood to pray a tinnin, a seven-horned snake, came towards him and when Faymiyun saw it he cursed it and it died. Seeing the snake but not knowing what had happened to it and fearing for Faymiyun’s safety, Salih could not contain himself and cried out: “Faymiyun, a tinnin is upon you!” He took no notice and went on with his prayers until he had ended them. Night had come and he departed. He knew that he had been recognized and Salih knew that he had seen him. So Salih said: “Faymiyun, you know that I have never loved anything as I love you; I want to be always with you and go wherever you go.” He replied: “As you will. You know how I live and if you feel that you can bear the life well and good.” So Salih remained with him, and the people of the village were on the point of discovering his secret. For when a man suffering from a disease came in his way by chance Faymiyun prayed for him and he would be cured; but if Faymiyun was summoned to a sick man he would not go. Now one of the villagers had a son who was blind and he asked about Faymiyun and was told that he never came when he was sent for, but that he was a man who built houses for people for a wage. Thereupon the man took his son and put him in his room and threw a garment over him and went to Faymiyun saying that he wanted him to do some work for him in his house and would he come and look at it, and they would agree on a price. Arrived at the house Faymiyun asked what he wanted done, and after giving the details the man suddenly whisked off the covering from the boy and said, “O Faymiyun, one of God’s creatures is in the state you see. So pray for him.” Faymiyun did so and the boy got up entirely healed. Knowing that he had been recognized he left the village followed by Salih, and while they were walking through Syria they passed by a great tree and a man called from it, saying, “I’ve been expecting you and saying, ‘When is he coming?’ until I heard your voice and knew it was you. Don’t go until you have prayed over my grave for I am about to die.” He did die and Faymiyun prayed over him until they buried him. Then he left followed by Salih until they reached the land of the Arabs who attacked them, and a caravan carried them off and sold them in Najran. At this time the people of Najran followed the religion of the Arabs worshipping a great palm-tree there. Every year they had a festival when they hung on the tree any fine garment they could find and women’s jewels. Then they sallied out and devoted the day to it. Faymiyun was sold ot one noble and Salih to another. Now it happened that when Faymiyun was praying earnestly at night in a house which his master had assigned to him the whole house was filled with light so that it shone as it were without a lamp. His master was amazed at the sight, and asked him about his religion. Faymiyun told him and said that they were in error; as for the palm-tree it could neither help nor hurt; and if he were to curse the tree in the name of God He would destroy it, for He was God Alone without companion. “Then do so,” said his master, “for if you do that we shall embrace your religion, and abandon our present faith.” After purifying himself and performing two rakas, he invoked God against the tree and God sent a wind against it which tore it from its roots and cast it on the ground. Then the people of Najran adopted his religion and he instructed them in the law of Jesus son of Mary. This was the origin of Christianity in Najran in the land of the Arabs. Such is the report of Wahb bin Munabbih on the authority of the people of Najran.
Yazid bin Ziyad told me on the authority of Muhammad bin Kab al-Qurazi, and a man of Najran also told me, that according to his people they used to worship idols. Najran is the largest town in which the people of the neighboring districts congregated, and in a village hard by there was a sorcerer who used to instruct the young men of Najran in his art. When Faymiyun came there – they did not call him by the name that Wahb bin Munabbih gives him but simply said a man came there – he put up a tent between Najran and the place where the sorcerer was. Now the people of Najran used to send their young men to that sorcerer to be taught sorcery and al-Thamir sent his son Abdullah along with them. When he passed by the man in the tent he was immensely struck by his prayers and devotion and began to sit with him and listen to him until he became a Muslim and acknowledged the unity of God and worshipped Him. He asked questions about the laws of Islam [technically Islam did not exist at the time, but Muhammad insisted that he brought no innovations but was merely restoring the old-time religion, and venerable figures from the past are hence considered Muslims] until when he became fully instructed therein he asked the man what was the Great Name of God. Although Faymiyun knew it he kept it from him, saying, “My dear young man, you will not be able to bear it; I fear that you are not strong enough.” Now al-Thamir had no idea that his son was not visiting the sorcerer along with the other young men. Abdullah seeing that his master had kept the knowledge from him and was afraid of his weakness, collected a number of sticks and whenever Faymiyun taught him a name of God he wrote that name on a stick. When he had got them all he lit a fire and began to throw them in one by one until when he reached the stick with the Great Name inscribed on it he threw it in, and it immediately sprang out untouched by the fire. Thereupon he took it and went and told his master that he knew the Great Name which he had concealed from him. The latter questioned him and when he learned how he found out the secret he said, “O my young man, you have got it, but keep it to yourself, though I do not think you will.”
Whenever Abdullah son of Al-Thamir entered Najran and met any sick person he would say to him, “O servant of God [“Abdullah”], will you acknowledge the unity of God and adopt my religion so that I may pray to God that he may heal you of your affliction?” The man would agree, acknowledge the unity of God, and become a Muslim, and he would pray for him and he would be healed, until in the end there was not a single sick person in Najran but had adopted his religion and become whole from his sickness. When the news reached the king he sent for him and said: “You have corrupted the people of my town so that they are against me and have opposed my religion and the religion of my fathers. I will make a terrible example of you!” Abdullah replied, “You have not the power to do that.” The king had him taken to a high mountain and thrown down headlong, but he reached the ground unhurt. Then he had him thrown into deep water in Najran from which no one had ever emerged alive, but he came out safely.
Having thus gotten the better of him Abdullah told him that he would not be able to kill him until he acknowledged the unity of God and believed in his religion; but that if he did he would be given the power to kill him. The king then acknowledged the unity of God and pronounced the creed of Abdullah, and hitting him a moderate blow with a stick which he had in his hand he killed him, whereupon the king himself died on the spot. The people of Najran accepted the religion of Abdullah son of Al-Thamir according to the Gospel and the law which Jesus son of Mary brought. Afterwards they were overtaken by the misfortunes [or “innovations”] which befell their co-religionists. Such is the origin of Christianity in Najran. But God knows best [what the facts are]….
I was told by Abdullah the son of Abu Bakr that he was told that in the days of Omar the son of Al-Khattab a man of Najran dug up one of the ruins of Najran intending to make use of the land, when they came upon Abdullah the son of Al-Thamir under a grave; he was in a sitting posture with his hand covering a wound in his head and holding firmly to it. When his hand was removed the blood began to flow; when they let go of his hand it returned to its place and the flow of blood ceased. On his finger was a ring inscribed “Allah is my Lord.” A report was sent to Omar [the caliph] and he replied, “Leave him alone and fill in the grave,” and his orders were duly carried out. [pp.16-8, Guillaume translation with edits]
Catskills Political Commentary.
19-Oct-12Since I showed a picture of my own empty chair, I thought maybe I’d include another empty chair. From the Rondout Valley, just outside the big state prisons north of Ellenville:
Morning in the Cabin.
17-Oct-12
Music is politics.
04-Nov-12Today in Ohio there will be a concert at the Board of Elections during early voting. John Legend is headlining the concert. Do you think John Legend might be pulling a slightly different crowd to the polls than, say, Randy Owen?