Introduction
This is the first of a two-part conversation with Karen Hesli. She was the director the Krishnamurti School in Ojai during its genesis, when I was a student there. We talk about the art of inquiry, leadership, growing older, and the privilege of being alive. For movement strategies and embodied practices, go to @robyneniplace Podcast edit and mixing by Finn Forest Green, www.finnforestgreen@persona.co Original music for the podcast intro and outro by George Karpasitis also known as mystic vessel, www.georgekarpasitis.com Remix on the outro by Avila Santo, vocals by ONYILOVE www.avilasanto.com, www.onyilove.com Podcast cover art by Eileen Itzel Mena, www.eileenitzelmena.com
George Floyd Hymn at City of Lakes
by Karen Hesli 7.18.2020
As the sun cast its shadow
on an unsuspecting afternoon,
the city of lakes
exploded in flames;
her waters fanned the fire.
The seedpod of complacency
had burst, as from the belly
of a big mouth bass
splayed on the dock.
Its entrails trickled through
the wooden slats
into Minnehaha Creek.
The force of a knee
entered the stream,
another long-held dream
broke the spell;
the damn fell.
Nature’s breath rippled out
as from a thundering dawn.
Sky-blue waters rolled on,
past her mud-bound bank
where barges sank
in times gone by, like the
immense boulder dissolving
into a sandbar on the soft river floor,
or erupting to mountains once more.
We are born of water,
carried by water.
Watery worlds lap, lap, lap our shore;
Where trauma and pain are stored
in the meandering, thinking brain.
People and politics, unrestrained
to form, conform, reform.
Seeking sense, reborn…
yet trust shredded, torn.
With unfathomable heartache,
we survive the ancient hate,
by learning to separate:
to bludgeon the brother, to fear the other.
We grasp with forked tongue
those who are among
the strong arm of a yawning elm,
to hang on - or hang from.
Both breaches of love,
no peaceful dove, am I.
We have tunneled under the sea,
sent our sons to the enemy;
deified monsters in monuments,
adorned our city centers in cement,
….one must wonder, ‘For what intent?’
The wounded river of humanity
circles ‘round and ‘round the stagnant eddy,
sinking, to settle on layers of debris
then erupt! the force of a knee.
The whole of life suffers,
parents are no buffer;
families inherit pain,
to fester in silence and shame.
Teachers protect the same,
skating across the surface,
to drone on without purpose.
Heart-starved minds go blind,
cannot be kind.
Scarred beyond measure,
living without the treasure;
our fragile, frightened youth
seek beneath frozen lakes for molten truth.
The Mississippi floods;
pours eons of spent blood,
from every port and tributary,
from every swamp and estuary,
from a covid-crowded infirmary.
Currents of death, un-reconciled,
spew into the delta, defiled.
A confluence of despair
cascading to god knows where.
Whatever it is, it’s neither here nor there.
To atone alone, ‘in the zone’ or share.
Time to ask: What is possible? What is true?
Imagine freedom without past residue.
In the stillness of stars- a distant glow,
piercing the veil, an embryo,
to consciously release the status quo…
As humankind rekindles, ICE dwindles,
and as surely as sands shift with time,
pain and privilege realign.
Beauty beckons, anew,
a season to reckon, overdue.
There is no choice: her water breaks.
Hard labor begins…awake, awake!!
All round the resplendent earth,
…what has birthed?