Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: Deep Dive Poetry (What Happened?)

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Deep Dive Poetry (What Happened?)

WHAT HAPPENED?

The consummate wisdom teacher of the ages

We convened, a full house, in two rooms of Manly P. Hall's dream vision come to life -- a treasure store open to the public, the Philosophical Research Society's library, housing the combined wisdom of the ages and all the religions of the world. Even works on northern Native Americans next to an image of Japan's beloved Indian sage Bodhidharma are included, after passing an exquisite bronze walking Buddha at the entrance.

Candidate Dr. Cornel West

Seated in the second row was presidential candidate Dr. Cornel West because his Iranian-Persian wife, Annahita Mahdavi West, was scheduled to read from her book Dusty Relics (Marymount Institute Press).

There was another event in the auditorium, and the gift shop was open for buying books and other items. The main court is a lovely place to think under moonlit skies just yards from Griffith Park. PRS has a prime location on Los Feliz ("The Contented") Boulevard. The library was filled and opened to the public because its founder, Hall, wanted the people of the world to have a place for their "intuitive perusal" of its volumes on all the wisdom traditions of the world. The world may not use it, but Angelenos can. (I used to drive by ever since I learned to drive and wonder what the place could be, a giant think tank where a society of philosophers gathered to research ideas and occult secrets, mysteries, and paths to enlightenment. No one ever said it was open to the public before Mandy Kahn began her residency there. Even Lisa Garr (The Aware Show KPFK, Coast to Coast AM iheart.com, Gaia TV, Hey House Publishers), when she invited me to learn animal communication with a gifted psychic and author, didn't say, "Oh, yeah, come back for the library and to hang around philosophizing. I had probably outgrown that phase by then.

Mandy Kahn took to the podium, thanked the capacity crowd (after having thanked Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal and the various Dharma Buddhist Meditation Meetups around the county for helping fill the seats).

Kate Bonnici | Pepperdine | Seaver College

She welcomed award winning Pepperdine University Prof. of English Kate Bolton Bonnici Esq., who read her poetic take on ancient accounts of women, the "witches of Essex," from pamphlets written in the 1600s now made available in digitized form. These were written by men in an age when women had nearly no voice, no means of expressing themselves other than through biased men whose biased accounts fill these early tabloids. Is it any wonder we suffered the Salem witch trials? Such atrocities had been happening in Christian England for centuries. She put the finishing touch on her dramatic reading, or what seemed like a dramatic reading because the lights were turned down, and the lamp on the podium shot up to give the flashlight-under-the-face next to a roaring campfire effect when its ghost story time: the historical figure Elizabeth Francis was an accused witch with a cat (a familiar) who could grant wishes. What men and society would not grant a gal, she had to gather herself from midwives and wise and cunning women who stood as allies against an old patriarchy. Good thing we do not have such problems nowadays, now that the Academy has recognized Barbie as the greatest film of our time and Greta Gerwig as the... What, Oppy won? Hmm. Female poetry is needed more than ever. Prof. Bonnici continued with Scottish fairy beliefs in a piece that referenced Sir Thomas Moore's Utopia then the British witch trial of Elizabeth Southerns when a woman might "bleed out" her problems, though she died of old age in a castle in custody before her trial ever began. The reading was topped off with a firsthand account of a grandmother trying to learn the computer. One can guess how that turned out.

Another introduction, another professor. He was meditative reading a book-length piece that talked about Reno as was quickly off the stage, a marvelous albeit staid voice that surprisingly used the f-word a bit much. Everyone else kept it clean (until for the headliner's closing piece, phallic cucumbers and honeymoon activities were underscored with subtle intimations of salad eating. No children were harmed in the declaiming of this verse as none were present).

Some words from a bio and a man with perhaps a tiny Oedipal complex and large glasses started to read from a book. His contribution to the night's poetry seemed like an impromptu letter to an ex, who one would think was not happy to receive it. But all literary appreciation is subjective, and one cup of tea does not sate all sippers. I am also no fan of Stephen King. But, go figure, most people are. Next.

Co-host Jane McCarthy stood to read, but now every reader was standing too much to the right, perhaps to look to the left into the warm, inviting pools of Kahn's eyes in the front row as she sat at her mother's side. The upshot of this shift is that the light behind them acted as a floodlight in our faces and cameras were of no use countering the glare. McCarthy gave an ode to Hall and his text Wisdom of the Ages then read, not from a book, but a flat viscose sheet of pulp. It was not a phone but some oldfangled invention in two dimensions.

With practice, achieve lucidity in dreaming. Astral travel and merge with others.

Poet, peace activist, lucid dreamer Mandy Kahn

Then she introduced Mandy Kahn, who with three books of poetry to her credit will soon be reading at the Getty Center, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (USC), Bolton Hall (for the Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga), following previous appearances on the BBC and elsewhere. Kahn began by explaining that as a child of 4 or 5, growing up in Los Angeles, she spontaneously taught herself lucid dreaming (the ability to wake up in a dream by realizing one is in a dream and suddenly being free to do anything: have uncombed hair, dress comfortably, and bet on longshots). She did not have a word for it, but her newfound ability led to a remarkable discovery: When one leaves the body, it is possible to meet another disembodied being and merge with that individual. This practice gave rise to her poem "The Geyser," referencing the sweet honeysuckle-like nectar produced by such merging. Most of us have to search for it in sexual union with bodies, but that's only a pale imitation of the experience of merging and blending, overlapping and intertwining with someone on the astral or some such liminal state provided by the dream realm. This, she explained, is why she goes about life in a porous manner as if separated from others and reality by only a thin veil, believing in ideals like world peace. Hear her every Wednesday at 6:00 pm on Zoom saying so (free) under the auspices of PRS. She read selections from her new book, out in hardback this month, Holy Doors. It seems her enchanted childhood included gambling when, at age 6, she developed a penchant for "longshots." Sure, one will lose most of the time, but when one's ship comes in, there's nothing like folding and smelling each crisp bill. Her siblings scolded her for such foolish conduct. They're longshots for a reason, but to Mandy. She loves to bet on them and this, perhaps, is why the UC Berkeley graduate has made a successful career of being a poet, peace activist, literary event organizer, and lucid dreamer. Either that or she has a trust fund. Her advice to writers, dreamers, and truth seekers? "When we let our thinking go, we sink into what we know, and let things flow." She "leans into precision not perfection."

Teaching us about the musician Charles Ives, a polytonal, polyrhythmic musician ahead of his time, rather than seek acceptance by conforming, simply refused to share his . But he made music every day nonetheless. And that style eventually came into vogue. We might follow his example. Whether we do or whether we don't, her final piece came not from the book but was pulled from the latest headlines. Don't let Elon Musk's Neuralink technology anywhere inside your body. This beloved workhorse has grown, healed bone, knitted DNA, and brought us right where we are with experimental cyborg technology. Let's keep it that way and resist the lure of trying to improve something we are nowhere close to even beginning to understand -- these amazing brains wrapped in these wondrous bodies. It was unambiguously titled "Poem Against Implanting Technology Into Yourself. Stay organic. That is, choose the body. "What you do not, cannot understand, do not change." Someone in the middle of the hall broke protocol and loudly cheered her on. What would we do without our artists to remind us to stay true to ourselves?

She introduced Iranian born exile Annahita Mahdavi West, whom one could not be blamed in thinking was named Anahata Mahadevi East, were she originally from India. Future U.S. President Cornel West began to roll on his phone-camera duties.

She confessed to being a lot like Charles Ives when she began writing. After all, she explained, everyone in Iran is a poet. Her father was, her mother was, her sister...so what was the sense in showing everyone? Now with Dusty Relics in hand, she was ready to shake them off and show them to the world, personal poems of exile, war, grief, sweetness in the mundane and familiar. Just as Kahn remembered suckling honeysuckle flowers for half a drop of "golden sweetness," West recalled the sweet moments amid the bitter then welcomed her friend and fellow Iranian/Persian poet Sholeh Wolpé:

Sholeh Wolpe, who's famous enough to have her own Wiki page and more than a dozen books to her credit, intermingling lyricism and prose narrative.

Wolpe was the surprise of the night, laying down an example that, if retro-causality could be accessed at will, would have made for a much more moving show. She talked, she read, she waved her arm. She produced laughs from the crowd and oohs and ahhs. She translates the greats as well, but there was no time to read that kind of work tonight. Still, the audience was assured, go home and read The Conference of the Birds by Sufi mystic Attar and be guaranteed a life altering experience.

She read from her book, Abacus of Loss, a memoir partially in Farsi that is in no way chronological because neither is memory, reading from the "This Coffin" section of the book. She left us with one lasting impression, a line she uttered as she was handed the mic by West: "Home," she said, "is a missing tooth. The tongue reaches for hardness, finds only absence." That was the impression but, in fact, she left us with a story of discovering sex with a fellow virgin and the advice she received, the remembrance of it, and its similarity to eating a durian, which is the fruit with the most extraordinary taste. But, being shamed for not knowing what she was doing ahead of time, which would have been good to know, she had to purge.

Mandy Kahn closed the show with final comments, alerting us that this poetry series is ongoing, the last Thursday of every month at PRS in Hollywood. The next show is April 25, 2024.

Original event details

Mandy Kahn hosts and performs

DEEP DIVE POETRY Thursday, March 28th, 7:30-9:00+ pm:

Philosophical Research Society
3910 Los Feliz Blvd., Hollywood
RSVP on Meetup.com:
Disclosure: Deep Dive Poetry, PRS
Nature Center: Deep Dive Poetry, PRS
PasaDharma: Deep Dive Poetry, PRS

Peace Class teacher every Wednesday

DEEP DIVE POETRY is a night of poems that dive into the deep questions -- about life, the universe, and everything -- exploring the vastness within and without. Featuring: