Be still my heart……these trees are prayers. I stopped and
looked at him in amazement. Who is this man? I wondered –who has the
sensitivity and the attunement to the forest that he’d asked me to stop
talking? Admittedly I was a bit of a chatterbox. Call it nervous energy but I
hadn’t yet really learned to be still. Now we were walking in silence through
the sun drenched forest across the way from our home and I saw nothing but
forest for miles around. And the silence
was exquisite.
Our humble home was in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, or “Les Cantons d’ Est” en francais. South
East of Montreal this region bordered with Vermont. It is a landscape of
beautiful rolling hills, actually the worn down mountains of a very, very old
(pre-ice age?) mountain range that extends to and joins the Appalachian
mountain range still today. We had a
little old shack on a county road just outside of Knowlton. It was a clapboard house painted blue I
remember and it couldn’t have been more than about 800 square feet in total. A
one bedroom house with a proper bathroom and an adequate kitchen the house
had linoleum floors and drafty windows so it sure
was a fixer-upper but it was all we could afford then.
Nine months pregnant and with winter approaching--it was
already October --we desperately needed shelter. We had come upon some real good
possibilities and then things fell through at the last minute. Why so many disappointments. What was the
Universe trying to tell us? That we
should be trying to live here now or what?
Once we found the little house on Mount Echo road we settled
in with all the enthusiasm of a young couple setting up housekeeping. We were preparing for a home birth but needed
a home first.
Little did we
realize the long abandoned house already had its own little family of mice (or
rats or both) but we settled in and prepare to nest here and welcome into the
world our new baby.
Akbar was a musician,
a poet and a Sufi and didn’t have much employment so we had limited funds.
Still he wanted to live in the country and we at least had a car; a wedding
present from his family.
As we walked silently through the woods I soon enough
discovered how vocal the forest was. Hearing the sounds of our own footsteps
crunching the patches of snow and dead branches and debris below us that made
up the forest floor, I was suddenly hearing only this. Listening to the sound
of my own breathing and the sounds of the birds calling back and forth, the various
animals scurrying through the same forest and the wind in the trees and the
rustle of the leaves I imagined what it
must have been like for the native people who lived here before we did. How did they walk in the forest? And in their
bare feet or in moccasins? I
imagine…silently, like we are now.
Akbar was a mystery to me.
He was very serious for a young man and didn’t tolerate frivolous
chatter and talking gossip. He measured
his words very carefully himself as was evident in the way he spoke. He would often break off in mid-sentence to
analyze if he was saying what he really meant. It was charming, and well
sometimes frankly a bit annoying as his
self expression sometimes meandered a bit too much but overall you listened
because he was so sincere.
We had met in a Tipi on a friend’s farm in Sutton. The farm
was actually a spiritual community of devotees to Neem Karoli Baba. I had met
Baba in India just two years before. That was in 1972. Now this community of mostly one family and a
bunch of their friends who were mostly Neem Devotees had arranged a gathering
at the Markus’ Family Farm known as Abercorn Satsanga.
So here’s this interesting man: A Jew, named Akbar living in
aTipi in Quebec. A poet, musician and artist he was an all around refined and
sensitive man. And if not really
handsome in the classical sense one who captured my heart none the less; for
his beauty lay in his heart qualities and those -unlike good looks- do not wither
with age. I knew a jewel when I saw one.
Or maybe not. I’m not
sure exactly how we chose one another.
Like I said we met in a Tipi. It was the summer of 1974 in August I
believe. There was a gathering of Neem Devotees, the first such gathering since
he’d had his Maha Samadhi (Great Sleep) and devotees were coming from all over
north America and even some from India. I was invited by Dasaratha a friend who had
been a great support to me while I was in prison. It was the anniversary of the Master’s death. In India they do not celebrate the
birth of a great saint but rather his death as it is considered a true liberation
for the soul; something to celebrate indeed.
I was still in shock from my previous experience in jail and
still recovering. I had been out of prison just four months now and living in
an excruciatingly boring situation. I
just craved some kinship with fellow seekers.
When I got the letter with the invitation from Dasaratha I was
delighted. Now I would finally meet him in person. We weren’t sure if we’d
actually met face to face in India although we were there at the same time and
same place. Either way, it didn’t matter he. He had become a dear friend, a
kind of wise counselor for me throughout the last year and some and now I was
going to hang out with him for a few days and a whole bunch of devotees from
California were coming up including possibly Ram Dass himself. Reading the
letter my hands shook a little; the excitement was immediate. It would be a
fantastic gathering of like-minded souls and there would be lots of chanting
and ceremonies, copious rounds of
chillums, art installations and impromptu theatre and great vegetarian feasts
and fun. I absolutely had to go. Clearly in violation of my Parole conditions
I left my small town Ontario community and hitch-hiked my way to the Eastern
Townships of Quebec my sister in tow.
The gathering that weekend consisted of about 60 people and
it was understood that many would have
to camp out so there were tents everywhere you looked. And a couple of small
Tipis too and then one large communal Tipi of about 20 feet diameter which no one slept in because it was reserved
for Kirtan, Yoga and community readings
and other events.
Akbar was living in a
Tipi with his best friend David -two middle
class Jewish guys from the Suburbs of mostly English Montreal at that time. Their
Tipi was situated near a river on the farm in the lowest quarter. We’d walked from the
main house at least a half hour and I was thirsty and tired. Then in a clearing
in the forest swith a little stream rushing nearby I saw a tipi, a carpet and a
little out door cooking set up and a few char blackened pots and pans and
implements hanging from the trees. It was the penultimate experience of out -door
living. Well that’s what I thought, anyway.
David and Akbar had lovely little outdoor living situation
right there smack in the middle of the woods. And just across the stream Howard
and Donna also had a tipi and a little installation.
These guys were really doing the back to nature thing,
pretty seriously. That evening David made some lambsquarters with dandelion
greens and wild rice and some kind of zucchini chutney. I wasn’t too keen on eating this stuff but
have to admit it tasted pretty good. Who
would have thought you could eat weeds?
My new friends certainly were both healthy muscled lean men in their twenties
with the good looks of a sun tanned skin and outdoor freshness in their
aura. I remember David , half naked in
loin cloths…yes, I am serious he was wearing a loing cloth! squatting by the
fire to shelter it from a bit of wind
that was annoying his attempt to make tea.
Akbar wore a lunghi -an Indian
garment for men much like a sarong. We’d
just smoked a great big chillum and he had been reading from Rumi.
I was so pleased he had introduced me to Rumi. I’d heard of
him a bit in India but now I was meeting a full on Sufi initiate who was well
steeped in the poetry of the Persian mystical poets . His own master Hazrat Inayat Khan, was a great poet and musician and
one I’d never heard of before. Akbar introduced me to the beauty of the word well
written. He, having had a very fortunate
upbringing in that his mother saw a deeply sensitive child with tremendous
artistic potential and put him into art schools from the beginning, had won a
Province wide poetry contest in High School. I guess that was pretty impressive for me as a young woman
then. Yes, he seduced me with poetry and
music, with philosophy and intense dialogue and even at times with silence. Now he seduced me with silence again.
What did he mean these trees are prayers. And why is he more
interested in the trees than in me?
I later discovered that he was quoting from Hazrat Inayat
Khan, our Sufi master who’s son Pir Vilayate was our living master. At the
time I thought these were his own words because I’d heard some of his own
spontaneous utterings and he’d sound just like that..like Rumi or Hafiz or Sham’s or Omar Khayyam or
Farridudin. It didn’t take long to realize that the man I
had married was in fact a poet, a
devoted spiritual seeker and a committed Yogi except that he was thrust
into the householder role right now.
Still both he and I believed that having a baby would not
really in any serious way impact our freedom, our way of life or our spiritual
pursuits but rather that it would enhance our journey along the spiritual path because as parents the
first lesson is:
Self Sacrifice.
(To read more of this and other stories go to www.becoyblurbs.com)
