WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #12
I STOPPED MYSELF FROM THINKING this morning — not an easy thing to do, but something I’ve been practicing most of my adult Buddhist life. I was pouring half-and-half into my second cup of Dos Griegos coffee and critiquing the container, a knee-jerk reaction from a long-time advertising designer. Usually we buy organic milk products, but my husband was at Sam’s Club last night and bought a ONE QUART (946 mL) carton of LAND O’ LAKES Traditional ULTRA-PASTEURIZED HALF & HALF — the one with the kneeling Indian princess for their logo.
First I thought of Charlene Teters, then about Einstein’s brain, and finally about a performer alone in a spotlight dressed in a corporate suit, pausing, then saying with great strength and humility, “We have changed our position.” I imagined a series of David Mamet-type fictional monologues written from the perspective of CEOs who decide to stop patronizing one group of society with their sales practices and how they came to that position. Carefully crafted performance pieces that take the audience through the thought process of an individual’s momentous change in their belief system . . .
That’s when I stopped myself.
How did I get from half-and-half to political performance art while stirring a cup of coffee? I’d like to think that my ideas come from divine satori, but every time I trace the path of one of these ideas, I discover that most often, I am simply solving a problem.
There are steps on this path: The new half-and-half container with the politically incorrect logo that I usually never see, reminded me of Charlene Teters, Spokane. I worked with Char at Indian Artist Magazine where she spoke eloquently against the stereotypical mascot, “Chief Illiniwek.” I supported her, but did I really understand what it felt like to have something so personal paraded, degraded and then cherished by people who could not understand what their actions did to me or my family or our history?
It was when I heard a news story on the radio about Einstein’s brain that I began to see things differently. Dr. Thomas S. Harvey had removed the brain from that most human of geniuses, Albert Einstein when he died in 1955, and carried it around with him for years, handing off bits here and there to certain laboratories. I thought of my father, who died when I was 16, and imagined for a moment that it was his brain traveling around the country without the rest of his body.
My immediate, gut reaction to that story was one of horror and revulsion. What would tests and probes tell me about my father’s brain that I didn’t already know? How could you decide something about someone without his or her spirit? How could the weight of a brain, or the number of neurons give you any sound data on why someone was smart? Can brain research tell you why someone was a pacifist? And mostly, what were we doing to ourselves when we didn’t honor the dead's wishes? (Einstein reportedly did not give this doctor the right to remove his brain in order to facilitate celebrity-style accounts of its travels.) The feeling of having my father’s body in pieces, handed about to people who did not know or love him haunted me.
When I made a deep personal link to this one issue, I could make it to many. I understood the objections to burial grounds being disturbed, and why the repatriation of stolen artifacts is necessary, and why even though Parks Service employees may grumble about Native Americans claiming every mountain as sacred, I agree. Every mountain is sacred, every tree, every person, every brain — even those deemed to have changed our view of the universe.
And once that shaking up of my psyche happened, many new beliefs were re-rooted so that now I don’t usually have to trace the path back to my thought this morning, of how to start a dialogue with powerful CEOs to change their minds about the images they use to sell their product.
A daughter’s concern for her father’s spirit was the link — a disturbing illustration of a kneeling woman holding out butter, the inspiration.
