For all the stories
you may have heard about a person who makes a pilgrimage "Up
The Mountain" to talk with a sage - apocryphal or humorous
or profane or profound - "The Way of the Dreamcatcher,"
Steve T Georgiou's new book detailing his visits with "Poet,
Peacemaker, Sage" Robert Lax in Patmos, Greece, is the real
deal.
We are treated in the
book to the prospect of accompanying Georgiou on his somewhat unexpected
pilgrimage to sit at the feet of Robert Lax (1915-2000), and share
in his delight at the humility, clarity and spiritual insight of
a man whom Jack Kerouac called "The Laughing Buddha."
By turns we share in
moments of levity, exposition and real communication between two
men whose love of the Spiritual in living and in art are made manifest
and plain in page after page of dialogue that has the sage and his
disciple in pleasant banter over everything from yoga to yogurt
and surfing to Sufi; and from tips on writing to reminiscences of
Lax' lifelong friendship with the estimable Thomas Merton.
The hidden message?
That through the following of Lax's dicta for living - and perhaps
even by reading this interview between two inquiring men - one may
be cleansed, as might dreams by a dreamcatcher. Hence, the author
notes, the title of the book: The central image of The Way Of The
Dreamcatcher (Novalis, 2002) is that of a dreamcatcher - which aptly
reflects the distilled, clarifying lifestyle that Lax opted for
during much of his life as a reflective hermit on the island of
Patmos.
This is no mere interview
- The Way of the Dreamcatcher is a rare opportunity to listen in
as a splendid friendship emerges between two sensitive and questing
souls.
In his prologue Georgiou
- a young Californian on a spiritual quest when he was by chance
directed to the home of Lax in 1993 - talks about what it meant
to become engaged in a tutelage of some seven years with the humble
hermit. "I knew that I had found a light-giver," he said.
"Being in his company over an extended period of time has helped
me to discover my place in a world that oftentimes seems hollow
and corrupt"
One can imagine the
pitfalls in writing - not to mention reading - a volume like this,
whether it might be a tendency to fawn or cloying deify every word
and nuance of the subject, or else to stray irretrievably into a
wasteland of abstraction and theoretical hairsplitting.
To his credit, Georgiou
has managed to avoid these pitfalls. To Lax' credit too - in every
instance where his interviewer/pupil strayed into rarefied airs,
the American poet turned Greek Island hermit brought things down
to earth with twinkling humility, comradely chiding, or the kind
of self-deprecating genial humor one might more likely expect in
a wise old uncle than a man who person after person said during
his lifetime is "the kind of man about whom someday books may
be written."
Robert Lax was born
in Olean, NY, was associated with the group of New York artists
that included the Minimal painter Ad Reinhardt and the religious
philosopher Thomas Merton, a group that exerted a strong influence
on the poets of the beat generation centered around Jack Kerouac
and Allen Ginsberg. A graduate of Columbia, he was befriended by
the younger Kerouac who called him "one of the great original
voices of our times."
For his part, Lax called
the author of On The Road Jackie Kerouacie, and spent many an evening
discussing religion and other matters late into the night with the
American author.
The connection to Merton
is a central one - Arthur Biddle, author of an entire book devoted
to the relationship between the two in letters, entitled "Thomas
Merton and Robert Lax: A Friendship In Letters," notes Lax
"will be familiar to readers of Thomas Merton's autobiography
The Seven Storey Mountain. The two men met as students at Columbia
University in 1935. After graduation they spent the summers of 1939
and 1940 together at Lax's family cottage in Olean, New York.
In the early 1940s,
Lax worked at the New Yorker magazine and did volunteer work at
Friendship House, a Catholic social ministry in New York City. In
1943 he began teaching English at the University of North Carolina,
where he also studied for, but did not complete, a Ph.D. in philosophy.
In the late 1940's he wrote film reviews for Time magazine, then
traveled to Hollywood, California, where he worked as a scriptwriter
at Samuel Goldwyn Studios.
He led a nomadic life
for decades, moving between America and Europe, and even working
as a clown in an Italian Circus at one point. During the summer
of 1949 he traveled with another circus through western Canada and
recorded his impressions in his journals - an effort later reworked
into the long poem, Circus of the Sun.
Now in the south,
the circus of the sun
Lays out its route, lifts the white tent,
Parades the pachyderm,
And pins the green chameleon to the cloth.
Coffee-mists rise above the gabbling cook-tent;
Aerialists web above the tumblers' ring;
Behold! In flaming silk, the acrobat,
The wire-walking sun.
This poem - representative
of a lyrical style which Lax later put aside - was collected with
two other circus-related poems in a book entitled Circus Days and
Nights, three great long poems which critics rightly suggest place
this early masterwork in a central position within American literature
during that era. Each of the three poems in this collection expresses
a reverence for the acts of daring, beauty and grace that make the
circus the singular event it is; and what emerges is the drawing
of a link between this world of the circus-wherein a tent is erected,
acts are performed, and then the tent is disassembled only to be
re-erected the next day-and Lax's faith.
In the 1960s Robert
Lax found the place where he would spend a large portion of his
life - on the Greek island of Patmos. He lived there for more than
25 years, withdrawn, but at the same time conducting a lively exchange
with the world through letterwriting and other forms of communication.
The religious hermitage of his lifestyle was well known to those
who followed his progress, Kerouac calling Lax "a pilgrim in
search of beautiful innocence."
In his most signature
form of poetry, Robert Lax pursued a maximum compression and economy
of language - to the point where only individual words and syllables
remain which represent the essence of language. In one poem, he
repeats the word "river" some seventeen times or so, inviting
us to contemplate the empty sacred space around the intoned word,
and force us to slow down.
Here's a portion from
another, only slightly more involved in terms of word choice.
the
white
bird
the
white
bird
the
dark
hill
the
white
bird
the
white
bird
the
dark
sea
In the full poem, states
Georgiou, "we see Lax at his minimalist best...a subtle and
at times pulsating tension dominates the selection...the purity
of the images and their basic, honest form stimulates meditation
in the reader. If the poem is read mindfully, reverently, one is
left with a feeling of awe, if not ominous wonder."
His artistic concept
of reduction, in which a pause becomes as important as the things
said, made Lax a kindred spirit of the American composer John Cage.
It is no coincidence, therefore, that they both shared a strong
affinity with the clarifying aspect of Oriental art and philosophy.
For all the rigor and
discipline of his life and writing Lax remains, as noted by James
Uebbing in a Columbia University publication, "one of the great
enigmas of American letters. A classmate of John Berryman and a
mentor of Jack Kerouac, his poetry has been admired by writers as
diverse as John Ashbery, William Maxwell, James Agee, Allen Ginsberg,
e.e. cummings, Richard Kostelanetz, and Denise Levertov," writes
Uebbing. "Yet he remains very largely unknown, even among the
editors and academics who make their livings tracking and hunting
fresh literary game."
Hopefully, The Way of
the Dreamcatcher will help change that. Georgiou and Lax are, as
Brother Patrick Hart (last secretary to Thomas Merton) expressed
it, kindred spirits. With this book, the twosome become guides to
all who enter willingly their world of art, faith, spirit and commitment.
The Way of the Dreamcatcher
is published in Toronto by Novalis (cservice@novalis.ca). To order
the book in the US, contact 23rd Publications, 1-800-321-0411, ext
142, ttpubs.aol.com.
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