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A Call To Prayer: Morocco

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The muezzin lolls me out of a deep sleep with his plaintive call to prayer. It’s 5:30 in the morning, pitch black but for a swath of light through the curtains. Two-wheeled carts are rumbling along the cobblestone walkway below. A moped whizzes by.

Allahu Akbar. Allah is the greatest.

The repetition of verses, the imperative of the muezzin’s plea floats across the city in drawn out phrases. Chanting from the surrounding neighborhood mosques is out of sync, like a reverberating echo. It is mournful, but sweet, comforting, as if I am swaddled in a sheepskin rug.

 Ashhadu anna la ila ill Allah. I testify there is no God but Allah.

Five times a day, Moslems are obligated to pray. It is one of the five pillars of Islam: Faith. Prayer. Charity. Fasting during the month of Ramadan. Pilgrimage to Mecca, called Hajj—at least once in your lifetime.

Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul Allah. I testify that Mohammed is God’s Prophet.

I’m on a three week tour with Overseas Adventure Travel. Later that morning, we’re weaving our way on bicycles through Marrakesh traffic—mopeds and two-wheeled carts, buses, taxis, an occasional horse-drawn carriage. Our guide, Omar, warns us, “Don’t hesitate. Just keep going or the cars won’t know what you’re doing.” A moped skims by close enough I feel the air compress between us. Temperamentally cautious, I hope I live to hear the afternoon call to prayer. I swear I’ll be a better person …

Hayya alas salah. Come to prayer.

Majorelle Gardens

Omar shepherds us across four lanes of chaos to the Majorelle Garden, a placid oasis just steps from the harrowing traffic and diesel fumes. We pause among the palm trees and succulents, the mosaics and intensely blue walls. He answers our curious, perhaps intrusive questions. Does he pray every day? He’s a young, hip guy so we’re surprised by his answer. “Of course,” he says. He’s proud of a religion that asks this much of him. Then he adds, “There is no reason not to pray five times a day. It is only ten minutes.” He fasts during Ramadan, a month of refraining from food or drink between dawn and dusk. Sometimes Ramadan falls in the summer. Imagine the discipline required.

Hayya alal falah. Come to security/salvation.

In Morocco, ninety-nine percent of the population are Moslems, almost exclusively Sunni. They are moderate Moslems. Many of them drink, however surreptitiously. And gamble. Both are forbidden in the Koran. They fear extremists. They share a special bond with Jews, given a shared history of both having been expelled from Spain in 1492—at the time of the Inquisition. Live and let live seems to be their attitude. Contrary to what I’ve read and heard in the news about Moslems, I find the people of Morocco to be generous and kind, proud of their values. Not perfect, but an inspiration.

La ilah ill Allah. There is no God but Allah.

When I traveled in Bhutan, a Buddhist country that supports the monks and the mountaintop temples, I was comforted by a culture that values quiet contemplation. It reminds me of the ubiquitous public sculptures in Italy. What’s the effect on a people, on their psyche, seeing Michelangelo’s David or Brunelleschi’s Duomo on their morning commute?

Koutoubia Mosque, Marrakesh

Back home, I wake up at odd times of the night, jet lagged, fighting the inevitable cold that comes from getting on a plane. I fantasize about the muezzin’s chant; I miss the rhythmic, mournful plea. I think, what about appropriating the emergency sirens in our town—erected to warn us in the event of an “incident” at our nuclear power plant? If the plant blows up, the only thing left to do would be to pray.

But mostly what draws me to the call to prayer is that it’s a public prompt to stop what we’re doing, to hit the reset button on all the crap that diverts us from our better selves.

I think of myself as a disciplined person. I eat my greens. I get exercise. I’m a writer. If nothing else, finishing a novel requires that I sit down, confront a blank page, write drivel, delete, and keep going. One word at a time.

There have been times in my life when I meditated every day, without fail, but not now. I don’t mean it as an excuse, not meditating because of the individual effort it would take.

But think about it: A public call to prayer. Five times a day. Endless opportunities to thank God. To be grateful. To plead for mercy and justice. For an end to the violence. For priorities that value life and freedom. And peace.

I invite you to read related travel posts about New Zealand and Cuba.  And my novel, Thin Places.

The Future of #MeToo

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Women’s March San Luis Obispo January 2017

For months, I’ve been edging toward writing another blog post about musings on a recent golf lesson. It was going to be humorous with a message at the end about not being too self-critical. I wish I could feel good about writing that post.

But the ice caps are melting. Storms and fires have swept away whole communities. Every week there’s another mass shooting, another black man shot point blank by a police officer. And now there’s Harvey Weinstein. And Kevin Spacey. And Roy Moore–the latest, but surely not the last of the serial predators to be publicly named.

Finally, the women reporting these crimes (although certainly not all of them) are being taken seriously.

Is there a woman out there who hasn’t experienced being exposed to, or touched inappropriately, or compromised with quid pro quo offers of sex in exchange for a promotion? A woman who hasn’t been grabbed on the subway, or silenced with threats of harm, or drugged so she couldn’t say no?

I want to meet her.

Yes, I’m angry. Don’t try to sidetrack the issue by telling me women are perpetrators too. The overwhelming majority of offenders are men. And please, don’t deny our reality by dismissing us as man-haters. Any sane, moral person—man or woman—should be angry.

For many years, I worked as a psychologist in a counseling center at a major state university. I counseled scores of victims of sexual abuse. Incest. Acquaintance rape. Intimate partner violence. I advocated for policy changes, adequate staffing, and on-going awareness education—at distinct risk to my own reputation and career. The administration, clinging to their blinders, denied the extent of the problem. They made it difficult, as legally as possible, to dissuade women from coming forward and reporting the truth. Despite the wealth of significant, well-respected research, they claimed “that happens somewhere else. Our students don’t behave that way.” Any deviations from the so-called “norm” were dismissed as anomalies.

I should be relieved that women–once again–are taking to the air waves. That they are not being dismissed as crazy sluts. That men and women alike are believing them. Every day, another woman is stepping forward to tell her story. I’m inspired by their courage.

But here’s the thing: This avalanche of truth-telling is not likely to last. Not because we’re insensitive or heartless or lazy. Or because we’ve heard from all the victims out there. Quite the opposite. There are too many victims. And we’re not emotionally or psychically prepared to take in the full extent of the problem.

One in five girls is a victim of child sexual abuse.

One in five women has been raped in her lifetime.

One in three women has been sexually harassed at work. 

It’s impossible to absorb.

So steel yourself. If we’re going to make the world safe for women and children, it’s going to take a whole lot of soul searching, and honesty and pure grit. And resources. We’re going to have to stay committed to believing all these women well past the next news cycle. And it’s not just about the famous ones. We’ll need to believe our children when they come home telling us about the swim coach. Or our co-worker when she reveals the boss grabbed her next to the water cooler. We’ll have to take to the streets, tell our stories, form a human chain of conviction.

And that’s not all. Each of us will have to resurrect our own pain—the time Uncle Stanley groped you under the Thanksgiving dinner table. That Saturday morning your cousin chased you around the house trying to pull down your panties. The guilt, the shame, the fear will feel limitless.

Men, good men, will have to come clean, too, and admit the ways they’ve been complicit. Bystanders who could have said something, but didn’t. And then there are the offenders. That’s a whole lot of pain to unearth because most abusers were abused themselves.

While all this is going on, let’s try to be kind to each other. Because what we’re trying to do will be painful and jarring. And sometimes we won’t feel like getting out of bed in the morning. Or going to Thanksgiving dinner because it’ll mean facing Uncle Stanley. Or turning on the TV. And what happened to believing the women who accused our President of similar abuse? It’s no small task, creating a world that is kind and true. And safe.

The country we’ve known will come apart at the seams. That’s when we’ll have a chance to rebuild in a way that treats us all as individuals deserving of respect, free from violence and abuse. A world where there are still floods and fires and earthquakes, but we’re all working together to heal.

When I hear all those women speak up, that’s what I’m praying for.

I invite you to read related posts Lies Matter. Ignorance Does Too and Words Matter. Actions Do Too. And my novel, Thin Places.

New Zealand: The Long White Cloud

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I’d no sooner gotten in the cab from the airport to downtown Wellington, New Zealand, when the driver launched into a mini-lecture about the voracious stoat—a short-tailed weasel that has wreaked havoc on native species.

Here in the US, we think New Zealand and Australia are kissing cousins, close enough to share flora and fauna. In reality, New Zealand—or Aotearoa as it is known by the Maori—is geographically quite isolated.

As it turns out, the cab driver’s lament was to be repeated throughout my visit—and for good reason. The only indigenous mammals on the North and South Islands are bats and several dozen marine mammals. Besides the Haast’s eagle, the only birds native to New Zealand are flightless. The Maori brought dogs and Polynesian rats to New Zealand about 1250 CE. European explorers and missionaries, beginning in the late 1700’s, introduced the rest—ferrets, pigs, deer, possums. And stoats.

All of whom make easy prey of a flightless bird like the kiwi.

Our guide, Daniel Scanlon, at Maungatautari Eco Sanctuary

One hazy day, we visited the Maungatautari (Sacred Mountain) Eco Sanctuary. Walking up the hill toward the entrance, the first thing we noticed was the striking demarcation between cleared pasture and the 47-km pest-proof fence. Our guide, Daniel, a young man of mixed Maori and Scottish descent, ushered us into the sanctuary through a double set of entrance gates. Once inside, the light dimmed. The air stilled. In contrast to the cleared pasture outside the fence, the sanctuary is thick with silver ferns, orchids, old growth trees. As if in a meditative state, my breathing changed, my mood lightened.

Sacred Mountain, indeed.

Constant surveillance is required to keep the sanctuary free from unwelcome interlopers. But in that environment, endangered birds are thriving. Fruits pollinate. Seed pods sprout without the competition from non-native rodents.

I’m inspired by these efforts–to reestablish the endangered kiwi. The coot-like takahe. North Island robins. The kea—an alpine parrot. As well as native flora. And yet, it’s something of a mystery to me–how we choose what to preserve and what to cast aside. I wonder, do we demonstrate the same commitment to our human diversity? To all the peoples of the Earth? To our collective languages and culture and spiritual practices?

Between 1860 and the early 1900’s, the Maori people lost all but perhaps 5% of their land to British settlers. The Native School Act in 1867 forbid speaking the Maori language in schools and playgrounds.

I’m told it takes one generation to lose a language and three to bring it back.

I think about the implications of suddenly losing not only my home, but the very words I use to communicate, to dream, to make meaning of my world.

Takahe at Te Anau Bird Sanctuary

New Zealand’s efforts toward restoring resources and land taken from the Maori people have been among the world’s most sincere and committed. And yet, discrimination continues in housing, healthcare, education, justice. When I asked about the on-going challenge of meaningful reparations, I was told, “How do you give back Auckland?” Yes, it’s a challenge, but the answer implies–disparagingly–that there are those who will never be satisfied.

For many of us concerned about bio-diversity on our planet, we are anxious to protect all creatures. Our oceans. The water we drink. The air we breathe. We should be equally committed to preserving the languages and customs and peoples of our Earth. These, too, represent the richness of our diversity.

It’s not a rhetorical question to ask how much value do we place on preserving the brown kiwi? Or the black rhino? A two thousand year old kauri tree? A language spoken by a few hundred elders in a remote village? A Maori welcoming ceremony? I believe a commitment to valuing the past stands witness to our humanity.

It’s safe to say that whatever we do, it’ll never be enough. But that shouldn’t stop us from trying.

I invite you to read other travel posts about Cuba and Chiloé Island. And my novel, Thin Places.

Why Truth Matters. The Unreliable Narrator in Fiction.

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Escaping Criticism by Pere Borrel del Caso. Public Domain.

Fiction thrives on spectacle and deceit. We’re intrigued by a protagonist who lies. The narcissist, whose egotism obscures alternative viewpoints, is greeted enthusiastically in the world of film and literature. We marvel at the sleight of hand, if pulled off adeptly.

Unreliable narrator is the term writers use to describe a narrator or protagonist who is—well—unreliable. First coined by literary critic, Wayne C. Booth, the unreliable narrator’s thoughts and actions are suspect. He is the con artist who spins a tale based on trickery and guile. The naïve child. The psychopath. The madwoman possessed. In art, it’s called trompe l’oeil–literally, “deceives the eye,” and is illustrated by this Pere Borrel del Caso painting.

In real life, we don’t expect the financier to purposefully leave us a trail of breadcrumbs leading to his Ponzi scheme. Russian hackers aren’t televising their activities. It was decades before we learned the identify of Watergate’s Deep Throat. But in fiction, the author must clue us in, however subtly. We’re likely to feel duped if we find out on the last page that the entire narrative was a dream. My mother, an avid mystery reader, used to complain about writers who withheld crucial details, making it impossible to solve the crime along with the detective.

Even in fiction, it felt like cheating.

One of my favorite examples of an unreliable narrator is Nabokov’s Lolita. Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged professor obsessed with the twelve-year-old Lolita. Along the way, it becomes profoundly clear that his professed love for her—despite Humbert’s well-formed rationalizations—is beyond creepy. So believable is his delusion, the novel was banned.

Perhaps Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl works so well because the reader is never sure whether the unreliable narrator is Nick. Or his wife, Amy. Or Amy’s diary.

On the other hand, a novel or movie based on a true story needs to get the historical details correct. Otherwise, we’re likely to feel scammed, manipulated.

I’m reminded of the 2014 movie, The Imitation Game, about code-breaker and mathematician Alan Turing. There was so much about the movie—crucial details—that were misplaced in time, outright distortions, misrepresentations. While casually fact-checking, I discovered the deceptions. Twisting the truth beyond what’s necessary for dramatic effect leaves us feeling betrayed.

There are rules. Even at the movies.

But real life isn’t the same as a story. In real life, omitting crucial details so as to manipulate the truth is not simply unreliable, it constitutes a lie. Perhaps it’s one of the reasons many of us are lately feeling so angry, wondering whose country we’re living in.

Ultimately in fiction–or real life—it’s consequential that we discern the unreliable narrator. Because lies matter. And so does the truth.

I invite you to subscribe to my blog. To read my novel, see Thin Places.

Lies Matter. Ignorance Does Too.

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Here’s a frightening piece of history I stumbled upon in the course of researching my second novel. Just one more example of why ignorance matters.

In the 1950’s, Joseph McCarthy’s decade of reckless red-baiting led to a purging in the State Department of our experts on China and East Asia. The theory being that State Department officials with expertise in those countries must be Communist sympathizers and thus pose an imminent threat to the US.

According to Robert McNamara, “The irony of this gap [in knowledge] was that it existed largely because the top East Asian and China experts in the State Department—John Paton Davies Jr., John Stewart Service, and John Carter Vincent–had been purged during the McCarthy hysteria of the 1950s. Without men like these to provide sophisticated, nuanced insights, we certainly badly misread China’s objectives and mistook its bellicose rhetoric to imply a drive for regional hegemony.”
Newsweek, April 16, 1995.

Why did it matter? A decade later, this lack of expertise fueled our involvement in Vietnam and the ensuing escalation of a senseless, devastating war.

I think of myself as a well-educated, thoughtful citizen. I vote in every election; I read a newspaper most days. Perhaps not cover to cover, but I scan the headlines and pore over a few of the opinion pieces. I took American History in high school. I understand the importance of having three independent branches of government. I value free speech, an independent press, and the separation of church and state. I know it was 1920 when women got the right to vote, although I couldn’t have told you—until I looked it up—that it’s the 19th Amendment that granted women suffrage.

I know we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but I’m hazy on the difference between the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution. Did I ever actually read the Constitution? How many amendments are there? Until recently, I thought it didn’t much matter.

On an intuitive level, I understand that banning Muslims is immoral, dangerous, and deeply un-American. But I have to rely on our Justice Department and Attorney General and our elected officials to articulate the constitutional arguments. To protect our democracy from misguided efforts. To represent our interests in court. Lately, that dependence on our leaders seems more and more perilous.

It is an understatement to say that we can no longer count on government officials to honor and protect the democratic values we hold sacred. If we’ve learned anything from recent events, it is that this democracy is our democracy. It is incumbent upon us to understand what it means for our nation to be founded on inalienable rights—basic human rights that cannot be taken away, infringed upon, abridged, or denied by the government.

Knowledge is power, wrote Sir Francis Bacon in 1597.

It’s time to familiarize ourselves with the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution. Especially Article II, Section 4 of the US Constitution that governs impeachment.

Because lies matter. And ignorance does too.

I invite you to subscribe to my blog. To read my novel, see Thin Places.

Words Matter. Actions Do Too.

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Gertrude keeps hounding me to write another blog post. “I’m busy,” I tell her, obsessed with writing my next novel. It’s about the power of charismatic figures to draw us in—and then poison our environs with rancor and distrust. It’s about the consequences of allowing bullies to prevail.

I hadn’t planned on mirroring current events. But serendipitously, here I am: 86,000 words into the second draft.

One of the main characters in my novel, Billie Ochoa, teaches a course on Cold War politics. Consequently, I’ve been reading about Stalin’s tyrannical regime, red-baiter Joseph McCarthy, the Cuban Missile Crisis, trying to understand how bullies capture our imaginations so effectively that we freely put ourselves—and our democracy—at great risk.

I’m still working on a title for the book. Perhaps Tens Minutes to Disaster. Or The Deceit of the Deal. Or simply Splat!

Even Gertrude–who sees dust bunnies as a threat to our existence–thinks I’m paranoid, exaggerating, trading on conspiracy theories. “Surely we’ve learned important, unforgettable lessons from the 1950’s,” she says. Loyalty oaths. Blacklisting teachers and actors. Jailing labor organizers. Abrogating free speech in the name of national security. Manipulating the media. Did you know the CIA hired journalists and major news outlets to spy for the US government? The New York Times. CBS News. Time and Life Magazine. The Christian Science Monitor. All participated in a CIA-funded effort called Operation Mockingbird.

Gertrude chimes in, “That wouldn’t happen now. Besides, wasn’t that a really long time ago?”

I remind her that President-elect Trump has appointed at least three retired generals to his Cabinet. According to the Atlantic Monthly, the last time that happened was President Ulysses S. Grant. Right after the Civil War.

I wonder aloud how many steps we are away from a coup.

If it’s paranoia, I’m not alone. An op-ed piece in the New York Times by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy? cites three indicators that put democracy at risk including, “a failure to reject violence unambiguously, a readiness to curtail rivals’ civil liberties, and the denial of the legitimacy of elected governments.” I would add: the insistence that facts don’t matter.

All of which are tactics used by our current President-elect.

But a coup? That wouldn’t happen, at least not in America. But imagine, Levitsky and Ziblatt opine, if there were another large-scale terrorist attack on the United States. Or rioting in the streets.

Raise your hands if you remember Kent State.

Here’s where I end with a message of hope. In a recent opinion piece in The Guardian, Barbara Kingsolver, encourages us to use our skills and talents—whatever they may be—to speak up. “Every soul willing to do that is part of our team … to show the new president what we stand for, and what we won’t.”

Teachers. Scientists. Journalists. Artists. Therapists. Historians. Political Scientists. Electricians. Physicians. Carpenters. Nannies.

I’m using mine as a writer. Because words matter. And actions do too.

Is it Harder To Be Kind?

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IMG_0561It’s Sunday night and Gertrude is glued to the presidential debates. She refuses to cede control of the remote, captivated by all that mean-spirited, third grade bathroom talk and name calling. “It’s turning your mind into a cesspool,” I tell her. Gertrude nods, acknowledging a certain truth to my anguish. But still, she’s adamant. She’s studying grandiosity, she tells me, schooling herself on narcissism. She’s even got her notebook out, making a list. “Listen up,” she says. “You’ll learn a lot about how to be successful.”

This current state of affairs keeps me up at night, agonizing over the lessons we’re absorbing through the airwaves about success and how to get along in the world.

Like many, I’m drawn to the news—whether it’s the primary campaign or other so-called newsworthy items. The drama is compelling, often entertaining, capable of instantly subverting our attention from anything else that might be worthy of our consideration.

IMG_5435It reminds me of a Zen story I heard some years ago. Two monks are walking along the road. It is raining and the path is muddy. The monks come upon a watery crossing and a young woman who is unable to continue on her way without getting her long cloak muddy. The older monk offers to carry the woman across the channel. On the other side of the rivulet, the woman and the monks go their separate ways and the monks walk on in silence. Some miles down the road, the younger monk erupts in anger. “How could you have lifted her up? You know that touching women is forbidden.” The older monk turns to him and says, “Yes, but I put her down on the other side of the river.”

Like the young monk, it seems decidedly easier to cling to the past, and point out others’ imperfections, expending futile energy turning those thoughts over and over in our minds, basking in a false claim to superiority. I, too, find myself committing the same pointless exercise. Deep hurts from long ago, perceived slights reenacted. Often with a misplaced sense of satisfaction.

Kindness, on the other hand, requires an inward gaze, and the willingness to evaluate our missteps, the moments we were thoughtless or arrogant or insensitive. It means leaving ourselves open and vulnerable, admitting our faults, letting go of a facade of correctness. Kindness requires vigilance and never-ending practice.

Maya Angelou once said, “It takes courage to be kind.”

If only Ms. Angelou had run for office. Think of the lessons we could have learned.

Thin Places goes to the Shell Beach Library Open House!

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Please join me at the

Shell Beach Friends of the Library Open House

Saturday, April 16 at 1:00 PM

FrontCover

The day’s activities begin at 10:00 AM. There will also be a succulent craft demonstration, a repurposed book crafts display, children’s activity corner, refreshments, a raffle, and a fabulous book sale! Truly an event for the whole family to enjoy!

I’ll be reading from my novel Thin Places
and discussing how my career as a psychologist informs my writing. 

Shell Beach Library and Vet’s Hall
230 Leeward Avenue
Shell Beach, CA

For more information: Friends of Shell Beach Library Open House or call 805-773-2263

Also, Thin Places Goes to Cuesta College! I’ll also be joining a panel discussion on Foster Youth and College Success. Monday, April 11, 2:00-3:15 pm. It’s free and open to the public.

Thin Places Goes to Cuesta College!

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FrontCoverDid you know that only 10% of foster youth go to college?
And of that, only 3% graduate?

Join us for a lively discussion about the challenges of foster youth in college
and what our community can do to support their success.

Monday, April 11, 2016
2:00 – 3:15 pm
Cuesta College
Room 5401 and NC Polycom

Elie Axelroth, Author of Thin Places*
Janaan Miles, Foster Family Development Supervisor, Family Care Network
A Cuesta College student, with personal experience in foster care

This event is free and open to the community. For more information, see: Foster Youth and the College Experience

*Attendees are encouraged, but not required to read Thin Places prior to our discussion. Copies are available for loan at the Cuesta College library or for sale on Amazon in paperback and Kindle, Barnes & Noble (Nook) and iTunes (iBook).

For local folks, Thin Places is also available at Volumes of Pleasure in Los Osos and Coalesce Bookstore in Morro Bay. 

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