Page 15 - C.A.L.L. #35 - Fall 2012

KALEIDOSCOPE

Shepherd Bliss (can that really be his name?) elucidates in Communities Magazine #151 on
how he favors diverse forms of intimacy:

Intimacy has many different forms and rhythms. It can pause, then resume. It can
have cycles, seasons, and even be circular, rather than linear. Grief can open the
heart and deepen intimacy, rather than cancel it. Longing, loss, and desire can
stimulate intimacy. Mended mistakes can strengthen the ties that bind people
together, rather than forever sever them, especially when forgiveness is involved.
Yet like everything that lives, intimacy can fade and die, especially when not tended

carefully.
Spaniard Antonio Machado starts a poem with “The wind, one brilliant day…” and ends
it as follows: “What have you done with the garden entrusted to you?” Intimacy in
fast-moving, machine-driven 21st century America can be like a strong wind on a
brilliant day that passes by quickly. But deeper intimacy is a garden that needs to be
carefully tended, from the ground up, so that it can flourish, rather than perish.
Tears can water intimacy and help it grow. The right food is necessary.
I began writing this during the longest nights of the year around Winter Solstice. It
will be published during the longest days of the year. I wrote with the benefits of
sweet darkness, as well as chill. Light and dark are an intimate, long-term couple.

They feed each other, though many modern people give the dark a bum rap. But
where would we be without night, sleep, dreams, and chocolate?
It’s time to praise benevolent darkness, even when it shadows the light, or at least to
accept it. The sweet berries on my small farm need a winter break away from too
much light, which helps kill pests and diseases. We hunger for intimacy, yet we fear
it, knowing that it can fade and leave sad memories and a gaping hole in the heart.
Why love again, if it is only going to die? The fear of death is a primary thing that
keeps us from intimacy and love.
Yet out of the deepest darkness, intimacy can rise. Most of us were conceived in the
darkness and spent months in the womb. Intimacy can be the spark that brings life.
Intimacy can ignite dreams and fire us up. Intimacy can harvest gifts from dark
corners.

And finally, to cap it all off, on the next page we feature a really different newsletter from a
genuine, little known American community, situated smack in the middle of the headquarters
of capitalism. When you go southwards from Manhattan, across the bridge to Staten Island,
you will discover the Ganas community. There is such a thing as the weekly ‘Ganas Friday
Paper’. I was immediately struck by its original, unusual format, style and design. Aviva
(formerly from Kibbutz Yad Hannah) and Richard Wonder recently visited Yad Tabenkin,
and when Richard showed me an issue of the paper, I asked for more. It is a cross between an
info board, including offers of exchanging a slightly used motorcycle for an upgraded Apple
computer, personal announcements, little tips about bargains, ideas for visiting, good shows
and so on. To subscribe to the digital version, email: news@ganas.org

Bye, Joel

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