Backwoods Blog

JOHN LENNON

The Isolation Blues;

reflections during covid-19

Nobody Told Me
John Lennon

Everybody's talking and no one says a word
Everybody's making love and no one really cares
There's Nazis in the bathroom just below the stairs
Always something happening and nothing going on
Everybody's flying and no one leaves the ground
Everybody's crying and no one makes a sound
There's a place for us in movies you just gotta stay around

Everybody's smoking and no one's getting high
Everybody's flying and never touch the sky
There's Ufo's over New York and I ain't too surprised
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed
most peculiar, Mama

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all. 
― John Lennon

When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor…Produce your own dream. It’s quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don’t expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself.
– John Lennon

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John Lennon’s last top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 was “Nobody Told Me” which peaked at #5 in 1984  posthumously released on the album “Milk and Honey.”  With all the startling headlines in the news lately I decided to  add the song to my iPhone playlist and crank it up when I need it.  Here is a news sampling from just this week; 100 degree temperatures recorded above the Arctic Circle, massive forest fires in Siberia, over 40 million people unemployed in the United States, coronavirus numbers spikes, nooses hung in public (including Maine), civil unrest across the country and still no Major League Baseball.  Okay, perhaps sports is the least of our concerns right now, but it is an indicator of how our lives are upended from the norm.  Lennon took the old adage “My mother told me there’d be days like this” and flips it into what he was feeling at the time and a hit song.  Likewise, these days of ours are a bit unsettling and it’s hard (if impossible) to know what to expect next.  

I’d like to offer two “Strange Days Indeed” tips based on a couple of Lennon lyrics:

#1 Your Mind Makes the Difference

“You better free your mind instead…”

from “Revolution” (The White Album)

A common metaphor for human consciousness is that it’s like a mirror.  Whatever is placed in front of the mirror is reflected clearly and unmanipulated.  It doesn’t matter what it is; good or bad or horrible, it simply reflects what is there. When the object is removed the image is removed.  Our mind is a continual succession of “mental events” that is the newsfeed of our reality. Yet even with constant change and wide variability the reflective nature of the mind doesn’t get stuck or doesn’t tire. These are the traits of a free mind. The problem arises when the ego-self introduces its own bias.  (Of course we aren’t aware that we are doing this and that’s what makes it so problematic!) Resistance, control, avoidance, force and anger/frustration are all indicators of a messed up mind. In meditation practice a person simply notices what the mind is doing (and if you do this long enough) you start to notice how ego-centric and preoccupied your orientation is.  Insight is derived from this self-observation and over time you begin to exhibit mirror-like mind qualities.  Even when the crap hits the fan; you see what’s going on, you feel what’s going on, you do what you have to do and then you let it go.  Strange days indeed, most peculiar, Momma…

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#2 All of Us Are in This Together

“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.”

– from “I Am the Walrus” (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band)

This line is a modification from the Chandogya Upanishad composed sometime during the 8th to 6th century BCE in India. Instead of a giant elephant or flying monkey Lennon chooses a walrus. In one of his more cosmic lyrics he’s not just saying that everyone on the planet is inter-related or interconnected to each other, he’s saying we ARE each other. Try to wrap your mind around that for a minute. Like the Transcendentalists in New England, the Rishis in India and deep-thought philosophers in many traditions we find that our basic identity when you trace it as far as you can trace it, you find that we are One.  Nationality, ethnicity, religious identification, sexual orientation, linguistic preference or political affiliation are all surface identifiers and do not reveal who we truly are at the deepest level. We are homo sapiens. We are humanity. We are all in this together. 

Hang in there everyone. 

Still in the woods,

Dave

June 25, 2020