Happy as a Clam

Tomorrow's children play in the forest

Check out my new song “Happy as a Clam” written and recorded with a group of incredible fourth graders from Spring River School.

I paid $54 for an in depth astrological reading (beyond astrology actually…human design).  One of the main traits of my cosmic personhood is a knack for persuasion, marketing, compelling speech.  I shuddered at the thought.  For the last few years I’ve tried my best to close up shop.  To say less, to believe in the deep Zen truth that everything is ok exactly as it is.  The Christ-like quest for individuation is one that we all must walk alone right?  But, why am I also a few short weeks away from being a pastor? What is this unceasing compulsion to share the thoughts in my mind and the love in my heart?  I don’t know.  A friend told me over tea recently he believes in the religion of “I don’t know”.  I love that.  I’ve read 108 books about consciousness but I forgot my address.  Here I am, in my secret place with a spare twenty minutes to write.  Write what? Write for who?  Does it matter?  Let me find a joyful story.

A year ago in June I took over an abandoned upstairs office in Atlantic Theatres, home of Beaches Vineyard church.  The day I got the keys, I found a scroll in my neighbors trash can with some words from the Dalai Lama.   “LOOKING WITHIN: The very purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others. Rather, we must criticize ourselves. How much am I doing about my anger? About my attachment, about my hatred, about my pride, my jealousy? These are the things which we much check in daily life. Taking your own body and mind as the laboratory, engage in some thorough going research on your own mental functioning, and examine the possibility of making some positive changes within yourself.”  It has been richly healing to uncover the ways Christ taught this exact path (although I’d shy away from words like control and criticize).  I studied, and still love Zen Buddhism and Eastern thought.  It is not inherently cold, but it does often take a no-nonsense approach to engaging the self.  My favorite Zen teachers always had a sense of light playfulness about their self-inquiry.  Christ seems, to me, the master of this art.  The self is an endless labyrinth of mystery that we can greet with a paradoxical attitude….deep reverence and childlike wonder.  Unless we enter the mind of a child how can we enter the kingdom?

Three years ago I began to occasionally volunteer with Spring River, a Waldorf school that meets beneath the boughs of great oak trees in Hannah Park.  My involvement with these kids has had a much deeper impact on my heart and soul than I imagine I’ve had on them.  The first several times I visited I couldn’t help but cry at how magical their lives are.  They are taught in song, gently, how to see and love the world.  By contrast, the private christian schools I mostly attended were prison camps.  I see now that if you understand G*d as a bringer of justice….sending Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins, the logical result is a punishment-based system of life.  Perhaps our flowering of consciousness needed that for a time, but it’s clearly breaking down.  The kids of Spring River give me hope for the future.  They will inherit minds which are less prone to separateness, and hearts that cherish the natural world around them.   In the Fall last year I began to meet regularly with my dear friend Miss Leah’s fourth grade class, and together we wrote a song called “Happy as a Clam.”   This was one of my favorite creative endeavors, just showing up each morning without too much of a plan and allowing the children’s creativity to run wild.  It did certainly run wild, and not always in silly ways you’d expect.  Hannah Park is situated right next to a navy base, and all day long the dancing and laughter is interrupted by the screams of helicopters passing over head. Are they practicing the war that the rest of our educational system is preparing the children to inherit?  The children wanted to write songs about skeletons and death, they often expressed their emptiness and depression.   Children are so very sensitive, they are the ultimate mirrors.  When we punish them for acting out and try to force them to fit into our adult world we are literally killing the magic of the human spirit.  Of course some loss of innocence and adult recovery of wonder is a part of the process….but how many adults do we witness having made that recovery?  Precious few.

My beloved boss and pal Pastor Bobby told me recently (quoting something someone told him) that we must “ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives.”   Perhaps the tone of that is a little violent too.  Am I allowed to want to use my powers of persuasion to market the great joy of doing less?  My chart also indicated that I have to go easy on myself for long spurts of laziness.  Or what society would condition me to believe is laziness.  Here’s my sales pitch:  The world has more than enough resources to nourish all of us.  The ultimate act of resistance is slowing down, being gentle, loving our neighbors and friends and praying for the helicopter pilots as they fly over head.  If we all focused more on bettering the lives of the children, the world would come into harmony.  Here’s what I have for sale: Nothing.  My beliefs can not be your beliefs.  My relationship with Ya’shua, Mary Magdalene, Buddha can never be the same as yours.  I hope my words compel you to listen not to me, but to your self and the world around you.  Hear the children’s laughter as the very sound of the universe.  Notice the wind rearranging the world, constantly and lovingly cleaning up our mess.  If there’s any point to my writing I hope it is to share an unshakeable recognition that everything is getting better, all the time.  The more we consciously participate in that process, the more we find ease and happiness in our little lives.   The entire universe is right here with me in my cubby-hole.  I’m as happy as a clam to hang out here in my community, eating the scraps that drift down to the bottom and singing my crustaceous heart back into harmony.  I found such joy when I finally stopped looking. Here & Now is all there is. Hope you dig the new tune, send it to your nephews and nieces and be brave in your insistence that we all have the power to heal our selves, each other, and eventually the whole world over. :)

Deepest gratitude to Spring River, Miss Leah, the wonderful children (who’s identities will remain private) who contributed their creativity to this tune, Dragon Tree, and of course to the Mother Sea for teaching us to sing and live in peace.

With Gratitude, Reverence, and Sincerity,

Mr. Corey