I know my friends and neighbors to be peace-loving, cooperative citizens, and I know the long heritage of their culture enjoys many more days of enlightened rule than oppression. I know that the history of power in Madrid cannot very easily defend their own record in this regard, and that a disinterest in real discussion has led to this pass.

While I hope to read and understand better the Catalan motives for secession – more lofty than “mine is mine” finances, though probably that factors in as well – I prefer a diplomatic solution, brokered by disinterested third parties (should those exist), than a push toward bloodshed.

Yesterday’s general strike concluded without further agression – thank you to whomever had sense enough to cool the hotter heads in the room. Now begins the media battle, and probably some sort of legal battle.

To make sense of the right-wing response from Madrid (“Mine! Mine!”): at 20% of the Spanish GDP, Catalunya leaving the federation would be a bigger economic blow to the Iberian peninsula than if California, Oregon and Washington State joined to declare their independence, becoming some glistening, insane, ephemeral digitocracy, poised to shake into the sea with San Andreas’ next rumble. Catalunya has a history as an independent State, so a “bipartisan” Congress’ hard-line response would have the greater force of law.

Since we have seen this same tired play performed over and over again throughout history, we actually don’t need to pick up the script to know what happens next.

Since an army has been sent, there will be violence.

The violence will not originate with the people who are gathering without arms. It will be provoked by the invading military, orchestrated, or barring success is creating a fight, invented.

The people who are marching will defend themselves as best they can from the aggression, which will then be labeled “insurrection” or “coup d’etat” (the latter has already been used).

[audio mp3=“http://well-lit-path.thewaywest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/October-2.mp3"][/audio]

For the past week leading up to Catalunya’s self-declared referendum on independence – fervently contested as unconstitutional by the standing Spanish government in Madrid; equally or more fervently proposed as the only remaining action possible within an unjust and unresponsive regime – the people of the city have stood at 10 pm outside their apartments, on balconies or in windows or in the street, with large pots and pans and wooden mallets. For five minutes they struck those pans like bells, decentralized but united, is support of their right to decide.

Four-and-one-half years ago I sat on a hill in southern Vermont with my daughter Bela​. I had a check in my hand to the Phillips Exeter Academy, where she had been accepted with nearly a full-ride scholarship into their “Leader-Maker” high school program. A gateway to the best schools, PEA promised amazing education, discussion-based study, and intense, laser-focused learning.

She had pretty much decided, though there were some misgivings. Then she had a meeting with her favorite Montessori teacher, who heard “Philips Exeter”, and said “Have you ever thought of the Putney School? The environment there might fit you better.”

I am not finding new music lately – the guitar gathered weather-checks and dust in Newburyport, while Cata and I made a home in Barcelona – but I am finding old emotions, well worn like a favorite coat (frayed hem, splitting seam, threadbare around the collar), that in the same moment keeps me warm and lets in the chill.

Friday I arrived at our annual dance weekend, and sat in a circle with a hundred friends, for the eighth or ninth or tenth time: here were the easy smiles, the welcoming hugs, and lives I have come to know through stories shared (or shared stories). Always comforting, a great community.

- 5 -

And then the ramp was pulled up and the loading doors of the truck were closed; closed, too, the door of the storage unit, now emptied of its cargo; and years of living lurched away behind that burp of diesel, as though I had never owned it, and it had never laid claim to me.

I assume these trinkets and kitchen kitsch and bedroom comforts will join us again, that side of the Atlantic, but who knows? There are no guarantees, and all shapes and sizes of pirate. Maybe we can begin again… again. I half desire it.

The broad sheet billows and embraces wind The wind escorts the voyage out to sea

The shoreline spies the receding craft: Why have you gone away from me?

The passengers seek the shrinking coast: Why have you gone away from me?

As the racing stars and their distant masses Faintly lighting the slumbering planet

Reflect the infinite choreography: Why have you gone away from me?

Porto Alegre, Brazil – December, 1990

As it leaves your hand, the trajectory of a skipping stone makes a shallow arc, a rising line that perfectly describes the curvature of hope. Gravity takes charge immediately you relinquish control, as you knew it would, as you have learned it does: instead of despair for what is certain, enjoyment comes in testing your command of grade-school ballistics, no attempt to defeat the pull of time but to dance with it, reach your hand beyond a hands’ reach with it, and help that stone be less of a stone for just a little while.