What is it about water that draws us? Is it perhaps that it comprises over 94 percent of our bodies? I believe the connection is spiritual. In July, at Longwood Gardens, to the strains of the second movement of Rachmaninoffs Second Symphony, the extensive and ornate fountains “danced” in a gently choreographed ballet. Tall columns of spray hit a low full moon, and a soft palette of spot lights, hovered in the cool evening air as glittering misty water drops, like stars. The arching light and gliding notes of the water concert was a delight to the senses, inducing quiet and calm while it stirred the imagination. I closed my eyes smiling, knowing that when I opened them there’d be rainbows against the black night and on the gold orange corona of the moon, so low it gleamed on tree topes close by. This spectacle followed an early evening supper and outdoor performance of a brilliant guitarist in a different garden and floral setting, so beautiful it called to mind Monet. These were moments to marvel at the vines, stems, leaves, fronds, and blossoms of deep dish towering and clumping flowers in brilliant colors; some flaring, some diminutive, some trumpeting, some so richly perfumed you could hardly leave them to move on to the next glorious wonder.

     This was the end of a day of visiting with flowers, music, and art. We had started out that morning at the Brandywine Museum, home to a large three-generation Wyeth family collection of paintings. This too was a setting of visual textural and aesthetic pleasures. It was housed in an old converted mill with old planking, a mill stone, a well, and natural light from a three story wall of windows. Placed, as it was, in a wilder nature preserve, a setting of wildflowers, greens and river edge trees and viney blossoms, it had begun the tide of stirring rhythms in me, that I find in water. The Brandywine flowed swiftly that day and was a counterpoint to all the still life and framed art surrounding it. Struck for a time by the autobiographical vision of A. Wyeth’s painting of George Washington’s mystical meeting with him, I slowly moved on to Redfield’s painting of “Winter Reflections”; where the true light of the heavens I had seen so often in my life, was lighting the canvas. I could only weep—again, the surging of water circling within and stirring. “Yes, this is the way it is,” and I still wonder at it, remembering.

     Later on, in August, I found the magic of Niagara Falls again, and watched the dizzying plumes spiral into falls and chutes of water in rhythm. I was spellbound. Above the mists, gulls and hawks barely winged, but glided on the currents; while in the churning water at the base of the falls, the Maid of the Mist rode water-sons and daughters as far into the horseshoe curve as nerves would allow. Along the edge of the bank one drake bravely swam and dove for his dinner. It was a joy to keep company with Americans, foreigners, visitors, families and friends all enjoying the spectacle as one.

     Like theater, only live, not staged this time, moving in its own thunderous orchestration, the falls drew them. Here were all manner of people embracing laughing, teasing, being at east, transformed for these moments by roaring water in natural rhythm. After dark when the falls were lit, the colors of saris, turbans, kimonos, bubbas and many other national costumes blended, forming a montage. At one interval a joyful man leaped to capture the colorful misty air, forming a perfect circle above his head, his arms lifting as though he were conducting this raucous orchestra of thundering water.

     Like myself, people of all shades and speaking many tongues were captivated by this water sign, this 90 million gallons a second pouring from the Great Lakes through this one crevice of stone.

     I am convinced it is awe that makes us wonder, that draws us to water laughing in applause; churning our memories of early times, and perhaps life’s fluid origins. On that August night I took one last look before we slept for our next day’s drive to Georgian Bay off Lake Huron. Gulls in the light took on new colors then seemed to be all white, like doves. Water like a stream of consciousness takes us where it will. To the faithful this Holy Vessel is the symbol of our baptism, a new life giving and transforming power. “Come, I’ll wait for you on the Highbanks, from there we’ll travel on.”

     As we traveled through several countries in Europe last January on a month-long trip to herald the new millennium, and to celebrate personal, national and global triumphs made in the name of faith, allegiance and civilization; I was awestruck by the beauty of many natural and man-made wonders. Some made an indelible impression such as the Rhine, Danube, and Tiber rivers and the grandeur of the Alps reaching upward to the high altitude of 13,000 feet at Jungfraujöch. Each was entrenched in stories and legends. The Rhine dotted with castle ruins of land barons and overlords, the Danube celebrated by Brahms and the Tiber running from the Apennines through the city of Rome in a deep culvert or channel (not unlike Wills Creek).

     How could one not be moved by the cities, most with ruins of Roman walls and baths and architectural treasures; such as the Schönbrunn in Vienna, the various castles of the Habsburgs and Ludwig II, the composer Richard Wagner’s benefactor, and the lavish winter and summer palaces of the royals at Munich, or the magnificent cathedrals at Köln Germany, and Salzburg, Austria?

      These Northern European sites were matched in Italy by the extravagant monasteries, cathedrals, churches and museums at places such as Assisi, Arezzo, Urbino, Ferrara, St. Mark’s square and cathedral in Veniece, and of course the Vatican City.

     Visiting these places of miracles, monuments, monasteries, memorials, cities, walls and spires harking back to times before Christ, and spanning history through ages of wars, feudalism, piracy, Renaissance, nation-making and more modern wars, was an extraordinary experience. Yet, amid the splendor and evidence that we humans are a gifted race, there was also nagging evidence of class and race distinctions that went far beyond the half dozen incidents I, as a Black female, encountered.

     Far worse was my gradual awareness of the shadowy presence, suffering, hostility and general indifference and intolerance displayed toward Gypsies! A tourist on holiday can easily dismiss the problem as “a national disgrace of these countries” or they can pretend not to see it—but not for long. Sooner or later one sees the family from infants to elderly in rags mostly, sitting in groups in public places sometimes eyeing you, or silent and at other times speaking their dialect of the “native” language.

     Or they will be begging from you or picking your pocket when they are better dressed and able to fit in with an ordinary crowd. In Germany and Austria the criminal activity was less obvious in train stations and around tourist locations; the stem policemen kept it more-or-less controlled. But in Brussels and Italy it was tolerated to a much greater extent which caused consternation for some of my fellow travelers.

     But, crime and begging is not the inherent hallmark of these people, after all there is no gene we know of that creates criminals and/or poverty. For them it is a way to exist in countries where the majority consider them human waste. The enduring image is of shiftless ignorant wanders who have nothing to offer the larger society. Well then, what is the root of the problem and what are the truths about Gypsies? Gypsies lived a nomadic existence until forced by various governments to settle in areas where the people usually maligned and excluded them. They were traditionally tinsmiths, coppersmiths, blacksmiths and locksmiths, and excelled in the making and repair of instruments and the breeding and care of fine horses. These talents are not characteristic of a people with no work ethic! Indeed, they have produced fine musicians, dancers and poets, though published materials of early writers is hard to find. The truths are many, often buried in myths of their undocumented ancestry and migration. From their folklore we’ve learned they are a people without heroes, and their 400 year history of enslavement in Romania is largely unknown.

     Sadly, there are many negative stereotypes about this mysterious people whose origins scholars argue about even today. Most agree they are a people expelled from India 1,000 years ago, or in 700 from Persia or were captives of the Arabs for a time, or were the descendants of those who forged nails for the Cross of Crucifixion, or were those who convinced Judas to betray Christ, or were the cursed descendants of Cain, etc. Thus, they began living as nomads or middle-man minorities, that is workers who come to a place through migration not from being conquered. However, at least one scholar holds the position that Gypsies are the “fringe” people of a main society in every country where they are found. This, despite the fact that those not racially mixed are a people uniformly darker in complexion that most of their European countrymen, with long black hair and “exotic” or eastern features; and whose language, at least in the countries my source reported on, contains certain core words that can be traced to a single ancient Oriental mother tongue! These claims were made through research in 1753 and 1783. But we do know that for too many they are feared as the hostile one lurking at their doors.

     As I reflected on these experiences then and now, I realize they have implications even for those who may never leave the United States and that’s the second part of this article to be continued next time.

September 3, 2000
Cumberland Times-News
Maryland

      But I ask, “Is it ethical to see fellow humans debased, and what ought we to do about it; especially when the ‘grass roots’ culture of the debased group lends itself to such treatment, because of the people’s failure to become mainstreamed into the larger culture; through such ‘ordinary’ changes as dress, stability as producers, work ethic and literacy?” Is our failure to express concern as citizens of fundamentally Western cultures based in the belief that Gypsies cannot be governed or is it that their cultural characteristics are deemed anathema? Or is it because some Gypsies profess Christianity to ensure safety but hold other unknown core beliefs? If so, it is a grievous fault, especially since in the U.S. we disdain persecution believing our Constitution protects our rights to our own beliefs and views on religion, etc.

     Quixotically, advocates for valuing the differences in the “Romas” (Gypsies) life style would validate it as a viable one—with, of course, the crime left out. For as Utilitarians are quick to point out, the greater good for the greater number requires the willing and able participation of all its citizens. So, we have defined the battle of the Gypsies as the need to overcome stereotypes and ignorance. I agree, “Yes,” to fit into a modern world you ought to know time, and dates, and “yes,” you must, to be employable in the mainstream trades and businesses, be literate, having if possible basic and computer education, training or skills.

     Yet, my fellow non-Romas, I am still suspicious that if these outcasts were the Masai of Africa, the Indians of the South American Rain Forest, or the Aboriginal Blacks of Australia who, before being settled in reservation-type communities lived in “dream time” etc.—all people we know more of—I suspect detractors would have less to abuse them for in their desire to remain separate and apart, to seek their own kind of self-determination. I concede this much, their own deep distrust and avoidance of non-Roma education and lifestyles makes it easy to target Gypsies for discrimination and to continue to marginalize them.

     But we must still ask the question, “What ethically ought we who live more privileged lives do about it?” It’s difficult to decide not only because of conflicting obligations to ourselves and societies, but also because of our Western belief that progress is important and means change and a movement that appears to be advancing beyond more ancient or primitive ways of being in the world.

     In closing this reflection on ethical responsibility towards Romans I must say, on their behalf, though many Gypsies live in dire poverty, not all live such hopelessly mean lives. There are many throughout Eastern Europe who leave their families to buy goods from the markets of other countries and bring these scarcities to their communities to sell and make meager profit to improve their conditions.

     Statistics in 1998 showed 70% were illiterate and seventy percent were unemployed. For some groups illiteracy extended to a total lack of knowledge of time, how to tell and use it; and their group’s history or religion.

     Naturally, there are groups or bands that are faring better. Those we’ve been discussing are in the areas researched by an assimilated Gypsy journalist who lived with her subjects over several years, charting their sagas with the intent of bringing their plight to the world. (That she discovered oppression within the groups, especially in the treatment of women, comes as no surprise—cultural advances are not made in a vacuum. We hope to examine this and other issues in a separate discussion).

     We have seen that a people can, in being victims of their own ignorance, perpetuate their own misery. Yet this mistrust, we need to remember, evolved from a history of persecution. Our learned scholars tell us the test of ethics is in making morally responsible positions and actions to remedy a known wrong. A first step, in this global village we call our world, is to care enough to learn about the sojourn of the Gypsy who lives across the earth today and suffers. We remember the saga of untouchables of India and the lepers of Biblical days because we read about them. The Gypsies, or Romas’ plight is seen as nobody’s business, but these people of body, mind and spirit, belong to our human kinship family. We will conclude our discussion in one final article.

September 24, 2000
Cumberland Times-News
Maryland

     But this is not the case for the Gypsies who must have social interactions, even dependencies that stem from, and are in most instances organized, and dictated by the majority culture. Culture is a defining characteristic of persons and groups. It is a system or pattern of beliefs and values that conditions and establishes the basis for rituals and traditions that give credence to the lives and actions of the people from whom it derives. Some may argue that to educate the Gypsies is to change their culture, and isn’t this a bad thing? But a culture, like healthy organisms, evolves and advances when choice, not merely chance, convenes with it.

     At the least, we need to let the Gypsies know what the rules are, those by which the dominant culture governs its lives. It is then up to them to make choices as to what degree they will accept or assimilate the “characteristics” of the dominant culture. This is far less heinous than not sharing the rules, and then judging the others as “poor losers” when they resort to whatever means necessary to survive!

     But, you ask, can people live with two cultures successfully. Well, Blacks have been living so for 400 years. Being bi-cultural isn’t the worst fate on earth, just ask any of your friends and associates, who have lived this “anomaly.” However, there are some costs—ask them about those as well.

     Some critics of intervention argue a people’s free will takes precedence and outsiders shouldn’t meddle in others’ affairs. But that’s a “cop-out.” Any honest person must admit an ignorant unknowing, or undereducated people do not have free will, as free will involves informed choices.

     Not long ago enslaved Africans in this country were subject to this same sort of mental and psychic oppression. (Indeed, the vestiges of this treatment remains in the psyche of some today, who consider that to accept “white” education is to further submit to “colonization” of their minds, a grave and unreasonable view. The inscrutable irony is, claims of victimization come from the subject group and the society, each claiming the other is oppressive and bent on plundering. As the Gypsies’ plights shows, remaining ignorant is not a defensible strategy for survival).

     Again, not to understand such a basic ingredient of modernity as the relevance of time can be life threatening. A tragic example of this came to light in the story of potential witnesses in the defense of a Gypsy who murdered a non-Gypsy in self defense. His fellow Gypsies influenced by the tradition and cultural pride of being exceptional storytellers, embellished and embroidered evidence such that the defendant was near magical appearing in multiple guises places and times. Their fabrications though charming, were worthless and the defendant, ultimately, was convicted of murder.

     We consider those who suffer from amnesia, Alzheimer’s, senility, extended coma and certain other mental conditions disconnected from “reality,” which, in part, is based in fuller consciousness and “fixed time” recognition. We consider these persons sentenced to a kind of cruel mindless existence. We believe their experience of life lacks in substance that which will develop their human potential. If these diminished states are a tragedy for the ill, how can one argue that those Gypsies who function without literacy, and knowledge of time and history, are not diminished at least to a similar degree?

     How can one say the modern attempt to show period and continuum by cataloging experience as history, and periods of time by clock and calendar, is not critical to understanding the “reality” we as a human race have chosen to depict in this way? If we cannot in truth deny its importance, we must admit that Universal Literacy is a human right and need, and Gypsies are not to be excluded from this. A campaign must be mounted toward that end, and not to do so is tantamount to withholding basic necessities of life that enhance our fellows’ human potential.

     I grant some critics may argue that if a thing is undesired (even through ignorance) it is unimportant, and we moderns make too much of time and history anyway. But I hold that these are the signs and symbols of our immortal minds, that connect us in human kinship to that primal and first mind, that knows all; and from which we, in our measurements of time, immortalize and try to succor both meaning and truth. This is a gift none should be denied. Here ends this chronicle which we assign a day and time and, whose reading we accept as part of our history.

September, 2000
Cumberland Times-News
Maryland

     This summer the world is witness to your fleeting tender and adolescent loveliness—take heed to these things, for there are those who prey upon the beautiful innocent. Rather than celebrating your beauty as a pure thing, the hedonists would make of it an object of lurid desire. Resist them and the temptation to be exploited by the sensation you stir up in them; and you resist the oppression that some call “freedom.” Keep your beauty safe, whole, pure and private. Let the world marvel, make it be patient and silent, approving from a distance, while you are becoming the person you, yourself will admire.

     Take heed to the following things, these will deepen your appreciation of the beauty in the world that surrounds you, and will occupy your interest in enchantment, nature, mystery, union and perfection. The body is not a billboard to be decorated for others’ amazement, amusement and entertainment. Piercing in places that shock and/or titillate show you have confused being natural with being ordinary, and that you fear the latter. The body unaltered is beautiful, formed and proportioned to carry us, and when mature, to spark fire. Without maturity and guidance from the educated soul toward holiness of spirit, we may as well be a hide of leather; something mindless without emotion and senses and judgment—a utilitarian object such as a coat, shoes, a hat to be used against the cold.

     You are in the body, celebrate it in the dances of cultures, nations and the world’s people! Dance is a language of expressions speaking all things in our experience and teaching us the rhythms captured and released in time.

     The clapping of hands is applause, and our first instrument, learn to play others. Nature gives us music: leaves, thunder, the sea, beasts and birds, the winds and humans, all make sound. We imitate these from our imaginings, letting music tell our stories, and convey the many moods we’ve known. Listen to the sounds of every instrument; hear how joy, sorrow, hope, despair and peace are “played” or sounded in different cultures. Marvel at the charm of sounds to stir us. Be a companion to others, touching them with music, it enriches our spiritual and emotional lives.

     A voice is a “sound signature” each is different; learn to voice your signature. Cries and calls are the earliest notes, then laughter, then sighs. As we mature, our knowledge of how to communicate is strengthened. Not only does human behavior give us signals, but also our grammar lessons! From them we intuit the musical phrasing of lyrics. The “immediacy” of singing captures our emotions—granddaughters learn to sing, let the music as you hear it be heard by others—voice your own song.

     The written word “speaks” our truths and thoughts over many generations. Indeed, the wisdom we are acquiring about our life on earth is being lived and written by people such as you; join them! Read the classics, understand that the problems you face, and the ideas you hear are not new revelations.

     Read how the basic themes of human existence are played out repeatedly. Those who appreciate this spare themselves having to learn, through bitter experience, things which are already known. The struggle between good and evil has existed since our consciousness of these differences was first awakened. It continues to be the weight we adjust with our conscience to balance life’s scales. Books add to our wisdom, and blessed with our own credible authority of mind, through teaching and reflection, they can help us move out into life facing a world in which we become consoling and edifying messengers.

     Our individual experience of events, people and situations is uniquely colored by our temperament, personality, culture, customs, beliefs and understandings. Write your journal, tell your stories, discuss your opinions and judgments and seek truths in words. You will refine your ideas and deepen your authority while learning to keep your own good company.

     The arts are for our fulfillment and pleasure, but we must not die of either. Act, perform, create, but do not let these overpower the urge to think, lead and teach. Teach with the arts and be satisfied. Understand the difference in being a talented performer and one who sells her gifts and herself as a cheap commodity.

     Granddaughters, there is poetry in math and the sciences, pursue them!

     Learn them to discern fact and reality from fraud and superstition, to make intelligent decisions rather than being controlled by the ignorance and prejudices of others. Anyone who tells you girls cannot understand engineering, mathematics and science is trying to make a second-class person of you. Ignore those messages—the outstanding careers of thousands of women have proved they are wrong. Finally, don’t be satisfied to ask “How does this happen?” but also ask, “What makes this possible?” For in lifetimes, the earth and all people are ours to love, while the destiny of all is the province of God.

     Pray and study your religious lessons and take them to heart. The revelation of God is life long. The spirit is stunned by the rose!