Apologies to my loyal readers for my lack of blogging activity in past months. Something has to give. Several months ago I began working with an editor on my latest fiction manuscript “Love Affair in the Shadow of Apartheid.” I have worked with many editors after decades of publishing, both as a journalist and book writer, and, thankfully, my current editor is an editor’s editor, in other words — a perfectionist. This means that the first round of reviews is an almost complete rewrite of the novel, paragraph by painstaking paragraph. Possibly if I had known how hard I would be working I may not have taken this on . . . However here we are in the penultimate and then hopefully ultimate  go-around and as my editor says, “It looks like a book now.”

A good editor makes a good writer; what a debt we owe editors. Maxwell Perkins, of Scribners, made the American “greats” of the 1920s and 1930s, well, great. Daphne duMaurier, the hugely popular British novelist of the 1940s and 1950s apparently turned in atrociously written drafts, but they encompassed unsurpassed modern Gothic story lines that her regular editor then turned into gold. There are many other examples of famous writer-editor duos.

With the ever-increasing pressure on writer’s to send agents publishing-ready quality manuscripts or for most writers to have ebook ready manuscripts, the editing business is booming. Daily editors thank Amazon and Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, and all other indie publishing and self-publishing ventures.

But for writers, for the hours and hours — day by day, week after week, month following month, and, often, for the years that go by — writing is a preposterous vocation, avocation, hobby, past-time. I have published four books but I have no idea what will happen to this latest creation. As I have written on this blog previously, publishing is undergoing a seismic shift.

It used to be that a well-written, competent novel would find the mid-list of most of the “big” publishers who wanted the cachet of publishing literary fiction. But now the “literary” tag is almost extinct among the vampires, romances, horrors, mysteries, young adults, chicks’ lit, and other genres. Literary is no longer a genre that is “in”, viable or relevant. And the world of ideas is poorer for this.

In this writer-editor go-around something has surprised me, how patient I have become. I am a Type-A personality, it all has to be done yesterday. But somehow now, possibly knowing that this lovingly nurtured creation so many months and years in gestation, may be still-born, has made the process as precious to me as the product. And that, in itself, perhaps, is truly a good thing.

Several times a year, with permission, I use this blog space to share student responses to what they are learning in my classroom. This is the response of a high school senior to an introduction to meditation practice.

1. The Universal Breath

The diamond mind of sharp, concentrated focus and the profound physical state of relaxation create a terrifyingly brilliant experience. Meditation, deeply and intricately connected to Eastern philosophical cultures, allows an individual to follow one’s own breath to find an inner state of harmony and to develop an awareness of one’s basic goodness. Compassion for one’s self and others is crucial in a harmonious society.  Through meditation, guided by the breath, one can leave the chaos and distractions of the external world for inner tranquility.  Few things are universal. However, the gentle inhale and exhale of breath, bringing oxygen to the bloodstream and thus enabling life is a common, shared experience throughout the human species.  In accordance with Eastern teachings, inner goodness—or the innate and natural tendency toward good—exists within every person, just like the breath.  With attention to the breath, one can journey to find ones inner goodness and gain the experiential knowledge that comes from meditating.

2. Confusion or Liberation

Many teachings of philosophy incorporate a metaphor indicative of the closed minded nature of the majority of human beings, whether it is the metaphor of the cave in Plato’s The Republic—where all the people watching the shadows on the walls of the cave are in utter disbelief of the world outside and shun the man who has seen beyond—or, as depicted in Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, the people who cannot look within themselves to find their own inner goodness and instead live in fear of themselves and the world around them.  Our consciousness manifests within the universe in two distinctive states: confusion or liberation.  Liberation is the state of enlightenment and meditation is the means by which one can access such a state of internal clarity, peace, and harmony.  As outlined in Shambhala, basic goodness is the innate good of “being alive” regardless of more material things such as “accomplishments or fulfilling our desires.” To acknowledge basic goodness is to recognize our “actual connection to reality that can wake us up and make us feel basically, fundamentally good.” Through meditation, one can become awake, acknowledge the superficiality of society while maintaining an unshakable understanding of true, basic goodness. Meditation has given me a refuge as I have seen a glimpse of the universe within myself.

3. The Essence of Now-ness

A spiritual warrior is “one who is brave” and such bravery must manifest in “the tradition of fearlessness”; “ultimately…the definition of bravery [is] not being afraid of yourself.” I often feel disconnected and almost alienated from the world around me when my mind and body are pulled in different directions and even divisions of my mind—my heart, my soul, my conscious attention, my focus, etc—are at odds with one another.  In a chaotic world, it is easy to fall victim to compelling and yet opposing forces.  If one allows this to happen, the luxury of introspection is lost, as is the awareness of basic goodness. As “synchronizing mind and body is looking and seeing directly beyond language”, I find meditation weds my deepest, most profound inner conflict: how to understand science and religion in relation to one another.  The answer, lies within the gentle, peaceful harmony that is buried within each of our chests and can be traced to the gentle rise and fall of the chest with each deep inhale and each beautiful exhale.

Poet Li-Young Lee speaks about the power of the breath and how, when one pays attention to it and trains oneself to go beyond the shallow, superficial few seconds we have usually allot each breath, one can change their perspective.  With deep breath comes deep thought.  Reality transforms as we ground ourselves to be present in each moment as our lungs fill to their full capacity.  Meditation is a perpetual state of introspective focus, the union of body and mind, and comes to find peace within reality.  To be afraid of nothing is to be “experiencing that very moment of your state of mind, which is the essence of ‘now-ness’.”

4. Meditation—Access to Clarity and Alleviation of Fear

Throughout our guided meditations, I have become deeply invested in the experiential aspects of learning.  My personal experiences have been profound. In the first meditation, I focused intently on the breath.  I felt my lungs open as my posture improved, my shoulders rolled back and my head aligned with my spine. As breath pushed my diaphragm out, and my focused dropped from the tension of worldly thoughts, I felt the bright warmth of light radiate within my chest cavity.  To articulate my experience in the most juvenile of manners, I felt a tingle, an excitement that radiated from my concentration and my breath that I experienced as a child when waiting for Santa Claus to come, with his mystical reindeer and brightly wrapped presents, on Christmas Eve.  In coming out of the first mediation, I found it curious to equate the two experiences, but as I internalized the innate sensation, I realized that I found hope, pure joy, or, ultimately, unadulterated goodness through meditation.  As a child, this sensation is easily accessible, as we are not so grounded in the superficial realities we engage in later.  However, as we grow up, we fall into our roles in society, becoming fearful of the back corners of our minds.  Meditation is our access to clarity and alleviation of fear.

My second experience meditating came to me when I heard our teacher say, “Good, the energy in the room is much better now” as everyone’s focus had dropped from their heads to their bodies.  In a focused trance  I had forgotten those around me.  As I heard the vibrations of her voice, reminding me of their presence, I shifted my focus to the energies in the room.  Immediately, from the blank, dark of my mind, a spiraling gold light materialized, twisting towards me.  Shocked, I abandoned the image and dropped down to the breath once again.

Back in class, we spoke about transformational figures and monks who had devoted their entire lives to meditation.; we spoke of how those individuals have an incredible presence and that their goodness emanates from them at all times.  On some level, I believe that everyone has an energy that radiates from within.  Without the clutter of language and the trivialities of words exchanged, we can sense others’ presences as I intensely experienced in my meditation. Through meditation, we can find the true, good energy within ourselves and channel it.  The Dalai Lama responded in the movie “Kundun” when asked if he was the Lord Buddha, “I believe I am a reflection, like the moon on water. When you see me, and I try to be a good man, you see yourself.”  In this manner, each person has unknown, universal goodness within themselves that can be reflected in the eyes of others.

5. Harmony Between Mind and Body

In abandoning fear, in diving within myself, in finding harmony between body and mind, I have unearthed a compassion for those around me, as well as for myself. Fear inhibits our potential beyond belief and above my desk, I have the quote “Be fearless: What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” as a constant reminder that so often, the bars of our cages—cages that define our social and cultural experiences in life—are fashioned from our own thoughts of fear and apprehension.  To release oneself from such negativity is to sit gently on the earth and allow the soul to reunite with the sky, to find harmony between body and mind is to access basic goodness.  To meditate is to find “drala”: “the unconditioned wisdom and power of the world that [go] beyond any dualism.” Meditation allows me to understand my ego and the societal cultivation of empty materialism so as to align myself with the metaphysical or the universal spirit of goodness.  Through meditation, I see myself, and those around me in relation to the earth and the sky.

July 1960[1]

Plettenberg Bay

On the way to Jan Smuts Airport for my flight to Port Elizabeth, we park the Jag at the entrance to the Rivonia Police Station. The parking lot is mostly unoccupied early on this chilly winter morning on the Highveld. My breath vaporizes as I hurry from the car into the front office. The desk constable’s acknowledgment of my presence is almost imperceptible as he continues to work on a large ledger while he slides a thin register, House Arrest Daily Record 1960, across the counter. Quickly I locate the most recently filled entry line, and below it write the date, 5th July, 1960, in the correct column, enter the time, and print, then sign my name. Half-smiling at the policeman I hasten away. He calls after me, “Totsiens, Mejuffrou Nicolson.”

On the plane I settle into the seat and exhale. My apprehension that I might be detained again recedes somewhat. I am tense and I close my eyes to try and relax but the nightmare images hover under the ajar lid of my sub-conscious mind waiting to spring loose like a clutch of demonic Jack-in-the-boxes. On their faces is the painted intent of shattering my sanity: Hennie van Niekerk’s menacing leer as he snarls, “Pervert! Whore!”; the wardresses grim demeanour; the other inmates nightmare screams of fear and despair and the names of loved ones; and Rosie staring at me in the Fort’s visiting room, her look of horror mingled with love as she whispers, “What have they done to you?” Eventually I manage to shut the lid of my mind to contain them, and momentarily suspend my fears. I succumb to the smooth ride at thirty thousand feet and doze.

Four hours later we are about to alight at Plettenberg Bay on the rudimentary sand strip bush runway in a cleared field. At the last moment a white horse gallops onto the landing strip, and swearing under his breath the pilot lifts the small plane that ferried me from Port Elizabeth, circles to his right, and prepares his approach once more. Someone has chased the horse and bumping and snorting like an animal itself the plane comes to a sudden halt.

The pilot turns to me, “Sorry about that. Can’t wait for 1962 when they say there will be a new runway here and a municipal airport building with at least some radio contact. All we have now is that old wind sock.”

“Can’t be a more beautiful site for an airport anywhere in the world…” Mythic Robberg transfixes me; at times in detention I was not sure if I would ever gaze at the promontory again. “Not with Robberg lying in front of you, like a sleeping leviathan.”

A Coloured man in a faded blue boiler suit trundles the steps to the plane, and the pilot helps me disembark.

“I need to refuel.”

“Thanks for the flight…”

Walking slowly towards the small Quonset hut that offers travellers shelter from the weather, but no other amenities, my eyes remain fixed on Robberg basking undisturbed, clad in an array of green shaded vegetation.

“Welcome home,” Bert Hall, the town official who administers the airport, greets me warmly. Picking up the car keys off his desk, I return his smile. The effects of my uneven prison haircut are slowly disappearing but they give my face a lopsided appearance. Bert is shocked; he sees my dull eyes, sallow pallor and lustreless hair. A few days later his wife quotes his words to me when we meet outside the village post office, “God only knows what those bastards did to her in there.”

But now he says, “Our Liv, come back to us. We are very happy you are here…”

I inquire as to news of his family. His son was my best friend growing up. “…Four grand children now…keeps us all busy.”

The pilot enters the hut to sign the logbook. “See you in a few weeks, Miss Nicolson. I have already radioed SAMI that you are safely here.”

At the doorway he grins, and makes a thumbs up sign. “Have a lovely holiday,” he shouts as he always does and disappears into the plane.

Tired from the day’s tension and travel, I retire early to the master bedroom and lie awake in the large bed; this is my refuge, this lovely old house, Milkwood, built by my grandfather almost sixty years ago when Plettenberg Bay was an isolated Eden. Before air service, and when I was a child, the journey was a three to four day adventure from the Highveld to the Eastern Cape over many mountain passes that were sand roads and dangerous to traverse; there are still no train tracks laid through forests and across gaping ravines. Thankfully in 1960 Plett remains a remote haven. The baby I was, the little girl, the gawky ten-year old, the rebellious adolescent, the young bride, are with me in the bed where perhaps my father, and certainly (I had figured the dates) I was conceived.

In the morning seated in the warm kitchen and drinking steaming mugs of tea, I stare appreciatively at the winter garden sloping on the hillside where shy loeries call and respond  “kwok-kwok-kwok” in the red-berry bushes. The telephone jangles in the country stillness but I do not want to talk to anyone yet from my life in Johannesburg, my family know I am safe. A key is turned in the kitchen door lock and Blossom’s dark brown, weathered face with wisps of grey hair escaping from under her colourful doek peers around the door.

“Ahi, Missie Liv, you are here. You are home.” She grins toothlessly.

Feeling a rush of affection sweep over me like a low tide wave on Robberg beach, my instinct is to leap to my feet and hug the bent over figure, Blossom, a feature of Milkwood, a stanchion. But the gesture will embarrass the older woman and instead I rise to shake her hand. Blossom bobs a subtle curtsy. Gesturing for her to pour a cup of tea, I anticipate her demurral. We fall into a familiar patter.

“Ten past nine, I knew you would be at the kitchen door. So the railway bus was on time?” Blossom nods, still staring at me as if she can scarcely believe I am in the room. “Still stops at The Crags?”

“Missie Liv?”

“Yes…”

“I say this only one time…your mother told me you were in trouble…I pray for you every night…now I see that you suffer. They are bad, bad people…but now I cook all your favourite foods…put some meat on those bones…” Blossom shakes her head, “Ahi, so sorry. So sorry. May Jesus …”

Rising again and interrupting the old woman, I clasp one of her hands in both of mine. “I’ll be OK. Some Plett air, some walks on Robberg beach, some food from my Nana…” There are tears at the corner of Blossom’s rheumy eyes. “Don’t cry, don’t cry… I’ve cried enough for us both.”

Not sure when last I read a novel that has so annoyed and intrigued me as the one I read last night and this morning, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes which is the winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize. What were the judges thinking? This is a 2011 feeble old man’s version of the 1960’s John Osborne “angry young man”. But, sadly, no ranting against the establishment here, this is but a shadow. The pompous, smug and so un-self aware protagonist (whom you want to give a kick up the derriere) sidles through the narrow backwater of his British, middle class, suburban life in self-congratulatory sloth, proud of the fact the life never happens to him; while with his passive-aggressive non-actions, his negative withdrawal from an emotional life, he poisons those few people with whom he interacts.

Maybe you have to be British to appreciate fully this one. For me, I prefer my old men to be like King Lear tearing at the very fabric of the heavens who have conspired against his hubris.

Yes, you are correct, there are redemptive tidbits on his journey to remorse. Remorse! What a pathetic state to journey towards. Good grief, where are the Toni Morrison’s of the world who present the highest aspirations and desires of the human heart and the lowest carnal instincts? where are the writers and books that teach and tease and torture our souls? Yes, there are platitudinous attempts at philosophical gravitas here but all they succeed in doing is to seem out of place.

Modern editors, we are told, want no description, only one voice–first person–prose stripped of adverbs and adjectives, Barnes certainly delivered. Thankfully he only wrote one hundred and sixty three pages for this one. He may aspire to write like J.M. Coetzee, but I know Coetzee’s work and Barnes (here at least)  is no Coetzee.

A version of this article appeared in print on October 17, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Amazon Signing Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal

The title words of today’s post are by Anglo-American poet T.S. Eliot in his famous Four Quartets. Last weekend on a glorious fall day I was in our nation’s capital. The area around the mall is indeed living proof of Eliot’s idea that “Time past and time future are contained in time present” — this is expressed in modern coinage as “being in the moment” and in other literary references as “the eternal moment.” Yes, indeed, the past lives on and the dream will never die…

Washington Memorial 10.8.11

©Janet Levine 2011

MLK, Jnr. Memorial 10.8.11

©Janet Levine, 2011

This week I find myself in the north-east kingdom of Vermont at a retreat center near St. Johnsbury. Over the almost thirty years since I came to this country with my American born husband and South African born children, I have stayed every several years somewhere in the Green Mountain state. Together with the Pacific northwest I find it to be the most beautiful and, dare I use the word, spiritual, of all the states in our presently troubled Union. Lush shades of green everywhere and from here, now, where I look from my porch when I raise my head from my laptop, I see a valley of grasses and bushes, a line of magnificent trees, tops of mountains and a blue sky traversed by slowly moving cloud galleons. Yesterday on a short walk across the fields (beware of ticks) I saw a groundhog, a woodchuck, and a doe. Nothing remarkable, except they were not scared, they did not run off until I could almost touch them, and that is unusual. The perfectly sculptured doe stared back at me with queenly curiosity. Even the monarch butterfly stayed motionless so I could take a photograph, as well as a black, white and blue beauty called The White Admiral.

My retreat cabin measures seven by nine feet, scarcely room to fit a single bed. It has many small shelves, a desk that folds away and drawers under the bed. It reminds of a small yacht cabin carefully designed to make use of all the space. I have electricity and an internet connection but no plumbing. The outdoor privy, thirty feet from the cabin, opens to the fields and the sky, the world is mine. This is like camping in a thin wooden and not a canvas shell (or whatever the modern hi-tech tent material is called).