Wayward Chronology

The journey begins as it has for many born into a sectarian world. It was post-WW II; being educated during the Cold War; through young adulthood being disciplined in secularity and religiosity by blind loyalties and fierce protectionisms. There was America and there was The Church. With a capital “THE” only for the catechized legions within the regnant spiritual Holy Roman Empire. This was bifurcated allegiance – however, a subordination drawn from within the Faith and not from without the Pledge: “Render unto Caesar …” First and foremost one was Catholic. The journey was spiritual. The earth in all its manifestations was dirt and dirty: sin and sinning – flesh, temporal goods, the pleasures of the senses … only the spiritual, the soulful, the time yet to be spent in eternity was good and Good. From the midst of this we arose – not in singularity but individually, seeking to rise and be released! Saved.

We lived “within.” Faithful to a scriptural verse we often heard but did not fully understand, until the understanding was past: “in the world, not of the world.” Ubiquitous icon of the Crucified Son. Living within we were unaware of how others lived over against us. Their living was not true living; not validated by our priests. With the simplicity of inexperienced minds, we sincerely thought that “they too will disappear” – as had so many cultures, societies and civilizations which Mother Church had tolerated, conquered, and simply outlived. Not only did we learn the truth of the famed phrase that “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” – that “outside The Church there is no Salvation” … this we learned but learned it with its true meaning that outside The Faith there was nothing at all of any worth or value.

Such an upbringing is source for a peculiar jocularity. Inside jokes which are almost impossible to share with outsiders. In this vein, the writings on www.earthfolk.net take the outsider, at times, to quite different levels of experience than an insider. Yet, for some outsiders the site provides curious and laughable access to insider experiences. As it opens, we began as insiders.

What took us outside was the Vietnam War. Good old mythic thump in the road – stench of rotting corpses in puddles of blood. Yet, it also took us inside. Into an inside we did not, as sectarians, believe existed. This was prison. We did not value prison as other than a poor imitation of the Confessional. Thus the popular term “penitentiary.” But just before we got Inside we committed an unintended mythic act: we performed an earthfolk ritual – though, back-then, we had not this term to describe it. Rather, we thought we were performing a warrior ritual, albeit, one of the non-violent warrior. Ha. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, so did we go in and out and in ….

1971 saw “Resistance as Sacrament” published in a small Catholic intellectual quarterly called Cross Currents (XXI, #4, Fall). It contained the gist of FXK’s appellate brief for his felonious participation in the draft raids of The Minnesota 8 (July 1970). This group received the longest sentence handed out to Sixties white anti-war radicals: five years. The language is thick. Frank had jettisoned – or been cast out by! – his Roman Catholic theological language. However, when the FBI arrested him, how was he to speak to his judge and jury? The only language he had was that of the Tradition. So, he thrashed about at the edge of legality – justifying himself with the “higher law” defense. This was a reach, but even the self-referential Anglo-Saxon Common Law tradition is fragile at its edges where it meets its own historicity and so its limits – the limits of all rational actions, namely, that at some point one must believe in something or someone – even if it is simply a belief in rationality itself or your own existence or that there can be Law. Yet, the Judge saw his game: “You gentlemen are worse than the common criminal who attacks the taxpayer’s pocketbook. You strike at the foundation of government itself.” … Again, what can be “higher” than the Law, itself?

Frank had the distinct privilege of defending himself … “He who defends himself has a fool for a lawyer!” … yet, ably braced and buttressed by his co-counsel’s legal expertise: Ken Tilsen. It was a curious trial. The Judge allowed a week of presentation and closing argument, only to cast out everything Frank had said in his instructions to the jury! Did he truly believe that they understood FXK’s appeal to “socio-political sacramental acts”?! Ha. There were those among us who shared the sectarian humor. (Though we must say that this article is truly all Frank has ever had to say! Understand it and all the rest is but explication and exposition on the theme.) … On appeal, Charles Bisanz provided guidance. Down in St. Louis: shoulder length hair, nine-inch robust beard, flowery headband – however, somewhat more the secondhand Catholic Worker profile than stylish Radical Chic – Frank pled his case. [United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit 459 F.2d 697 (1972).] Know that it took six months for the appellate court to hand down a decision. Why? After release, he met a woman who told him why. She was the clerk to Judge Heaney. Himself a Catholic, she argued that the case was reversible. In time, Heaney was seen in the Visitor’s Room at Sandstone FCI (Minnesota) during visits to his incarcerated anti-war nephew.

It would be a while before something else could be written. There was prison, the bleak time on parole, then off into marriage … yet ever the optimist, Frank went back to graduate school at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley into a joint doctoral program with UC, Berkeley in “Historical Studies” where he researched and produced “The Religious Dimension of the Rise of the Penitentiary Movement 1787 – 1822.” 1978. He had worked in a prison reform project for the American Friends Service Committee for four years in the San Francisco Bay Area. The day after he passed his doctoral comprehensive exams and oral defense, “Proposition 13” was passed: a major property tax reform event. The result was a hiring freeze at every level of higher education in the state. With a six month old son and spousal “responsibilities,” Frank was "reallocated by the mega-forces of The Invisible Hand" (ahem!) … he found himself selling World Book encyclopedias door to door in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

All scholarly books were laid down. Academic research put on hold. A mythic turn – which he foresaw, back then, as only a slight deviation till he found a “real” job. Alas, Success being its own demon, his sectarian fierceness … and foolishness! … brought him to national acclaim. He conquered LA’s multiethnic markets. His Hollywood office echoed with the dissonant sounds of trainers exuding salesman fervor in Korean, Chinese, Tagalog, Japanese, Spanish, Armenian, Thai and Russian. … They sent him to revivify New England. He had stopped drinking, yet, he stumbled as those who reach for the Golden Ring oft do. Ah, the delicious seduction of Mammon! ... Ever the believer in Confession, he picked himself up, put on corporate vestments ... well, what'd'ja expect?: The rest of us decided to go elsewhere! For some, “in a cloud of smoke.” Turn on. Tune in.. Drop out. Why not? Reagan was about to Ronald.

FXK’s still there. Twenty plus years aping The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit. At least five moves; three transcontinental. Filthy Lucre and all that. But we kept at him. 1983. Or thereabouts. Somewhere in the mythic bog: from out the mist comes Her. It took us all a long time to utter this simple word – with sacral fervency: Mother. It is difficult to recall, right now, how totally bottomed out he was so that we all met again. It is his tongue; his clever hand: so, “Prison, Bottoming Out, Mother.” Again, in Cross Currents. What “Resistance” was to the end of the Tradition, so is “Prison” to the beginning of Earthfolk.

 “Mother” was liberating, but totally baffling. An alien phrase on the mythic tongue. And for years, that is all we had. Somewhere We are not here to sing, we’re here to kill the dove, was composing itself. In fragments back to the first weeks outside of prison. Many long pipes: calabashes and fragrant odors. Too too too many empty bottles: whiskey, wine, Guinness and whiskey whiskey whiskey. From teeth-shattering femme relationships to the long lonely nights on the road for Corporate America, in hotels, motels and assorted unrestful hours, working at the text, no longer drinking nor smoking, another son … the writer in the basement. … Sing, ah, Sing! – when we forget the Sixties: the innocence, the abandon, the implosion, the Trip, the Heart of Darkness, the buoyant paranoia! – we re-read Sing.

1987. Compelled as it was by its own inexplicable will, Sing had come to closure. Over 1100 pages - but the X does put out! ... And so, then, miracles opened. In a taunt from Beyond, akin with the suddenness of the living death of his younger brother, so was his own youngest injured and mangled by the cruel gesture called Accident: now known as the hand of the Shade Mother. A fall from his toddler’s car seat onto the garage’s concrete floor. Convulsion. The doubt from all the experts at Childrens Hospital in Georgetown that he’d ever sit up. … yet so he does. After nights on the floor; timing the Grand Mals with heartbeat; feeling the cool dryness of the Beating Wings; Frank was given as his parents had received … a miraculous child. It was probably ‘85. Something about the Super Bowl. Just a step onto the mythic landscape – in case any of us had forgotten! “Two Boys.”

“Two Boys” also describes his sons – our souls – and for them we came to “Vietnam Undeclared.” By now, we had all shared our cupless despair. Lived through both the failure of Vietnam as a War and its failure as a Revelation. America was deep into Reagan Greed. “There is no WE in ME!” Scions of Ayn Rand. So, what’s new? … If it hadn’t been a random contact with a Vietnam Veterans Against the War activist, here, Steve Sabom in Houston, a segment of “Undeclared” would never have been published in “Voices” a journal of the American Academy of Psychotherapists. (Vol. 27, Numbers 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 1991 – “Healing a Generation: The Vietnam Experience.”)

“Undeclared” is how we finally settled our Warrior talking. Jabber. Yadda. Blather. Hooey. But we got there. War as ritual. War as liturgy. Our shared insight into the role of soldier … and that of priest. We finally discovered ourselves as Son: as Family, Holy. We grasped the insights of What Is, Is Not and saw with our Catholic eyes what The Mass truly is. With an insight we almost wished we were not granted we shuddered as we were – finally! – touched by the seething, lascivious, devouring, leering, licking, jerking-off Eros of The Holy Mass. Amen.

We talk about “leaks.” The somewhat obvious fact that no one has ever committed the Perfect Crime or achieved Perpetual Motion … every mythos contains remnants of what it has consumed, replaced, considered eradicated. Sort of an Unintended Consequence like factor. So came The Bodywanderer. 1994. We had all gone this way and that. But – possibly the hedonism under our monastic flagellation? – we found mystery and delight under the hands of various masseuses. Verily, females not males, but so it goes.

Alfred and Luke. Know that the “fictional” writing, here and hereafter, is at the lip of consciousness. Enough to correctly finger the keyboard. Not much else. From the first shuddering till the last lick and blast of ouroboric embrace, all is as revelatory to the author as to the reader. It is here that “presences” first throb. Yes, there is a Minnesota backdrop to all this … and some ventures into multidimensionality … hmmm, it is the first humbling of our erotic powers, as we were shown how crippled we had all been. All who had relished Free Sex … Good Dope … Truckin’ … yeah, Rian and Sunflower. We became what we always were but did not see. Is not, is.

But becoming a bodywanderer is one way towards both Sacred Sexuality and Earthfolk. If you’re not a Catholic you might think this not worth your while. Reconsider.

1995. How often has the unpublished writer thrashed at “lowering” his or her standards just to be published? Ha. There was the flirtation with writing a “dirty book.” Hell, the times saw a deluge of pornography – at least it meant getting published! So, we won’t back off this happening. The Confessions of Friar Killian began as a sit down to write purple prose – hell, again! – couldn’t even get past the first page before we’re into the Tradition and St. Augustine’s rumored riff on his Pauline mentor, “ … sin well!” Or, was it Luther? … Not the point. Rather, a disturbing truth bit the good Friar on his celibate ass, namely, that he had never truly sinned! Coward that he was, he had never been blitzed by Grace because he had never suckled Depravity in all its manifestations.

At least, that’s how he told the story - or how it came via his confessor, the Primate. We have to trust him here, I guess. So, Friar K offered us this challenge. Truly Sin! Boldy. Courageously. Turning inside out, and outside in. Of course, in a religion for which Sex is the Original Sin, the challenges were prodigiously erotic. Whew! This old O.S.O. of mad passion and torturous virtue will take you to depths of your Faith … and Eros … which, we believe, no other spiritual director has ever explored. You may think that you have fucked. That Hugh Hefner is your Sugar Daddy … but if you truly confess the Confessions and then The Disciplines of Friar Killian (1996) and aren’t pissed-off at the impoverished sexual and erotic education and experiences you’ve had, well, just jerk-away!

1997. The rumble within is spewing linearity. Ha. A year of many words, one after the other. Of sentences. Completed manuscripts. Dove and Dragon. We have to admit – two ventures into screenwriting which are more pleas for inspiring others than a claim for production! But Dove and Dragon is another attempt to sum it all up. The past up to that point. The Hand: A Millennial Imagining. In theme a continuation of The Bodywanderer – but, oh, so much more! We begin to move out here. Individually and in group. There is robust and fruitful contact with presences in other dimensions. There is the opening which the chronological Millennium was not for so many! A subtle crack of the astral door … hmmm, when we go back and read, we sense the movement from walk to jog to full lung bursting sprint! Truly, the first spying of the Long Distance Run. What is to come. What will unfold for the Family: Holy when we are no longer in this dimension. Yet, always the nagging pedagogical doubt: to write even more linearly than fiction allows; to venture into “nonfiction” – where there are thinner lines, skinner images, nudges rather than full upside the head whacks of imagining!

SilverSex: An Erotic Spirituality for Earthfolk. For many still too theological or thickly tongued. Yet, it is the thematic capture of various short-stories written in the interstices of waiting upon the Fiery Tongue. “A Different Kind of Fire” is one such seminal work. Possibly we are disclosing our age – Ha! – but it was the reading of our own ribbon of flesh. Of observing ourselves, singularly and as One: molt, evolve, transmute, whatever is your capture! – flow into unexplored segments of our bodies, minds and souls. Fifty is a great age. One no longer has to prove anything! Except, possibly, to one’s self. … Dying. When younger we had fearlessly (and with the requisite companionship of foolishly!) embraced dying. In family. In society. War as ritual, and all that. But now it was what folks fear even more: the mottled hand; the sagging breast; the fickle erection; the confusion of orgasm – for what purpose, if no longer procreating? … We ventured – jumped off, fell, slipped, tangoed – into the most amazing yet truly unexpected discovery of our lives: that of Belovedness.

SilverSex from another perspective was the celebration of a chthonic discovery. That there was another mythos, that of Earthfolk. So many of our own years as radical activists finding the uneasiness of those quiet moments when you are unnerved by the haunt, “What the fuck are you doing?” meaning not doing: not being a mainline this or that – fill in the blank: professor, executive, author, performer, legislator … wanting a Ground, yeah, the old Tillichean desire for a Ground of Being, but with a smile, here, an Embrace. Finding everything wonderful which was not in Genesis, but then was: the what is not … and so hopefully penning words for others who are out there in different gardens: tending to the body, mind and soul of Mother Earth, the Family: Holy … living as if they are no one’s enemy …so much raucous, belly wobbling, buck-fucking humor … ha!

1998. End-Time. The ongoing flirtation with the mythic wrinkle from the Splotch! Landing of “Americans” – those Europeans, now so termed – whitey wapiti who boil over in the conflagration of the Mormon imagining. Hey, Joseph Smith! Ya gotta love ‘im. As with any Revelation, any breakthrough it was at a time of great breakdown – what some historians call the Burnt-over District, meaning, of the Holy Spirit. Look if you think that the Secular is anything but a mobius twist on the Sacral, well, you’ll never figure out America and its Messianic Complex. The Mormons dealt with outer-space long before that Beantown Vatican puppet, ole JFK, gave us the Moon Mission … some subtle Mariology there, eh! … But it is always End-Time. Whether the end of the game or the End of the Game.

1999. We drove ole X’s fingers to the digital bone this annus! Possibly, he’d say, up his annus. But, hey, Latinized jokes are what insiders trade-on. So, Nihil Obstat. Another sectarian chuckle. “Nothing Forbidden.” Stamped inside books. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and all the good guys. Back among the black-robbed dreamers of collegiate days, FXK wandered upstairs behind an aging, stooped monk who was holding a foot-long stick with a six-inch key chain – he swears that he is not making this up! – following this pre-Eco figurine up winding, creaky, winter-dusted stairway to a grey-paint-flecked door, wobbly round knob … into the Librorum Prohibitorum: The Library of Forbidden Books. At an instant, standing amidst papyric howls and crazed renunciations of centuries, the flesh dried upon the floor but yet the blood still fresh-freckling the walls, did he have need of the Malleus Maleficarum, which he did not know of at that particular moment? – of some guide to the horrors, which were only fascinations to his young reckless mind … we digress! Ahem. There then comes forays into fresher imagery; undressed experiences; surprises – whiffs of change. Characters into whom we have transubstantiated.

“The First Meeting.” Do you grant us this conceit? Our artless bumbling into a Genesis like tale without the Biblical trappings? Is this growth? Maturity? New language. Or, total abandonment? Hmmm. The homoerotic mythos. Piercing Pierce. A not too disguised crucified son? But, truly, that was not a conscious awareness, back-then. We often reread – or we only reread, choose your school of hermeneutic foolishness! – and we are delighted by the playfulness, here.

Beloveds. Oh, slay us with our own desire! There is so much of her and Her. There is such an unquenchable thirst, and so much immersion in fragrant waters. Here, we are, in 1999, totally off our wonk! Delicious. Delirious. Deathly.

To Everyone Else It Was Only Sex. There came times, again and again, when we said, “Maybe we can get a short story published?!” Tried and tried. Small presses of all ilks. Scouring alternative journals – and scrounging up rejections from those we were heartfeltly serving. But Only is one of the most downloaded manuscripts. “Jean.” Where are you, today, Jean? “Looking at Woman.” For every son and every daughter. Stirring the pot. So much in love with cooking and the meal. You might expect the women, but it was the men! Treasures? Domestic gods, ha! … Can you get used to being a meal? … A different kind of fire: what we are all about. The hearth of Earthfolk. Did you laugh at, “We’re all just ass-backwards”? Jeebies, we can’t help but roll on the floor and hump the couch when we read that, again and again. Maybe it’s too revolutionary for ya? Anyways, these are all pokes in the holes of our very selves. “Letters” reflecting the facticity of x,y,z experiences.

vOYAGE. Still 1999. Why the lower-case “v”? Give us a break! Okay. The X went into his historical rampage. But SunBlossom sat down upon him so that he could do proper research. Here his pen became quite French. Nevertheless, it was D. Follow the story! If it fails as a history of patriarchy. If you get all bollixed up with group-sex stuff, well, get a grip! Throughout these writings we’ve come up against Group Eroticism, or Societal Eroticism, or Cultural Eroticism – Mythic Eroticism, which thrives collectively and communally. Have you been paying attention during all these years? War as ritual. War as liturgy. The Holy Mass as Sacrifice: slaughter of an innocent. The Crucified Son. Has it sunk in? The peculiar type of group-sexual ritual you’ve been immersed in every day of your patriarchal,  Biblical, Capitalistic, Scientific life? Hmmm. If you weren’t us as kin: Family, Holy: this would be a great time to say, Fuck it! and just amble off to a trailer park to roast weenies and get drunk everyday. (Oh, hopefully laid, of course!) … But it ain’t. For it is the communal rituals which are the mythos. It’s that, just like Oedipus (whom we don’t mention except here), part of the Biblical mythos is a self-inflicted blindness. Isn’t this another way to see Genesis? Doesn’t it sound like the story of someone enraged by his/His blindness – can’t see woman, the feminine, The Mother, goddess… okay, been there, done that. Let’s move on.

In vOYAGE we get back to an old haunt from our fledgling philosophical days. “What is flesh?” I mean who else but the Friar and FXK and the Primate X would even ask these whacked out questions? Selene, Rian, Karen – naw! Possibly, just possibly, they aren’t. But maybe you are? Are you asking these questions? You who are part of meWE which we are just about to discover? Not just the masculine to our feminine, but the deathless to our liveliness.

2000. Did it happen? Or are we still trying to decide: ’00 or ’01? Which plays up the fact that the Millennium never happens as it is always happening. Just a literalist grab on the old jockos, shouting, “Got ‘im by the balls!” … not!

Intimates. Oh, spare the parents within all of us! We’d often slash at each other: emails by this time, not just cranky early a.m. over-smoked and besotted grumblings on the voice mail: “What about the kids? How should we have raised them?” … and could we escape the seduction of technology? Ha. But we didn’t know how to overcome it. I mean, we could have argued for days about how culture must change in terms of child-rearing to prepare them for a robust eroticism seeking intimacy … but we settled on The Shot. Cheap trick, so some burped. Anyways, who cannot fantasize about how different it could have been? About childhood – especially those frolicking teen years! – where we would not have the crippling hang-ups of the Biblical Sexual Taboo and body hatred and women are evil and all that crap? Ya need some distortions: so back to some Mormon ballyhoo and onto some sci fi imaginings … a good time. Jeebies, why can’t reincarnation transmit conscious memory so that we can build on our own lives?

meWE. The absolute renunciation of the Lone Male God without firing a theological or exegetical shot! Verily, we relish the days. True, we’re ones who have been Will-less servants to the Monastic Hours: intoned the Divine Office: calloused our knees crawling each Station of the Cross all around the perimeter of the church … but we – alas! – we humans are all creatures of phased awareness. Certainly, we need not be crucified on the Cartesian clock – not a trivial insight, for it is how Work, which is Capitalism’s Eros, is ritualized. Being late or missing an hour or work … odors of unholiness scent you! … meWE: so someday may all be!

2001. Of course, if you’re an old fart, you can’t hit this year without thinking about Kubrick and where you were when those apes tossed the bone and it became the space station … Hal and all that: but it was actually a freer moment – when “Hummingbird” came. Many were a bit taken aback. Even if Ana was a hummingbird, did we want this story set free? For many it was freighted with too many possible misinterpretations. That it would be read as betrayal instead of faithfulness … were we not to submit to our own What Is Not, Is? After all, it was Year One!

Generations. A once again Look Backwards. A once again Look Forward. It is the last section which rocked and rolled. “What are you/we saying?” It was read and re-read. Torn apart and scotch-taped back together (virtually, that is). But it stands. If “Revelations” stays attached to the Bible, why not something like Generations? Okay. Trash it as poor writing. Garbled mish-mash. But we were not drunk. Nor stoned. Not on an island like old Patmos. Simply, had to listen to our fuller self.

Poems. They set down anchors of forgetfulness. Monastery. Prison. Yearning for Madonna. Stuff like that. There’s an exposure here which comforts – at times – only the writer! … Exuded over decades.

Closing down on a cycle. Yurgan, maybe. Just sensing that there was a type of closure. That is why the words started coming out a bit more simple and straight-forward. There is a sub-genre of “Towards” type books. To us, notably in the philosophical and theological arenas. Not a hesitancy, but more of a swipe. Like an “Over yonder!” flail of the arm without looking up, just spitting to the side, accepting being a sign-post to those who travel to where you may never arrive. Amen. Towards a Sacred Sexuality.

2002. A time of distancing. Some movement, like water flowing to other levels. Saving an ancient pre-prison piece, “Patriotism Means Resistance.” The trials of the "Minnesota 8" - with excerpted transcripts, personal testimongy ... somewhat a journal; historical tract. Good ole scanning technology allowing this survivor of the typewriter to become ASCII. Through the work of Cheryl Seal, two-part article, "The Trials of the Minnesota 8."

2003. Another version of "Prison, Bottomming Out, Mother" is "Prison and The Mother." With a piece written to answer questions of a nephew, Gary, who is more of the virtual generation though in heart a Sixties Conspirator! "Presidential Evangelist for War." Has a lot to do with the Civil Religion - the most conquering religion of the Ages!

The website has been redesigned. Possibly this is an unending clay sculpting task. Obviously, digital clay. At first it was “Friar Killian’s Confessional.” Hard to figure how to attract folks. How to stand-out in the ever elusive Search Engine world. But it was driven by the Friar’s confessional writings. In time, it became clear that the growing Sacred Sexuality movement was part of the ball of thread of which we were a strand. Yet, Sacred Sexuality is not a happy launching pad for many in that they get stuck on the sexuality aspect. As it is at this moment (mid-2002) we have, ourselves, flowered into the Earthfolk mythos. It came – and refused to leave – from several of the writings. It took us some time to slip into its comforts – jeebies, there were enough discomforts gnashing at those comforts! But it is what we are, who we have become, how we move forward, the way we invite you, as a fellow Earthfolk.

 Read. Experience. Experiment. Converse. Commune. Ya know, Do It!