The Soft Rains of April

I've been on an a-ha kick for the last few days.

For those of you that think you've never heard of a-ha, I'll say the song title 'Take on Me' and that should remind you. Sadly, a-ha are considered a One Hit Wonder by music critics in the US, but throughout much of the rest of the world, they are anything but. Maybe if the Powers That Be in American Music covered the Rock In Rio concert that they did in 1991 where 198,000 tickets were sold, blowing out George Micheal and Guns and Roses acts, both of whom sold maybe 60,000 tickets, and landing a-ha in the Guinness book of World Records for the most concert tickets sold at a concert ever, things might have been different. They are a pretty awesome trio, very talented songwriters and musicians and I've loved them since the power went back on after Hurricane Gloria back in 1985. I switched on MTV (this was back when they were actually MUSIC Television and played videos) after a week or more of being without it... and my heart was stolen. Loved the song and they were very easy on the young eyes of mine.

I, proudly, still have a crush on the lead singer (I've been a 'Lead Singer' girl since that day) and Norwegians must age awesomely because at 50 the guy is still beautiful.

I even passed up a Beltaine two years ago to go see their Farewell Tour in NYC, two nights in a row, and I hardly ever pass up a Sabbat. a-ha was my first ever concert, at Radio City in 1986 and my Dad took me to see them. Tickets were a whopping $18.50 and I paid for mine with babysitting money.

What does a-ha have to do with this blog, you are probably asking yourself.

Back to the a-ha kick I've been on.

The second album, 'Scoundrel Days' is one of my favorite albums ever. There's a song on it titled, 'The Soft Rains of April.'

It's about a man in prison, and today I couldn't help but think of those men I work with who are doing their time. I don't care how rough some of these guys are. They've got to miss somebody.

This is a beautiful and haunting song. I hope you give it a listen.

Reaction vs. Response

            A few weeks ago, while I was with the Asatru group at the prison, Terry looked kind of sad when Cathy and I first got there. While I’d only met him one other time before, I could sense that something was off. 

            Because Terry as the leader is able to get there earlier than the rest of the group, we had a little while to chat with him before everyone else showed up. He expressed some frustrations about issues he’s having with the prison authorities, one of which was that a certain department was trying to get him fired from a program he works in where he talks to at-risk youth about why one should avoid spending their life in prison. Whatever department he works through with this job supports him doing it and sees a value in his being a part of it. However, there are new people in another department who are harassing his department members about having Terry as a part of the program. 

            Terry was sentenced to 30 years in 2001. He’s served 11 years of that sentence, and unless anything has changed greatly in the last two weeks, he should be getting out soon. He’s graduated high school in prison and earned two college degrees. Regardless of that, he feels the prison still regards him as a security threat and that his involvement with the Asatru group is an element of contention. 

            During our private chat, he told us that he was considering staying away from the group in order to take some focus off them. Both Cathy and I didn’t agree, and told him that we felt that unity and solidarity was important for them. He’s an important member, we reminded him, and the group would not accept him walking off. Later on, when Terry brought this up to the group members, they too disagreed, and one man (whose name I can’t recall) made the good point that if Terry wasn’t there, they’d pick a new person to focus on.

             At the end of our private conversation, Terry brought up a time last year or so that the prison authorities, the IAB (Internal Affairs Bureau) had come into the chapel during a meeting and propped up a video camera to record them. Cathy didn’t remember it happening and Terry described it to her. While they discussed that, the group members started to arrive. 

            The week prior, we gave the guys some homework to choose a myth and to write something about why they liked it. We were about two or three assignments in when the door to the back of the chapel opened. From the place I was sitting in the circle, I could see the door straight ahead of me. Terry and Cathy were sitting on the opposite side of the circle from me, with their backs to the door. 

            Through the door came two officers, dressed differently than the C.O’s (Corrections Officers). The C.O’s dress in blue, yet these two men were dressed in black. They stayed in the back of the chapel, and as I watched them, I saw them prop a video camera up on the half wall and aim it at the circle. 

            My heart both sunk and sped up. I saw many of the guys turn and look. As the mood shifted and got tense, I took a deep breath while also thinking to myself, ‘I can’t believe I’m here and this is happening.’

            Instead of ignoring the camera and continuing talking about their assignments and the myths they liked, the conversation turned. They talked about discrimination, about being misunderstood, about harassment. They talked about being seen as an STG (Security Threat Group) and having never had any issues of violence occur at any of their religious meetings. They talked about the Aryan Nation meeting during Christian services and doing business in the back of the room, including drug deals as well as when that group attacked a Hispanic inmate as they were being ushered out. 

            During this conversation, the only one to get up and leave the circle was Terry. He said he was going to the bathroom and while he may have, on the way back in he stopped to talk to the IAB Officers. When I say talk, he did talk, but really what he did was complain and question them. 

            While those in the circle remained pretty calm and had things to say that made a lot of sense, what they should have done was just ignore IAB. They should have gone on talking about their myths and their connections to them. Terry should have stayed seated. But instead, they played right into their hands. 

            IAB recorded them for about 5-10 minutes. After they closed up the camera, they went into the room where the Islamic group meets and recorded them too. We heard from Chaplain Newberry that the Muslim inmates simply ignored them. Well played. 

            The homework conversation picked up, and the guys talked about their myths again. One guy, who looks like he can’t be over 27, started talking about his myth. At one point, I tuned out for a minute, just thinking about what had happened. When I tuned back in he was talking about northern people having more fat around their brains as well as having larger brains, which creates a higher IQ than people in warmer climates, and that the only other race that has this same fat around their brains are Asians. That’s why Asians are smart he tells us. Also mixed in there was this jive about northern women having bigger hips which make them better suited for childbirth. What all this had to do with his myth, I have no idea.

            When he was done, Terry said, “Thank god they were not recording that.” Yeah, thank god is right. Cathy told him never to bring up such a topic again, and that it has no place in the circle. If I’d felt more comfortable or knew them better, I’d have asked where his incredible IQ was when he decided to rob two banks, after just getting out of prison in Kansas. Where was that oh so important fat layer that day, bud?

            But instead, the Doula and Childbirth Educator in me spoke up. I told them that human beings, and not just one race stood up a long, long time ago, and that science believes that when we became bipeds, we had to birth our babies a full trimester earlier… because we all have a large skull for the larger brains we were developing. Even though that skull moulds during the birth process, the head was still a bit large for the human pelvis that altered as a result of standing up. There are four different classifications of a woman’s pelvis and just one, a more manly-shaped and rarer to be found in women, makes birth a bit more difficult. So, we are all built for that process of birth and we all have big ol’ noggins because our ancient parents found a benefit in walking upright. We’ve all got large skulls and brains and childbearing hips no matter what race we are.

            So, I shat on his ‘theory’. 

            If you can tell, it still pisses me off even now, but really I’m glad I heard it. It tells me that although the group doesn’t reserve space for racism, it’s probably there in certain members. I need to keep this and other points in mind with this crowd.

            As Cathy and I were leaving, we stopped to chat with Chaplain Newberry. She’s got to be in her 80’s and of course is a Christian. She told us that IAB was pretty perturbed at the reaction they got from the camera and also from Terry’s reaction. Then she tried to really press the point that this Asatru group was STG. We could do nothing but nod. She then told us we could no longer hug them, nor shake their hands.

            Then she told me to ‘not forget that you’re attractive.’ It wasn’t really a compliment. I told her I was aware of what she was getting at and that I intended to be careful if I was ever there at the prison alone. Then she proceeded to tell us that they have a hard time keeping teachers, food prep workers and sometimes officers. I didn’t understand what she was meaning but I soon found out that many women who work at the prison get fired for having sex with inmates. It shocked me. And I couldn’t help but wonder if she thinks that because I’m young-ish (I often am told I look younger than I am), and attractive that I’m going to find myself in that situation. The old gal doesn’t have a clue as to how I roll at all. 

Fast Forward two weeks. I missed the morning Wiccan group because I had to deliver a few newborn raccoons to a Wild Life Center, but I did get there in time for the Asatru group. Well, really I was about 15 minutes late because there was no gate pass for me again. I waited, patiently. Patient and Persistent is what Cathy calls it. I wanted to get it, I wanted the prison to know I was willing to exercise all options of finding a way in for their suspected Security Threat Group.

The group was half its size. Terry wasn’t there. Neither was Skinhead (the top of his head, just above his forehead actually reads Skinhead) nor another guy who seems to be one of the core members, the one who’d pointed out to Terry that if he left the prison would just focus on other members.

 I came to find out that Terry was in BMU, or the Behavior Modification Unit. That’s the tank, where you are in solitary for 23 hours a day. We have no idea how long he will be there, nor what had happened that caused him to get put in. The other two were put in handcuffs at some point, and no one knows why or where they are. 

Cathy was finishing up with reading them the riot act as I sat down. Their reaction two weeks prior set the group back 6 months to 2 years with the prison authorities. Now, they will be watched even closer than they were before. 

I completely understand where these guys had been coming from. They want to be treated the same as other religious paths. They want to be able meet without a volunteer chaplain like myself being present. They’ve had no incidents at their meetings. They want to be there for their religious reasons. 

But let’s face it. They are in prison. The prison has yet to understand Asatru fully. When pressed a little bit, they chose to react instead of respond. Their reaction was raw, from the gut and without real thought of consequences just like most reactions are. Had they responded instead, that day would have gone very differently and they would have shown the prison that there was nothing to worry about. Because they think that now. They think that they’ve got to be hiding something in order to react that way. And that’s pretty sad. 

I tried to tell them during the recording session that there was a good chance that they would not be around to take advantage of a better or less restrictive environment surrounding their group, but that they still had to see the benefit in following the rules, being  patient, standing strong, being honorable. There are men in the future that will come to the group that just might reap all those rewards that their actions, today, produce but that they themselves might never see. Yet, they get to be the ones who build the foundation, who’ll have respect from those future members for doing the work just like the Wiccan group respects and appreciates those who had to do the same things in order to get the perks they have today.

Before I left New York, I worked my ass off on petitioning one of the largest Long Island hospitals to re-add the 4 birth tubs that they removed from the original design of the new Labor and Delivery Unit at Stony Brook University Hospital. I got no help from other professionals with this. I did it myself. I went to health food stores and shops leaving petitions, and I created them online. I collected over 600 signatures. I wrote a letter to the CEO of the hospital, mailed him the petition and followed up months later about it. 

After I moved to Indiana, I found out that Stony Brook was going to get a tub. I do believe that I had something to do with that and that it would not be in place without my efforts. The Midwives specifically asked my old partners to tell me it was back in. And yet, I will never get to attend a birth in that tub. It both broke my heart and made me proud. I’d rather have done that work and know that so many women will be able to have this as a birth option, that babies will be born gently into the water there than to never have done this because I wasn’t going to be around to reap the rewards myself.

I wish the guys in the Asatru group understood what I was saying that afternoon because, sadly, it seems they pushed that day of a bit more freedom and understanding further off into the future, if it ever comes at all.

           

Just Breathe...

I never thought that something I would learn as a Doula and Childbirth educator would come in handy while working as a prison volunteer, but it seems that life prepares you in all sorts of ways, expected or unexpected. 

Tomorrow, I’m going to be teaching Mindful Awareness Meditation to the Wiccan group, something that the Calm Birth technique is built on. We had a discussion about decision making last time. About making right decisions and wrong decisions, and that while in prison these guys need to hone that particular skill, or develop it from the ground up. 

Devon, the leader of the group that I mentioned last time, got in trouble and was kicked out of his dorm. Apparently, he’d graduated a particular program and was supposed to move out of that dorm. He’d requested the transfer, but hadn’t gotten it at that point. So, while others were at classes, he was sleeping and ended up getting in trouble over it.

When Cathy asked if he knew he wasn’t supposed to be sleeping, he said yes. And istead of the expected giggle or roll of the eyes that he thought he’d get, or the image of a ‘cool guy’ or ‘comedian’, he got an earful about choices, decision-making and the difference between a solider and a warrior. 

The conversation moved on to one of the men in the group named Tex. He’s an older guy, maybe in his 50’s who was raised Pagan. He’s pretty quiet, but I’m starting to learn that he has a lot of interesting things to say. When pointedly asked to contribute, he discussed what he calls risk thoughts. Risk thoughts are ‘if I do this, this is going to happen, then this, then that.’ He’s describing thinking before acting, or what I pointed out to be the difference between Responding and Reacting. When you react, you usually do so from a raw, emotional place. When you respond, you take the time to think first. 

When Tex said he takes a minute to breathe as he’s making his risk thoughts, I pointed out that beyond giving a person time to think, breathing calms a person’s adrenaline allowing calming hormones t take over. That’s where Mindful-Awareness Meditation and Progressive Relaxation comes in. 

This type of meditation, and the techniques built into it, teaches people how to breathe the vital energy in the universal energy field. While Calm Birth is built on this for childbirth, it is also used for any kind of healing (and is what Calm Healing by Robert Newman is based on as well) and has been studied by medical schools such as Harvard. Just twenty minutes of meditation and proper, full breathing can be better than 8 hours of bad sleep, regulate hormones, help the immune system function, increase pain thresholds, and lower adrenaline and cortisol, two hormones that cause human beings to switch into the ‘fight or flight’ responses. 

That benefit in particular, the avoidance of the fight or flight response can be of great use to inmates. They live in a situation which is often chaotic, where personalities clash, fights break out and rules can be broken. The inmates may try to avoid situations that will get them put into solitary or add time to their sentences, but the hormone adrenaline can mess with the thinking process and affect those risk thoughts that Tex talks about. If I can teach them a technique to help them remain calm in tense situations, avoid conflict as well as benefit their overall health, biological functions, and potential offer them moments of intuitive clarity, then I’m all for it. 

We’ll see how it goes.