On July 1, 2016, I published a post about the Battle of the Somme, one of the greatest military disasters of all time. The battle lasted four and a half months, claimed more than a million casualties on both sides. The British and French forces gained a total of six miles of mud.

I’m reposting the section which outlined the story of Alan Seeger, Pete Seeger’s uncle, who was a young poet and expat in Paris in 1914. He loved France so much that he joined the Foreign Legion to defend his adopted land. His unit went into battle at 4:00 pm on July first and Alan did not survive.

From the original post:

The first American casualty of the first world war was Alan Seeger, a 28 year old poet. Seeger graduated Harvard in 1910, spent two years in Greenwich Village, and then moved to Paris, where he thrived in the bohemian atmosphere of the Left Bank. When war broke out, he joined the French Foreign Legion to defend the land he loved so much.

In his last letter, dated June 28, 1916 Seeger said:

“We go up to the attack tomorrow. This will probably be the biggest thing yet. We are to have the honor of marching in the first wave.  I will write you soon if I get through all right. If not, my only earthly care is for my poems.”

Seeger did not advance with the first wave; his regiment was held in reserve until 4:00 pm on July 1, then ordered to advance on the village of Belloy-en-Santerre.  His friend, John Keegan, wrote in his diary:  “How pale he was! His tall silhouette stood out on the green of the cornfield. He was the tallest man in his section. His head erect, and pride in his eye, I saw him running forward, with bayonet fixed. Soon he disappeared and that was the last time I saw my friend.”

These prophetic lines are from one of Seeger’s last poems, “I Have a Rendezvous with Death.”

God knows ’twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear…
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

From “I Have A Rendezvous with Death” by Alan Seeger

Between July 1 and November 18, 1916, there were 420,000 British, 200,000 French, and 500,000 German casualties along the Somme. Though we only know and can tell a few of those stories, it is good to do so at the time of this centennial.  Lest we forget their sacrifice. And lest we again entertain the delusion that a war can end all wars…

During a recent zoom teaching, Anam Thubten, a Tibetan meditation master I’ve written about before, told a traditional story to illustrate the Buddhist concept of “Impermanence:”

In ancient times, a certain wise king welcomed scholars, philosophers, theologians, astronomers, and so on, to his court. One day he gathered them all and requested that they tell him something that is true under every possible circumstance. The wise men and women conferred among themselves, and after deliberations, returned to the king with the one truth that met his criterion: “This too shall pass.”

That’s a comforting truth at times, but over the last few years we have all been traumatized by the constant passing and threats to too many things we love.

We’ve all known people who have sickened or died of covid. The hope for “herd immunity” has faded as new variants proliferate and reinfections become common. Our past ways of living and socializing are gone and won’t be back. I see hundreds of people online who share a personal story as well, the loss of a beloved animal who brought joy during the early days of the shutdown but whose beautiful presence is no longer with us as the bad news grinds on and on.

Our nation continues to tear itself apart and our “Supreme” court has become a mere instrument of a party that no longer bothers to hide its autocratic ambitions. Passing and past are the days when decent people could feel a genuine pride in their country as its birthday approaches.

These days too, when I go to the grocery store, I think of the words Lakota warriors would sometimes say before battle: “Today is a good day to die.” (1) Sacramento had one of the 246 American mass shootings recorded as of June 5. I remember my relief in learning it was gang related – a “reasonable” motive, as opposed to some teen with a weapon of war who was having a sad.

So what do we do in response? I’m sure we all have ideas that come and go. “Talk to people with differing views,” is a “rational” response that crops up now and then, but the day a homeless man in the park, who survives on Social Security and Medicare, told me that Democrats are trying to ruin the country, I had nothing to say.

The other problem with “rational” responses is that they miss the subtle, or hidden, or archetypal forces in operation now, as they seem to have been during other times of collapsing empires.

One statement sticks in my mind. In the Winter, 2012 issue of Self-Realization Magazine, Paramahansa Yogananda was quoted as saying, “Your love must be greater than your pain.”

In a world that hungers for the quick-fix, this statement at first did not seem satisfying. but thoughts that simmer gain power. Yogananda was fully aware of the power of ideas to change the world. As a friend of Gandhi, he witnessed one of the 20th century’s most dramatic examples of the power of Truth and Compassion in action.

“Your love must be greater than your pain,” is a far more fertile idea to live with than the mass of what passes for news as it floods us every day.

George Rodrigue, 1944-2013, was a Louisiana born artist of Cajun descent, best known for his “Blue Dog” paintings and prints. The series began when he received a commission to illustrate a Cajun ghost story. He chose the legend of the loop-garou, the werewolf, and modeled the image on a photo of Tiffany, a little dog who had been his studio companion and had recently died. The Blue Dog become his signature image and won him an international following.

“People who have seen the Blue Dog painting always remember it,” [Rodrigue] was quoted as saying. “They are really about life, about mankind searching for answers. The dog never changes position. He just stares at you. And you’re looking at him, looking for some answers, ‘Why are we here?,’ and he’s just looking back at you, wondering the same. The dog doesn’t know. You can see this longing in his eyes, this longing for love, answers.” (1)

On the night of September 11, 2001, when the nation was reeling after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, Rodrigue went to his studio and began a painting which he finished at 5:00 am the next morning. He called it God Bless America and created an edition of 1000 large silk screen prints from the painting. He donated all the revenue from the print sales, $500,000, to the Red Cross.

“I first thought to paint the dog black, as if in mourning,” he said on September 12. “Instead I painted it without color at all, the blue joy drained by shock and grief. (Some people have commented that the lack of color reminds them of the television footage of debris-covered people running on the streets of New York City.) For many years the dog has had yellow, happy eyes. On this day, however, the eyes are red, indicating a heavy heart.“

I am proud to be from the United States of America. It is our spirit, strong in the symbol of our flag, which will mend our broken hearts and allow us to use these events to strengthen our courage and compassion.”

Mary and I drove to Carmel in November of that year, in part to escape the news cycles. While we were there, we stopped by Rodrigue’s California gallery and saw these prints. I’ve never forgotten the image of the pale dog with its haunted eyes.

It was beautiful on the coast that fall. For a time, the nation was united and most of the world stood with us. When Randy Jackson almost single handedly led the Diamondbacks to their first World Series win that week, in (as far as I know), the first Series played in November, it was easy to pick up Rodrigue’s sense of optimism. Miracles could happen. Yes, our broken hearts would mend, and yes our courage and compassion would grow. Except things did not turn out that way.

George Rodrigue died in December, 2013, at the age of 69, of lung cancer. He blamed his use of powerful solvents in a small, unventilated studio when he was starting out as an artist. It’s sad to think of the work he was never able to give the world. At the same time, it’s almost a blessing that he never saw how we, as a nation, squandered the unity and goodwill that was ours in the wake of the first disaster of the new century.

I’ve long thought that as individuals and as groups, most of our learning comes either from wisdom or disasters. Wisdom is in short supply these days, and if a million dead of covid is not a big enough disaster to make us stop and question what we’re doing, it’s not pleasant to ask what comes next.

George Rodrigue is no longer here, but the pale dog remains. He hasn’t regained his color, and the happy yellow of his eyes seems a long way away.