I used to dream at my desk at the Vermont Historical Society about waking
up in an Indian village in Central America. I imagined I would have a thatched
hut, under a palm tree beside a lake. The year dragged on and on and on. Lo
and behold, one day I woke up, and I was on this dock that I had made in this
Indian village in Guatemala. I had bought a $750 house in a Mayan Indian village
in the jungle and was living in a canoe culture. There I was under this palm
tree on a Monday morning dozing in the sun beside a beautiful lake in the jungle.
"We have bought the whole hook line and sinker of what Madison Avenue has
said what is the best way to live--rich, rich, rich, fast, fast, fast. Opulent,
wasteful, cold, without identification with death, without identification with
extended family. Put the old grandma off in a nursing home. Look at the soap
operas and you will just see the worst view of life.
"I lived for a month in an oasis in Egypt and then traveled to Cairo, which
is a horrible city, as most cities are. They had huge billboards to sell soap.
Each of the people on the billboard was just a clone of people off Dallas and
Dynasty. People with guns, with sneers. This is what they are using to sell
soap. We have taken the worst. When I spend time with people who are primitive,
I hearken to their knowledge of song, of stars. They know where the moon is.
The simple pleasures of quiet, of natural foods, of growing it yourself, etc.
etc."
Issue 5, October 1995
A couple of years ago I interviewed Ethan Hubbard -- author, photographer and
world traveler. We were in a little cafe in Chelsea, Vermont and Ethan talked
about the chain of fortuitous coincidences that seem to make up his life. Maybe
someday I will print part of that interview in Heron Dance. He started our conversation
with these thoughts:
"I believe in the abundance of this planet. I don't want to speak too much
about it because the more you think you know, the less the magic works. But
I am a true believer that there is an abundance factor, either through angels
or through karma."
I think often of that observation, and I believe that it is an appropriate sentiment
for an essay on silence: i.e. The less said by me the better. I will say that
there seems to be some mysterious power underlying silence and that that power
underlies all effective work for change.
Issue 26, Spring 2000
Heron Dance grew out of a failed book. I called it Free Spirits. It was to
be about the spiritual lives of people who spent long periods of time alone
in wilderness. It was not a particularly coherent work, but I interviewed some
fascinating people. One was Ethan Hubbard, a photographer and writer who travels
the world interviewing people who live simple, elemental lives. I visited Ethan
again recently, and asked him how he selects the people he interviews and photographs.
“I like stinky old people who have nothing. Simple lives. Isolated. People
with nothing to prove. People who are not complicated. They are authentic. That
is a great word: ‘authentic.’ Whatever it means.
“Going up my stairs is a picture of a black man whose job in life was
breaking stones in the sun. With a hammer. He lives on Union Island in St. Vincent
and the Grenadines. It was the lowest job on the island. But he didn’t
think it was a lowly job. He just thought it was a job. And he didn’t
mind doing it. He lived in a little shack. He baptized people in a church that
didn’t have a roof. And he was quite a guy. He would build a small structure
– and the people who were going to be baptized would live inside the structure
for a week. On only bread and water. And they got down with Jesus.
“I used to bring cold beers to his little cabin. I said to him one day,
‘Well, Mr. Ryan. You have just a table and a chair. And not even a mirror.
Why don’t you have a mirror?’ He said to me, ‘I never did
flirt much with vanity.’ I love people like that. People who don’t
flirt with vanity. Just a table and chair. Breaking rocks.
“On Tonga the men have kava kava parties. Kava kava is a stuporific –
thousands of years old. Every Friday night twenty five men get together, form
a circle and drink kava kava and play ukuleles. And sing about women. In a good
way. The Earth in a good way, babies in a good way, the ocean in a good way.
And they would cry.”
“I wonder if those villages will persist. Once I went to deFuskie Island
in South Carolina. Now it is a fancy golf course. When I was there, there were
no cars. There were black men with ox carts. I was walking along a dirt road,
and an old man reached down and grabbed my hand, and said, ‘Where you
goin’?’ I said “I am going down to the other side of the island.”
He reached down and pulled me up and said, ‘Come with me.’ So we
rode around on a buckboard pulled by a white bull.
“I wrote my father that night, trying to explain what I felt. And it
was as if Queen Elizabeth and Churchill had asked my father where he was going
and pulled him into their limousine. That is the only way I could explain it.
It was such an honor to ride around that island with old Mr. James Williams.
And now it is a golf course with cars and condos and all that. So I lament what
we are losing. But it is a huge world.”
Issue 35, June 2002
Ann: This is the cliché question of all time, but it interests me
how people answer it. Tell me something of yourself. Who is Ethan Hubbard?
Ethan: Oh. I don’t really care so much anymore. I turned 60 the other
day.
Ann: 60? Congratulations.
Ethan: I feel great. I’d like to live to 120. That’s one of my goals
in life. But as far as who I am? I used to think I was going to get shinier
and shinier and lo and behold, about two or three years ago, I encountered my
shadow for the first time in my life and realized that I wasn’t going
to get shinier and shinier; that I was as lost and as imperfect as the next
person, and I kind of let that one go.
I actually felt there was a place that you could get to — a shiny, shiny,
shinier and shinier place, and I have no illusions whatsoever anymore. I am
dancing with my shadow these days, with my dark side. It feels really good to
acknowledge that I do have a dark side. To realize that is a wonderful part
of getting older. You start seeing the full scope of who you really are.
Ann: Was there a moment or day when you realized this or was it a growing feeling?
Ethan: It was in one moment really. I think we get pretty slick with our spiritual
journey. I could name two or three hundred spiritual aphorisms that I had collected
over the years and had become really good at saying. I was good at talking about
emptiness. I don’t know shit about emptiness. You know, if you scratch
my car, I ain’t empty. I’m totally attached. And in one moment I
woke up (pauses to think and then laughs to himself)… I actually saw it
in Heron Dance! It said, “Spiritual aphorisms are a dime a dozen.”
Ann: Yes. I remember.
Ethan: Absolutely. So Heron Dance basically made me say to myself,
“Get off my throne of being a Buddhist-enlightened guy and go.”
And I said to myself, “Shit. I’m a hoax. I am a fraud. I’ve
been mouthing off these aphorisms thinking that I am empty, and I’m full
of shit.” And so, anyway, yeah, it did happen exactly in that one moment.
Ann: Hmmm. I remember too when I first heard those words. Rod said them
to me one night. I was talking about all the revelations I’ve experienced
in the past few years. I was getting really animated when he smiled and said,
“Well revelations are a dime a dozen.” He said it gently but it
was not the answer I wanted to hear. I was stunned. I wanted him to tell me
that yes, I was getting “shinier and shinier.” But what he was saying
is what you are saying — the hard part is living it and it’s easy
to get caught up in the words. What quality has this recognition brought to
your life? Are there any day-to-day ways that it effects you and your life?
Ethan: I really am brought down to Earth and I feel my own struggle, my own
pain, and therefore, I can understand better those who have far more burdens
than I do. I am just as hurting as the next person who struggles every day —
that’s humbling.
Ann: So you’ve really let go of getting shinier and shinier?
Ethan: Oh, totally. Totally, totally. And my partner, Melissa, says, “Ethan,
you’re a nicer person without Buddhism.” I mean, I love Buddhism,
but my practice of it has been full of holes. It was a way of holding myself
separate.
Ann: This place of getting to know your dark side interests me. Can you talk
about it more?
Ethan: I think it’s going to take ten years of getting to know my shadow
before I really can. You know, my life now is so much like that Rumi poem. You
know the one, it goes something like…. “There’s a knock at
the door. Go! A guest is coming. Offer tea. Oh, it’s Meanness. Oh, it’s
Jealousy. Bring ‘em on in! Entertain them. You’ll learn much from
this guest.” You know? I’m just learning at 60 about that stuff
— it’s startling and it’s wonderful.
Ann: One more question: Would you describe yourself as a person who has
faith?
Ethan: Oh, yes. I believe in the dark night of the soul and the fear places
and the catastrophe places; not every time, but most times I believe one can
pull away to a place of connection, to different dimensions of this universe,
different spirits, different incarnations, different angels, different gods,
different human peoples that can comfort. I believe that there is a place that
we can go with our minds and our hearts that has safety and softness and redemption
and great, great, great spirit. I do believe most of the time that we can navigate
to a safe harbor.
Excerpts from other interviews with Ethan Hubbard have appeared in Heron
Dance issues 5, 10, 16 and 26. Ethan still travels the world photographing
people living close to the land, but home is Vermont where he lives with his
partner, Melissa. Ethan has had six books published to date, most of which can
be purchased used through the Amazon link on our website. An essay by Ethan
Hubbard entitled The Manang Trek and a review of one of Ethan’s books,
First Light, can also be found on our website.
Related Resources:
At the Heron Dance Readers Group on June 29th
Ethan Hubbard will read from his new book Grandfather's Gift and discuss
his travels around the world, and his experiences living in small communities
with people who live close to the land.
