<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Ten Questions For The New Age<div> </div><div>Why does someone who takes the name Buffalo Vision, for example,</div><div>after his weekend ayahuasca workshop</div><div><br></div><div>always seem to have an unwarranted confidence</div><div>that he is going to end up at the Happy Hunting Ground?</div><div><br></div><div>If Eagle Mountain marries Western River Woman - fine.</div><div>But why do they have to name their daughter Blueberry, or Lake?</div><div><br></div><div>Then they send her to suffer at a Waldorf school</div><div>where she majors in birch bark and folk dance</div><div><br></div><div>and years later has to hire a life coach to help her fill out college applications,</div><div>as she painstakingly writes an autobiographical essay</div><div><br></div><div>on the theme of how certain so-called sentient beings</div><div>can inflict their embarrassing illusions upon another.</div><div><br></div><div>Do you get what I'm talking about?</div><div>About the follies of playing at innocence?</div><div><br></div><div>Walt Disney made some good movies,</div><div>but would you really get ten aphoristic sayings from <i>The Lion King</i></div><div><br></div><div>tattooed on your forearm for practical reference</div><div>as you ship out to Iraq?</div><div><br></div><div>Which brings me to my actual subject, a man I will call Steve,</div><div>whom I met at a rest stop right after his second vision quest;</div><div><br></div><div>who wore a feather in his hat, was fifty-five, well-fed,</div><div>and lived with his mom in Carson City; who</div><div><br></div><div>plays his guitar at open mikes and plans on a serious musical career</div><div>as soon as he gets more experience.</div><div><br></div><div>Steve, who prefers to be called by his true name, Iron Bear.</div><div>Whenever I encounter the New Age still in its original diapers,</div><div><br></div><div>I confess that I blush down to my deepest roots,</div><div>for I, too, am its scornful, not entirely grown-up child.</div><div><br></div><div>When I was twenty, I learned to play "Blowin' in the Wind" on a wooden flute;</div><div>I made bracelets out of wire and polished quartz and gave them away.</div><div><br></div><div>I had a girlfriend who freely expressed her opinion </div><div>that people born in Bangladesh had probably incarnated there</div><div><br></div><div>to work out their issues with poverty.</div><div><br></div><div>Why does the New Age seem so often like a patient in intensive care,</div><div>in a delicate condition, requiring giant infusions of illusion</div><div><br></div><div>and charity to stay alive,</div><div><br></div><div>while the rest of us keep waiting for the day it might get tough enough</div><div>to be successfully transplanted into the real world?</div><div><br></div><div>Getting back to Steve, still living with his mom, on an allowance, in Carson City:</div><div>Nothing can stop him</div><div><br></div><div>from going to the open mike every Thursday night and singing his heart out,</div><div>or from signing his letter <i>Blessings, </i>from<i> Iron Bear, Poet and Seer, aka Steve</i>.</div><div><br></div><div>Pretend for a moment that you are a philanthropist whom I am </div><div>asking for a donation to a charitable program</div><div><br></div><div>to rehabilitate wandering middle-aged children like the ones I am describing.</div><div>What funds can you offer? What advice would you have for me?</div><div><br></div><div>What chance do think there is for Steve to ever grow up,</div><div>much less find a happy ending?</div><div><br></div><div>On the other hand, isn't it some kind of ultimate foolishness</div><div>to scold cheerful people who in their way are the pilgrims of our time</div><div><br></div><div>about the folly of their happiness?</div><div>What kind of folly is that?</div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Tony Hoagland</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></body></html>