Sufi Remembrance

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One Memory for “Vadan Baker”

1. on 30 Oct 2018 at 2:37 am1Amina Rae Horton

   Mendocino Sufi Camp 2009

   I remember the first time I saw you in the midnight kitchen at Camp Macama in 1973. I was looking for the afterparty, and you were it.

   A month or two later, heading to Tucson Sufi Camp with you and Frank Howard in his 1950’s green panel truck, which we christened “The Dreamboat.” We took on circus names and dubbed Frank Captain Airheart, while you were Sarah Sue Sweetwater, and I was Rosie Twinks…

   …leaving the main road, looking for Agua Caliente, hotsprings in Arizona, coming upon a ghost town—my first ever—then continuing our search into the desert, finding that crazy sign sticking out of the sand like a round red-and-white lollipop. “Children of Light,” it read, with a red arrow pointing to the left….

   …looking at each other with questioning eyes, then wholeheartedly responding, “That’s us!” and following the arrow through the roadrunner desert to an oasis of date palms, and the surreal scene of celibate elders in red-and-white old fashioned long swimsuits, splashing around in the crystal-blue waters of a swimming pool in the middle of the vast desert.

   Afraid to get out of the truck, and equally afraid not to, we disembarked and introduced ourselves to Elect Gold, Elect Silver, and their Christian community. We sang for them, “More Love,” and they shared their communal dinner of four varieties of dates and three types of oranges before they asked for divine permission to eat the loaves of home-baked wayfarer’s bread that you offered.

   That bread was your signature in my book: made of ground and moistened sprouted wheat, patted into heart-shaped loaves by your loving hands, and then prior to baking, engraved with crosses for our communion with the Prince of Peace.

   In Tucson, on silence imposed by the Sheikh, sneaking away with Tui and Shams to Swensen’s to eat ice-cream, then doing the Swensen’s walk all the way home:

   Mocha Chip…Butterscotch Almond….German Chocolate Cake…

   At that retreat, we set the daily schedule to the rhythm of the Heart Sutra:

   Med-it-a-tion
   Eat
   Class
   Rest
   Class

   Eat
   Class
   Rest
   Class

   Eat
   Play
   Dance
   Rest
   A year later, you made plans to meet Frank Milan and me in Utah so we could hitchhike together through the red rocks of Zion National Park and over the Glen Canyon Dam to get to the Rainbow Gathering. We chose St. George: to us, just a midpoint dot on the map. Frank and I wearily spread out our sleeping bags on the desert sands under the vast and starry skies, then awakened the next morning to find ourselves in a graveyard of petrified wood, and you, yes you, looking angelic and magnificent, your hair swaying in the morning light, as you bounced over the hill, with your bedroll and dulcimer slung over your hip…

   Oh, the sweet song of your memory, of so many camp kitchen conversations, working and sharing till 4 in the morning…

   …sleeping in the Cook’s cabin with all of our children lined up in beds, like two old women who lived in a shoe.

   These last years, sharing the Shabbos table at Tui and Bonnie’s, the night before camp, first with Irene, and then without, always cherishing, always savoring, with you taking pictures, all of us painfully and sweetly aware that this reunion could be our last.

   And finally, last year at camp, trudging up the hill exhausted only shortly after midnight, wondering where my stamina had gone, gazing into the dully illuminated pantry window at you, baking at your table, marveling at your sheer endurance, cherishing the sight of you, knowing it could be, yet unaware it would be my last memory of you.

   Well, now I know why you loved that song so much. Because on this caravan of your Great Return to our Beloved,

   “The heavens are calling,

   The angels are singing,

   ‘Oh Zion, More love, more love.”

   To the reader I offer my apologies for changing tense and changing back and forth from first to second person. These things happen in these types of relationships.

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