Dispatch #12: The Zen of Zora
"The Horizon Is Way Beyond You."
Hello Spark Zen Readers! I just finished Zora Neale Hurston’s autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road. The title itself reflects her upbringing in the rural south and her recognition of life’s brevity. Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 and died on January 28, 1960. She rose like a phoenix from crushing poverty in rural Florida to be a shining figure in the Harlem Renaissance and a world-class anthropologist. Check out this trailer from the PBS American Masters program where Alice Walker discusses Hurston’s life and legacy.
I have yet to read her most popular and critically acclaimed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, but it’s on my to-read list for 2024. Looks like I’m not the only one who loves this book and Zora: Last week, offered a brilliant review of Hurston’s rollicking, heartbreaking, and illuminating autobiography as well. Below is a brief excerpt from chapter 15, simply titled “Religion,” where she expounds her philosophy of life. And then just to further wow you with her brilliance, I listed 10 sublime quotes from her other writings. Peace + gratitude, Rev. Shōren Heather
“As for me, I do not pretend to read God's mind. If He has a plan for the universe worked out to the smallest detail, it would be folly for me to presume to get down on my knees and attempt to revise it. That, to me, seems the highest form of sacrilege. So I do not pray. I accept the means at my disposable for working out my destiny. It seems to me that I have been given a mind and will-power for that very purpose. I do not expect God to single me out and grant me advantages over my fellow men. . . .
“The springing of the yellow line of morning out of the misty deep of dawn is glory enough for me. I know that nothing is destructible; things merely change forms. When the consciousness we know as life ceases, I know that I shall still be part and parcel of the world. I was a part before the sun rolled into shape and burst forth in the glory of change. I was, when the earth was hurled out from its fiery rim. I shall return to with the earth to Father Sun, and still exist in substance when the sun has lost its fire, and disintegrated in infinity to perhaps become a part of the whirling rubble in space. Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever-changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance.”
“There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.”
“Love is like the sea. It's a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it's different with every shore.”
“It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”
“I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.”
“Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.”
“No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you.”
“I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background........Beside the waters of the Hudson" I feel my race. Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, and overswept, but through it all, I remain myself. When covered by the waters, I am; and the ebb but reveals me again."
“From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom…It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.”
“Mystery is the essence of divinity.”
“The sun had become a light yellow yolk and was walking with red legs across the sky.”
And, oh, BTW, the audiobook version is phenomenal! It’s narrated by the late, great Ruby Dee, who lived and died in New Rochelle—a stone’s throw from where I grew up. My father met Dee’s late-great husband Ossie Davis in a grocery store once. He said that Davis was very friendly. Dee’s reading of Hurston’s novel sounds more like a one-woman play rather than a book being narrated. I highly recommend listening to this jewel.
Absolutely fantastic and so well timed for this reader. I've been sitting and practicing Zen for 15 years or so, off and on. Recently I tried Christianity again (the Episcopal Church, a moderate and inclusive strain). I just cannot. So many "Zora Gems" cited here are resonant. She was so far ahead of her time.