45. A Name

The name my parents gave me, Thomas, suits me to a "T" (for Thomas, of course!).


Thomas Jefferson comes to mind--Thomas the Doubter, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Tom, Tom the Piper's son and Tommy the Drummer!




I was named after Tommy Morgan--an old German piano player friend of my father--and I like that.


I like that Morgan means "morning" in German.

There is something about names and the sound of them that sometimes seems awfully meaningful important. 

The very sound of them. 


"Aum"-- THE sound to so many people. Vajra guru Padmasambhava--such a power name. Jesus Christ--name of a name--as they say. YHVH. Jehovah. El. There is something about a name.

In my life "Elisabeth" is a name that seems important to me personally.


Elisabeth-- my mother's middle name-- I was with her when I was born and I was with her when she died. 

Elisabeth English, the young woman I was so crazy about that died in that tragic plane wreck in Hawaii so many years ago. 


And Elisabetta Studer at Il Poggio, Italy.


Sitting on her stool by the table-high cooking fireplace at the dark end of the big kitchen behind the big wooden work table which was like a magnet to all of us--guests and workers. Usually smiling. Seldom talking except when it was necessary. Just being herself. Moving slowly, methodically--getting everything done beautifully without the slightest fuss.


I waved goodbye to her and the rest of the staff when I rode my bike away to continue my pilgrimage to Holy Mountain--now many years ago--and when I left Europe I took a northern route through Germany and never returned to Il Poggio.


Back then I intended to go back and work on more ceramics some day but first I wanted to see my parents and stay a while in California.


But one day, just a few weeks after my return to California, a letter came from Elisabetta's son Thielo--Elisabetta was dead.


Such a shock.


She was such a presence I could hardly believe that she was gone.


When I was working on the clay at Il Poggio I sometimes imagined that I was preserving some words for the future--like on the burned clay tablets discovered at the ruins of Mohenjo-Daro--so I incised a classic Zen remark on some clay tablets and fired them for future generations: "Before illumination--cutting wood, carrying water. After illumination--cutting wood, carrying water."

In his letter, Thielo had used these words to describe his mother. 

Yes.

Years after the events I have been telling about in Italy, I was driving in Plumas County, California--driving the windy highway through the beautiful mountains and enjoying the scenery--when I had the feeling that I was missing something--that I should stop and look around--so I pulled over to the side of the highway, got out and walked down the road a way.


Almost covered by bushes and leaves to the side of the highway there was a small, faded sign: "Former Location of Elisabethville".

Wasn't it?

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