February 7, 2020
Hello ,
I'm excited to get back to my newsletter! I hope you're likewise happy to hear from me, and that 2020 is off to a great start for you. Wishing a warm welcome to new subscriber Elsa, from Texas. Thanks for joining us, Elsa!
Tuesday of this week, I sent to my editor at Abrams publishing, a draft of my next book!
There will be more drafts. But it's huge to get this first one finished.
The book has not been announced publicly, but the contract is signed and pub date is scheduled for March 2021.
The working title: Eye Vietnam:
Catherine Leroy, The Daring Woman Who Showed America the Human Face of War.
To be honest, the Vietnam War is not an uplifting topic. But looking closely at details of the war, at individuals caught in the conflict demonstrating tremendous qualities of humanity and courage, has expanded my heart.
That is the hope I have for this book, that it will expand hearts, and inspire courage to open to the pain of the past and find the wisdom it offers.
An Island of Peace in Wartime
In the middle of every hurricane is an eye, a space of peace amid forces of howling fury.
In the midst of the Vietnam War, or as it is known in Vietnam, the American War, a tiny island of peace endured. Con Phoung or Phoenix Island was an eye in the hurricane of the war-ravaged Mekong Delta.
Tens of thousands of images from the time show American soldiers advancing through the rice paddies of the delta, M-16s at the ready.
Very few photos exist of the mediation and prayer offered continually through the days and nights of the conflict Phoenix Island, the site of a monastery that combined the beliefs of Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism.
The Neo-Catholic-Buddhist church of Dao, established on a sliver of sandbar in the Mekong River turned away no one, but no weapons were permitted on the island. Communists and Christians, soldiers and deserters, pacifists and curious journalists gathered in harmony.
A short distance away, on both sides of the river, war raged on with the whistle of bullets, blasts of artillery and fiery clouds of napalm. On the island, the air rang with the sound of wind chimes, hundreds of large bells made from the brass casings of 175mm howitzer
shells.
Neither side attacked the island, though Australian photographer Tim Page said, "The Americans liked to call it a [expletive deleted] VC R & R Centre."
Tim visited regularly, "for weekends of solace, quiet of being, alive and in touch with the self, a step back from insanity."
The sanctuary was founded in the early 1960's by Nguyen Thanh Nam, a French-educated chemical engineer turned monk.
Returning from France to his homeland, Nguyen took a vow of silence and climbed to the top of Sam Mountain, near the city of Chayu Doc in the Mekong Delta. He meditated alone on the mountain top for three years, then came down and founded his
monastery.
He vowed silence until peace arrived and ate nothing but coconuts, which earned him the nickname Ong Dao Dua or Coconut Monk. Many of his brown-robed disciples were young deserters from both sides of the conflict, as well as refugees from devastated villages. At one point more than 4000 disciples
joined the sect round Ong Dao Dua, praying for peace.
The monk was a bit of an eccentric, but had a ready smile. He spent most of his time praying atop a towering pagoda situated on a seventy-foot plaster mountain made to resemble Sam Mountain.
The structure stood on a floating platform at the eastern tip of the island. The platform also held nine dragon-entwined pillars symbolizing the Mekong’s nine tributaries. Lotus flowers and neon lights topped the pillars.
War correspondent Sean Flynn, son of Hollywood star Errol Flynn was another western journalist who visited Phoenix Island. He's shown below donning disciple's garb.
A year later, Flynn disappeared while on assignment in Cambodia. It's believed that he, among other journalists who disappeared in the region in 1970, were executed by the Khmer Rouge.
John Steinbeck IV, another son of a famous father, also frequented the Coconut Monk's arms-free zone during the War. The son of John Steinbeck, a revered American novelist, first served as a soldier in Vietnam, then returned as a journalist after his
hitch in the U.S. Army.
John, shown kneeling next to Nguyen Thanh Nam, the Coconut Monk, wrote about his experience in a memoir.
“On Phoenix Island, the mutual grief about the war was honest and penetrated all cultural barriers so that I felt like just one of the million carp swimming along in the silt-rich brown water of the Mekong, whose bounty travels all the way from Central Tibet to fan out here in the delta and on into the South China Sea. I was happy here. Perhaps happier than I had ever been in my life. The island became my refuge for the next five
years.”
The government in Saigon and American military leaders mostly left the island alone, and the monk, too, if he stayed in his monastery and did not cause trouble on the mainland.
Ong Dao Dua occasionally left his sanctuary on peacemaking missions, once delivering a peace plan to the South Vietnamese presidential palace, then marching with supporters to the U.S. Embassy in an attempt to present his plans for peace to officials who would give them to President Lyndon Johnson.
He was taken back to the island by police, who warned him not to return to the mainland. The point was emphasized when he discovered thirty of his monks had been arrested while he was gone.
Another time he traveled to the mainland and started north, riding a bicycle to convey his peace plan to officials in Hanoi. He was caught and again returned to the island.
When the war ended, the new Vietnamese government abolished the religion founded by the Coconut Monk. The pagoda and dragon pillars remain standing on Con Phoung, and it's now a stop for tourist boats along the river.
Only if a curious visitor looks closely, can any mention be found of the island's past as a peaceful oasis in the midst of war.
The story is preserved in Vietnamese on the face of an urn the Coconut Monk is said to have crafted himself from shards of porcelain.
A range of emotions accompanied my research of the Vietnam War these past couple months. I had moments of deep sorrow and tears on my keyboard. At other times I felt angry, cynical or depressed. Stumbling upon the mention of this island where people came together in peace in the midst of the horror felt like a shaft of light in the dark.
As I moved from the research into the writing stage, my painful feelings subsided as I worked to craft Catherine's story. In the work of the writing, I found my own island of peace.
What's your particular island of peace these days? Write and tell me about it!
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To find out more about my books, how I help students, teachers, librarians and writers visit my website at www.MaryCronkFarrell.com.
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