Jeph Jerman

Abide In The Clear Light

This piece is dedicated to the memory of my friend Bob Blaize, who sadly passed away in 2022.

I first met Bob Blaize in the early 1980’s at a college radio station that we both worked for. After getting to know him a bit better, I started going to his house to play music. Sometimes it was just the two of us, other times there would be upwards of 6 or 7 people sitting in a circle in his living room. I remember one night walking from Bob’s house to a nearby cemetery to play. You never knew exactly what you were in for at a Blaize jam.

He always seemed to me to be in the same mood, a mixture of surprise and delight that had him laughing easily and often. He was the first person I ever met who meditated, which I found fascinating, though I didn’t start doing it myself until many years later.

I’m sure everyone who knew Blaize had at least one good story to tell about him. He was a ufologist and was into lots of stuff that eventually became known as “new age”. He was very into designing and constructing divination systems, a few examples of which I still own. He told me my favorite Zen joke:

How many Zen Buddhists does it take to change a light bulb?

Fish.

Though he was a bit older than my friends and I, and from a different generation, he seemed open to just about anything, and might just have been the most open person I’ve ever met.

I once witnessed Bob defuse an argument by maintaining a calm demeanor and not contradicting but adding to the other guy’s point until it turned against itself and the guy ended up arguing the opposite position. It was really masterful, done without any malice or bad feeling of any kind.

He held a number of odd jobs at various times, one of which was to help terminal patients through their transition. I don’t know how you’d find a job like that. I can imagine though, that if I were going through that passage, Blaize would’ve been the perfect companion.

I recently came across an old CD-R of Bob and I playing, which he had titled Death 1 & 2. I have little recollection of making it, and I wonder if maybe his idea had been to make something to accompany people through the bardo. It would be just like him.

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