Interview

Edmund: It’s plausible, but I don’t know. I prefer that it didn’t. (Laughter) Let’s face it. I know all the stories about karma and reincarnation. I’m familiar with all the theories about it. I’ve heard them all. I’ve thought about them all. I feel indifferent to that idea. But I have read things that I think are wonderful. Like I read once that “you are reborn according to your heart’s most urgent desires.” Think about that.

There’s a great beauty and truth in that, because that does occur in you daily life. You are reborn continually, and you could be reborn – in God knows what fashion – according to your heart’s most urgent needs and desires, which is something you could not intellectualize, because it doesn’t say your brain’s urgent needs, it says your heart’s urgent needs.

So that’s a very comforting idea to me. If there is a continuation of consciousness, it will be a re-birth based on my needs in a karmic frame, what I have to achieve on the next step.

David: What do you think is the most important thing that you’ve learned in your life?

Edmund: That humor is above death.

David: What do you mean above?

Edmund: More powerful than death.

David: What’s your concept of God or the Divine?

Edmund: Well, I’ve gotten over the most common images of God that are fed to us as children. I’ve gotten over the images of “Him” or “Her”. I do believe there is a central seed consciousness that is fused in all of the universe. There is some potent, high-exalted energy that represents God to me, and its manifest in nature particularly. All of nature awakens an inner reverence, a sense of holiness to our existence within my being. And I’m very aware of it in my work. I’m very aware of it when I walk, and when I’m out in nature, when I see something growing, when I plant a rosebush and watch the buds spurt out of the stems in the springtime. I’m very aware of this power that is infused in all of life – from every star in the heavens to every minnow in the sea.

David: What are you thinking about these days?

Edmund: I’ve been thinking about the tremendous amount of pagan energy in my work. I sort of admire the pagan ethic. It expressed beautifully in a short remark of Benjamin De Casseres – ” The pagan ethic did not seek to amend nature or cleanse God.” I like looking at life straight in the face. I like seeing it for what it really is and stripping it of any cosmetic doctoring or glamorizing. I like to carve faces straight on. I never carve them from the side. They do get a side, but I carve them straight on. I like looking at faces straight on, and like observing my reality straight on.

(Edmund starts singing) I like my daiquiris strong; I want my lovin’ long. If my heart you would move, you must constantly prove, you’re a man with the power to stay. Honey, real men don’t fade away. I like my talkin’ straight. I like my lovin’ late, staten’ in advance, I will give you the chance to prove that I’m not an old bagatelle, want it when things go well, who needs a friend with a hasty heart, who only looks for the tasty part, enjoys the cherry without the stone, loves to love but lives alone. (Edmund stops singing) That’s Truman Capote. (Laughter) Now, how would you like to hear Lena Horne?