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Friday
Jan262018

Memory Fragments

Live in the present, in the eternity of the instant.

On the 27th he absorbed reflections in a small village. Attracted by no tourists partly cloudy skies.

She undressed. In her silent beating heart she knew the man couldn't, wouldn't, save her. She was happy with him for his playful kindness.

She signed. He tried to understand her willingness to share their intimacy. He was a slow patient lover. She trusted her instincts. After knowing him for nine months she accepted soft passions with conditions of intimacy. No kissing. No cunning linguists.

One-eyed blind.

On the 28th he said, I prefer doubt to certainty. I am more interested in the traces than the object. I love the fragments.

On the 29th he asked her, Where do I place this fragment? What country what continent what city village or heartbeat? Every heartbeat contains worlds of possibilities and probabilities.

Keep it simple like a breath, she said.

On June's final day she asked him, Do you like small? Skin on skin? Yes kneading her shoulder muscles, easing out tissue from her supine sublime spinal chord erasing tension. Her smile said, Yes. Her relaxation exhaled.

On 1 July she spoke with hand wings. Short, fast and deadly.

She dreamed of writing a short story, perhaps flash fiction. She made a pot of green tea.

Nervous, she selected a pen. She unscrewed the black ebony Mont Blanc summit. She opened a black notebook. She started with flowing calligraphy letters.

My life began in a village. I don't need to leave my village. My village is the world.

She drew a picture. It looked like this.

3 July said, tourists find and travelers discover.

A dreamer with controlled imagination passed a broken traffic sign near a golden pagoda...

SLOW CHILDREN...word lightning bolts - blue butterfly, white sky, green flowers, red leaves, songs of invisibility, piano shadow.

How do you spell loss? Accept loss forever.

Memory contains an entire world.

A blind painter paints from memory. A laughing blind poet scribbles symbols. 

"A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom," - Robert Frost

 

Phonsavan, Laos

Sunday
Jan212018

Dancing is divine Madness

Meaning and sense: meaning shows itself at once, direct, literal, explicit, enclosed in itself.

Sense cannot stay still radiating out in directions that divide and subdivide.

The sense of every word is like a star hurling spring tides out into space, cosmic winds, magnetic perturbations, afflictions.

What does it mean to be human?

How did I grow?

What is the ultimate reality of nature?

Welcome to the freak show.

I am someone else - Rimbaud

Dancing in the ecstasy of divine madness.

Science: systematic observation, precise measurement, disciplined testing. (quantifiable statistics)

Photography: facts, subtleties, nuances...painting with light.

Light is luminous essence, the energy of all things through the inner eye in mind.
Before form is essence.

After essence is clear light.

In light we dissolve into our primordial nature, touching all things across time and space.
These are the truths which makes us human and divine.

The world is complex and meaningless.

 

Hyohakusha - "one who moves without direction." Basho.

Monday
Nov202017

Learn 4 Life - Cambodia

Learn 4 Life English Language Center

Siem Reap, Cambodia NGO

July 3 – September 8, 2017

It took a couple of years to get this volunteer gig through Workaway.com.

Students pay $30 for nine weeks.

13-30 years young - 70 in four classes.

One hour a day M-F.

“Push Them Through,” ordered the head teacher minus heart, a desperate myopic anal 60-year old female Kiwi in her textbook based world.

Grammar Nazi.

“I am in control,” she articulated with marbles in her mouth. “And I love marking. I run this place like a national school even if half the students don’t show up.”

Her good intentions acquiesced to text-based learning product.

They have jobs school and responsibilities.

Attendance is optional. Dance is mandatory.

Elementary & pre-Intermediate with basic English skills are taught by native speaking barbarians.

Khmer teachers do Beginners. It’s a job.

“Khmer students see a teacher as father #2,” said a gregarious young male Khmer teacher.

Respect blind obedience and ZERO critical thinking questions. “Why” is not allowed.

Formal education conditioned them into silence.

It reminded me of Leo, a 14-year old in Fujian, China where I taught at a private business university in 2005-2007 saying, “On day one my middle school teacher said, ‘I want you to only bring two things to class. Your ears.’”

Final Enlightening Lesson

Friday, September 8, 2017

Process vs. Product (Whiteboard Finale)

Product -

Mark/Grade #

So What?

60 is heaven

59 is hell o jolly mellow fellow

Asian education 101. Brave New World.

Pass the soma. 

Three unit tests are not factored into final grade.

Final exam - Grammar 40%, Listening 20%, Reading 10%, Writing 15% Speaking 15%

Writing and speaking active skill values reflect dystopian educational focus.

Students with courage lack vocabulary.

Students with vocabulary lack courage.

Process -

What I learn

How I learn

How I feel

Grow

Self-improvement

Choices & Decisions

Independence

Self-confidence

Courage

Communication teamwork and group dynamics.

Character

Chess – problem solving, planning, logic, creative thinking, accepting responsibility for decisions. Pattern recognition.

Spacial relationships.

Working memory.

Long-term memory.

Play. Learn. Share.

Creative notebook - drawing, free writing, imagination - a different kind of “product.” Going strong when textbooks gather dust.

(After Grade 6 Khmer students don’t enjoy music or art. Rote learning robots.)

Drawing their dream daily in class is an initial shock. They adapt, adjust and evolve their vision like Picasso/Van Gogh/M.C. Escher singing, “I love to color!”

Chance

My role was to travel with you to this stage.

You have the tools now.

Eye + hand + heart.

Two won’t do.

The wisdom of your heart is greater than the knowledge in your head.

School gives you a lesson then a test.

Life gives you a test then a lesson.

Don’t let school get in the way of your education.

You’re on your own. Follow your heart.

 

Thursday
Aug242017

Wisdom Seeks Wisdom

In Brave New World

You shift from truth and beauty

To comfort and happiness

I ate civilization

Aha ha

A new notebook deciphers emptiness

The fisherman

In a long blue boat

Cuts the engine

Drifting with current

Cool cornflower silk red ink

Slashes memory's fascination

With forgetting

All the letting go

Becoming silence inside the labyrinth

Dancing shimmering red

Blazing wisdom seeks wisdom

In a Lao motorcycle culture

Wats glow golden

A sleeping Buddha

Dreams of compassion

Direct immediate experience

I am twinkling 

Fujian, China

Monday
Jul172017

mind stream transmission

The Temple of the Divine Madman

Bhutan

Druk Yul - Land of the Thunder Dragon

Keep it raw

Human flourishing

Eudaimonia

*

Under this mask, another mask.

I will never be finished removing all these faces.

*

Wandering river mystic wind

Rhythm of world

Dances

No fear

Expanding joy

Contentment

Laughter therapy

*

Jump out of your skin

Backwards

Dream

*

Mind-stream transmission

Form is emptiness

Emptiness is form