Ice Girl in Banlung, Cambodia

Chapter 1.

It’s fucking hysterical.

Now and then mean the same in Ratanakiri, Cambodian animist jungle languages.

Leo is incognito and invisible perusing the Wild West. It is replete with wandering literary outlaws, animists, shamans and 25,000 natives. Rambunctious young Banlung cowboys and cowgirls dance 125cc machines through spiraling red dust.

How long have you been here, said Rita a 12-year old girl cutting and selling ice along a red road.

All day. I started in China. I walked to Vietnam. Then Laos. I’ll stay here awhile. We can talk.

Ok, she said cutting crystals. Is a day long enough to process a sensation and form an impression? Is it long enough to gather critical mass data about the diversity and evolution of humans in this total phenomena? My name is Rita.

Good to meet you. I’m Leo the Lionhearted. Yes, if you slow down. How is life here?

I work, I breed, I get slaughtered. This is my fate. My fate is a machete slashing through jungles. Fate and destiny are two sides of the same coin.  Janus. Yeah, yeah are two of my favorite lazy words. She smiled. Especially when I am talking with illiterate zombies.

They are same word. I spit them out twice at light speed. You accent the last consonant, drawing it out like a sigh, a final breath a whisper. Y-e-a-hhhhh. It’s crazy English believe you me. Impressive, eh? I can also say OK twice with a rising sound on the k sounding like a meaning I understand without internal meaning or personal truth-value. It’s vague. Why be precise? Many people have conversations using abstract metaphors. Ok? Ok?

Ok. Address the very low literacy rate.

Hello, literacy rate, how are you, she said.

I am well and speaking with improved elocution. My English is getting better. I know my English is not grammatically correct but I know my English is fluent. The more I see the less I know.

Well said, said Ice Girl. Someone said literacy means reading and writing.

I doubt it, said Literacy, Who needs reading and writing? Humans need food, sex, air, water, shelter, clothing and red dust. Hope is in last place. In fact, hope may be the greatest evil because it’s a myth. It’s the last thing that dies.

Let’s not have this conversation in the abstract, said Ice Girl, sawing cold. I love myth, fiction, truth and inventing stories.

I thought you said eating and fighting, said Literacy. You must be fucking crazy. My survival depends on eating and fighting. Reading and writing is for idiots. Millions never learn how to write, let alone scribble stories. No chance. No money. Poor people see education and school as a waste of time and money. Education and medicine are expensive.

I see, said Ice Girl. When I write my stories filled with immediate direct sense impressions and precise details they lose their magic. They are like ice. Ice loses its essence in the big picture. Existence precedes essence. It’s lost between heart-mind-hand-tool-paper. Spoken stories lose their edge fast. Spoken words float around looking for a character, like plot.

Too many people talk out their stories. Lost in the telling. Lost tales float around looking for ears. Talking kills and rejuvenates magic and mystery. Ghost stories.

World tribes memorize chants, rhythms, songs, tales and star trails with a side order of red dust. You never hear a kid say, Let’s take the day off and be creative.

Here’s my secret. I look for a literary agent. Someone said they help writers. I sent one a query. One wrote me a letter. I will share it with you later. I write at night. During the day I’m busy with school and selling ice. If they ask me I will send them a manuscript. Maybe they will love it. Maybe they’ll find a publisher with a big marketing budget and the rest is history as they say. If not I’ll be independent and publish it myself. Ice is my life and I will never give it up. Besides writing, laughing, loving and living, it’s my life.

Wow, that’s lovely, said Leo.

Yes, she said, I follow my bliss. If it’s not in your heart, it’s not in your head. I’ll tell you about the agent later.

A man arrived on a broken motorcycle. She gave him a blue plastic bag of ice. He gave her Real currency.

Sure. I follow my blisters, laughed Leo.

Where are you staying, she asked.

I don’t have a home. I live in small houses along the road. For now I sleep at Future Bright.

I know it. The woman owner smiles and lies at the same time.

What’s the difference between hearing and listening, Leo asked.

98% are asleep with their eyes open, she said. They don’t know and don’t care. It’s endemic.  They look without understanding. The remaining 2% are dead and long gone.

She opened her notebook. She spilled red ink on white paper. Red is a lucky color of wealth and prosperity. Living in a red dust town brings everyone good luck.

Tell me about your visionary skills, said Leo.

I am ahead of the future. The day after tomorrow belongs to me. I connect the dots forward. I practice detached discernment. My job is to pay attention to direct immediate experience, get it down and make sense of it later.

People here live in a perpetual disconnect. They are talking monkeys looking for a place to happen. They can’t focus. Their attention span is ZERO. Like Year 0 in 1975 before I was born. No attention span? No problem.

How about your town, asked Leo.

Red dust roads in Banlung are paved with blue Zircon and Black Opals (nill) reflecting Ratanakiri, or “Gem Mountain.” Rich city women wear blue Zircon, gold necklaces, rings, bracelets, sparkle bling. Rural women do not wear this wealth.

Married women wear red bead strings. They fashion yellow, red, blue, green, glittering plastic bangles on necks and wrists.

Here it’s about food and honoring Earth spirits. Animists believe taking stones harms the spirits, creating an imbalance in the natural order of things.

Thanks for Life Lesson #3, said Leo. I’m going to have a look-see. See you later.

 Ice Girl in Banlung

I Lost One Day

Crows sang sunrise in Bursa, Turkey.

Lucky opened window blinds at the TLC teachers’ apartment. Riding the blinds sang a metaphorical cryptic railroad life. Hop a fright. Get out of town. Hit the highway. Get down the road.

Ain’t nothin’ but da blues, sweet thing.

When you come to a fork in the road take it, said Zeynep.

Sun streamed to pink-red veined orchids in a brushed silver container.

Tibetan incense curled into light.

Red gladioli, so glad, petaled beginning.

Piano Etudes by Glass tinkled.

A handful of dust labeled fear celebrated tonal frequencies.

Piano fell silent. Violins picked up the slack hemming garments along life’s loom down at the crossroads making a Faustian deal with the d-evil.

In a new world order all the police are children.

They know how the world works.

Elegant clouds observed pachyderms and Staunton designed pawns, knights, bishops, rooks and queens fighting to control four center squares.

Look at the board. Absorb all the data. Recognize patterns. Analyze. Develop a strategy. Continually revise and develop that strategy as the game progresses, said Bamboo.

A black knight waving a curving scimitar and a 1* red and yellow hammer sickle flag driving a Turbo-bus filled with Russian baboons passed Hanoi beauty salons and full-body soapy massage parlors.

Girls trimming, buffing and painting cuticles greeted 1.5 million neurotic European tourists and swarming Chinese locusts in a fat fucking hurry at Angkor Wats happening?

Bright yellow Turkish taxis idled coughing engines. Arabesque musicians fingered ouds as an operatic Turkish singer in Bursa lamented her melancholic love. Percussionists hammered goatskins.

Singing silver merchants chanted, “Mr. Lucky Foot come here. First sale lucky sale make my day.”

He joined a Jewish and Turkish man drinking tea at the Bursa silk market in an exquisite stone Caravansary.

“I lost today,” said the Jewish man.

“What do you mean, said his friend. “You made 3,000,000 Lira.”

“Yes, but I lost one day.”

Inside a 500-year old hammam, steam rising through rusting metal bars discovered a weak Wi-Fi signal from the Achebadem emergency room staffed by Winter Hawk, Bamboo and heartbroken howling Lone Wolf.

After a sauna Omar and Lucky entered a white marble room with a high vaulted dome. Thirty-two pinpoints of sunlight shafted across blue mosaic tiles. In eight recessed cubicles men soaped, slathered and scrubbed off melting skin in humid heat. A robust masseuse worked sandpaper fibers over a stranger removing dead terrorist cells.

Absorbing musical notes the thermal pool bubbled natural mineral water as the literary outlaws enjoyed a sitting meditation up to their necks. I’ve had it up to here, said Omar clearing his throat.

Renewed revived and rejuvenated after a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice they stepped into crisp spring air below blue sky.

The Language Company

If I grow up I die

Being nine Lucky helped 4th grade geniuses become more human.

Engage-study-activate.

Everyone had fun. Students learned that whining was boring and useless. Smart ones knew without understanding. They knew what they didn’t know.

Kids shared Socratic discussions. They explored and expanded creative imagination journal writing, cross-disciplinary art, chess and teamwork development projects. They built and flew kites.

They practiced good manners and treated everyone with respect.

They focused on developing character: zest, courage, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism, curiosity, fairness, generosity and integrity.

They shared soft eyes, relaxation techniques and meditation mind maps. They accepted personal responsibility for learning and exploring the process of becoming.

He assisted them to develop critical thinking skills outside imaginary social and educational conditioning traps. “I am here to help you make mistakes.”

One day a young teacher kid said, “We need challenges, Teacher Lucky.”

“What kind of challenges?”

“We need hardship and deprivation.”

“Yes,” said another teacher, “we need to take more risks.”

“How do you develop courage?”

“Through failure. We love to fail better."

“Correcto mundi. Welcome to The Think for Yourself Academy. Everything we do is an experiment.”

They planned, designed and constructed an elaborate high-risk rope and creeper vine obstacle course in jungles challenging body, mind and spirit. Teamwork skills blossomed like orchids.  

*

Residents near his garden sanctuary passed a tall green spiky cactus stretching arms into bluebird songs. A nanny carrying an infant memorized the echo of white cat paws trailing flip-flops. Faustus, seeing through innocent eyes rode behind his pedaling Chinese father.

A laughing skipping girl negotiated freedom.

A beggar wearing broken shoelaces studied pavement.

A man spinning in his labyrinthine puzzle struggled with an activated cell phone in worn green baggy shorts hoping the call would save him from loneliness, boredom, alienation and metaphors like death.

Children in pink pajamas collected brown leaves and fragrant yellow-white hibiscus flowers.

In Bahasa sun a middle-aged daughter spoon-fed her mother in a wheelchair. Swallowing love her smiling mother remembered when she did all the feeding.

Jung Institute

“A dream is an unfulfilled wish,” answered a kid with a Ph.D. in Psychoanalysis from the Jung Institute.

“What else did he say?”

“He said, ‘There is no royal road to wisdom. To arrive at the future I must journey into the past. To attain the sanity of oneness with the One, I must risk the whirling madness of the possessed.’”

One year I spent three days at the Jung Institute of Psychoanalytical Study while hitching south toward the Mediterranean and Israel.

In June 1976, I slept on the lawn behind a stonewall at a biological institute on the outskirts of Zurich. Every morning women cleaning glass sang, Get up. Get up. I stashed my sleeping bag and backpack in a garden, walked to the Banhof for a roll and coffee and uphill to the Institute that opened at 11 a.m.

In a fine old brown stone residential castle with turrets and secret unconscious passages the institute offered classes and lectures on Jungian work. Professionals from around the world studied, attended seminars and completed their post-graduate education or audited classes for personal growth.

Between lectures, lawyers, theologians, teachers, philosophy majors and academics, some with a Ph.D. in Life, discussed Jungian thought.

The common thread was how their life, their quest for knowledge and greater insight into the human condition had led them through various disciplines and years of study to the institute. They said something totally incomprehensible was missing from their lives.

The truth is in the mystery.

The only book I pulled at random from a shelf in the Jung library was The Third Eye by T. Lobsang Rampa.

One morning people crowded into a lecture room. Languages filled space waiting for a lecture on the “Symbolism of Fire.” I took a small hourglass out of my pack and turned it upside down. Sand flowed.

“Jung talked about the spiritus contra spiritum, a god of ecstatic vision,” said the speaker. “He talked about the need for ecstasy without the chaos and how the archetypal ecstasy was for a god and soul.”

“Is the female ego in charge of the animus?” said a man.

“Yes. The animus speaks of women with a deep connection. It is a force that can seize you.”

“Is that why there is pain and delight in human relationships?” said a woman.

“Yes. The collective unconscious is too big to live out our personality so we create outer projections saying ‘bear my anima for me.’ This creates the pain and suffering. When there is individuation there is a strong ego personality.”

“Can you please give us an example?”

“Well, war is like a falling in love experience. The shadow, the dark side exists with the bright side and is misunderstood. The shadow is projected in dreams. Veterans carry images of losing, darkness, violence, destruction and evil inside them.”

“What is the healing tendency?”

“One must find meaning. It requires self-honesty. One respects dreams and the unconscious. They play. Fantasy is good, dynamic play. It is about symbolic levels. The collective unconscious is manifested in all cultures. This is why Jung was attracted to Asian symbols. He believed they existed near the bottom of their unconscious in an instinctual life.”

“People in the western cultures are afraid of death. Why?”

“Old age is a value feeling. Unfortunately, in some cultures it is perceived as insulting. It is the archetype of the old fool. It is fuller than the wise man. We create meaning. The imagination is the reality of the psyche combined with pure play. We listen to the wisdom of the dream. Everything we do is from the heart.”

When I was Jung I was Freudened. Ha.

I attended a lecture on the symbolism of fire. Cosmic creation energy...fire or water first in Oriental thought, quality of energy and quantity of substance. Satori fire-power emanating life and consciousness. Fire is spirituality. Yogic symbolism. Applied in India the thunderbolt kills the enemy and brings rain.

Surya is reception and light. Dream analysis symbolism of passions. Negative burning fires of hell.

Dream interpretation changes psychic energy into new conscious arrangement.

Bohme, said ‘then your heart is a dark valley where the devil kindles the heat. Leads to forty questions of the soul.’ In yoga Indian texts the soul essence is energy consciousness. Fire consumes ignorance: source of fire in soul and spirit. The yogic fire meditation is with the noon sun, meditating on physical process, digestion, and identifies with sun and fire to reach experience. Tapas transform energy. Concentrated introversion consciousness.

A Tibetan fire mandala with five colorful flames is a spiritual place. Created as psychic energy with five elements through creation. Fires of transformation creates spiritual regeneration as catharsis. Solar and lung energy and integration through dream interpretation.

Tibetan Book of The Dead = freedom. Fire is a driver, sexual desires. Soft wood and hard wood together create energy. Psychological use of fire, inner psychic fire from the lowest chakra spine sleeping serpent rising, united through to ‘eat the fires of energy’ as the libido is a power of regeneration through consciousness.”

During the lecture a worn copy of the I Ching, the Chinese book of divination translated by Wilhelm fell out of my bag. A female lawyer preparing to unlock the unconscious motivations of incarcerated juveniles saw it.

“Ah,” she said in a German accent. “I see you are reading a great book.’”

“Stumbling through it. I am curious about it.”

“Interesting. Have you heard of Madame Chang?”

“No. Who is she?”

“She’s a Sinologist. She is an authority on the I Ching and gives consultations. She has her office near here. Perhaps you could visit with her.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

I called her up and made an appointment to see what would happen. I arrived at the house, went through the back gate, approached a door and rang a bell. I entered a foyer. I looked up through a long ornate spiral staircase. At the top stood a woman. I climbed and climbed. Madame Chang was slight with close cut brown hair, glasses, about fifty.

“Hello, I’m the fellow who called your secretary asking to see you.”  I offered my hand.

“Yes,” she said taking my hand momentarily and then dropped it. “I was expecting you. I am Miss Chang. Won’t you come in?” She gestured to the open door.

The room was narrow. Along the walls were shelves holding stacks of books. To the left was a table with old Chinese books. One was open to a map. She offered a chair in the middle of the room under a slanting roof. I took a seat and she sat opposite me where she could gaze out the small window into blue sky.

She didn’t say anything for a moment and then looked at me. I felt penetrated as a fraud. Her gray eyes were distant. My first impression after sitting down was that I was in way over my head, that I was after some arcane knowledge and she knew it. Madame Chang sat silent and never said anything forever. She just sat there and let me look around. I realized I was out of my depth.

“I shouldn’t have come,” I said. “I am wasting your time.”

“Why did you come?”

I knew that her wisdom of the book was greater in scope than I’d ever begin to understand. Her vision was far away. I realized my small self.

“I’m not sure,” I blurted frightened by the sound of my voice. “It’s something about the I Ching about finding out the truth.”

“I usually give consultations to groups but am willing to meet with individuals. What is it you wish to know?”

“I came because someone said you could answer questions about the I Ching and I am curious about the book.”

“How many times have you thrown the coins?”

“Once. What should I do?”

“You should just study it. I would advise you to read the hexagrams and see the symbolism in the meanings of the text. See the intentions of the summary. It’s a very powerful book.”

I sat there looking at her and her books. It seemed like forever as my mind whirled around trying to come up with some semi-intelligent conversation. 

“It’s a long walk. Nothing more. It’s a long walk,” she said.

As if in a dream I got up and walked to the door.

“I usually accept contributions,” she said. I fumbled in my pocket, brought out a note and asked for half of it back in change. She returned the balance and showed me out.

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate your seeing me.”

I descended the spiral staircase to the ground floor. When I looked up she was standing on the top looking down at me. We waved goodbye.

Out on the street I looked up at the window. It was impossible to see the crease in the roof. There was only sky. I walked down the street as if in hypnosis, bought an apple and sat on a stone sidewalk meditating on our meeting. I opened the Book of Changes to #25, Wu Wang, Innocence, The Unexpected. “The firm comes from without and becomes the ruler within.

“I like it,” said a listener. “Inner directed like Rumi. What else?”

“Well, here’s a cool thing Jung said. ‘I liken the formation of a character to weaving a garment. You know what happens when you make a mistake? The whole pattern is spoiled. Then you have a choice: you can finish the garment, but it will always be botched and ugly, or you can unravel the weave right back to the first mistake and start again. That’s basically what analysis is about. It’s a tedious job. The patient is sometimes scared and hostile. The analyst has to lend patience, honesty and courage.”

A Century is Nothing

Kayapuya

I am an old dialect of Kalapuya tribes. I respect spirit energies.

I hear with my eyes and see with my ears.

I understand your love for the spirit power guardian. I am an ancestor speaking 300 languages from our history. Now only 150 dialects remain.

A hunting gathering people speaking Pentian, we numbered 3,000 in 1780. We believe in nature spirits, vision quests and guardian spirits.

Our shamans, called amp a lak ya taught us how seeking, finding and following one’s spirit or dream power and singing our song was essential in community.

I speak in tongues, in ancient dialects about love. They are dialects of ancestors who lived here for 8,000 years before where you are now. In the forest near the river all animal spirits welcome you with their love. They are manifestations of your being.

I am blessed to welcome you here. You have walked many paths of love to reach me.

My dirt path is narrow and smooth in places, rocky in others.

I am the soil under your feet.

I feel your weight, your balance - your weakness and your strength.

I hear your heart beating as my ancestors pounded ceremonial drums.

I feel the tremendous surging force of your breath extend into my forest.

Wind accepts your breath.

I am everything you see, smell, taste, touch and hear.

I am the oak, the fir and pine trees spreading like dreams upon your outer landscape.

I am your inner landscape. I see you stand silent in the forest hearing trees nudge each other. “Look,” they say, “someone has returned.”

I love the way you absorb the song of brown body thrush collecting moss for a nest. I am the small brown bird saying hello. I am the sweet-throated song you hear without listening.

At night two owls sing their distant song and their music fills your ears with mystery and love.

I am warm spring sun on your face filtered through leaves of time.

I am a spider’s web dancing with diamond points of light.

I am the rough fragile texture of bark you gently remove before connecting the edge of an axe with wood.

You carry me through my forest. Your flame creates heat of love. I am the taste of pitch on your lips, the odor of forest in your nostrils filling your lungs. It is sweet.

I am the cold rain and wet snow, hot sun and four seasons.

I am yellow, purple, and red, blue, and orange flowers from brown earth.

Language cannot be separated from who you are and where you live.

I say this so you will remember everything in this forest.

I took care of this place and now your love has the responsibility with respect, dignity and mindfulness.