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Entries in abundance (7)

Wednesday
Sep062023

Babble Fish

A Bursa schoolgirl waiting to be grilled maternal fish bait stood at a bus stop with a cell phone implanted in her cerebral cortex. Her mom connected, “Are you alive?”

“I dream I am a free person in a free country. I've escaped the tyranny of what if’s and maybes. I have grit.”

“Enough babble fish jack-o-lama-trauma,” said Zeynep the Director. “Cut to the chase singing songs with abundance, wonder and gratitude."

Ms. Linguist picked Mr. I Love History up. They screwed. She dropped him off. He never paid now. He always paid later.

“Life gives you test first and the lessons later,” said Zeynep. “Blind love with a little luck is a never ending adventure.”

Stressed out over-medicated Turkish kids carried bags of fresh brown bread, black olives and poisoned red apples home to mommy dearest here’s something from my secret garden.

Weaving A Life, V1

Weaving A Life (Volume 1) by [Timothy Leonard]

Sunday
Aug142022

abundance

"Terrorism is the art of fear." - Salman Rushdie

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Mandalay, Burma

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Dear one I am here for you. Love, compassion, joy, freedom.

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Contradictions - the lost writings of Kafka.

"Stay at your desk and listen.  Or don't even listen, wait for it to bother you ... Don't even wait, be quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked, it with writhe in front of you in ecstacy."

The nature of experience. What can writers do?

Celebrate abundance. We live in an abundance beyond our needs ... the abundance of plant, insect and bird life supplies beauty and marvels and enigmas ...

abundance of energies astonish, delighted, entranced ... sensibilities & energies ... we have to entertain the people about us, to support & empower them to accompany them when their paths become painful ...

travel reveals a deeper reality than the one we find at home ... a person in exile is always home

 "A photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second." - Salman Rushdie

Saturday
Dec052020

Tattoo

Ink Me
Married to a needle
Zen of needle

Tattoo customers wander into studio:
Russian mafia, Indonesian businessmen,
two female Chinese students
Khmer boy has “Lin Forever” tattooed on his forearm
English man has a cover up job done on a red risqué dancing woman replaced by Dali's “Melting Time.”

Mont Blanc ink me
Penetrate my skin using coil and rotary machines...

Feel the pressure



Surgical precision
Process: set up worktable, cover table, pillows and bed with cling wrap,
arrange needle machines and ink. New needles from sealed packages.

Put on black surgical gloves, attach plug into amp meter for needle machine,
tape stencil on client for tracing. Client lies on back with cling wrapped pillow under head.

Artist places arm on pillow and long wrapped table for support. Small talk.

Artist consults sketch, applies pressure to arm with left hand,
puts needle machine on skin, client inhales,
artist turns machine on, zzzzz cutting skin.
Client exhales. Process continues 2 hours.

Focus of tattoo artist
Calm waves early light

Be the ink
Be the needle
Be the skin

Clear heart-mind healing skin
Ibuprofen 800 reduces wrist/hand swelling. Rest. Water.

Deserted beach, wave laughter, dawn light
Floating world islands remember current
Yoga posture
Healing energies

Orange sunset dives into blue green waves
Swim with
Courage laughter joy bliss and gratitude

Grow Your Soul - Prose and Poems from Laos & Cambodia

Luang Prabang, Laos

Sunday
Jun262016

The Temple of Complete Reality - TLC 85

Zeynep showed Lucky how to swim with gigantic sea turtles off Gili Air is-land. They did a sitting mediation deep in clear blue water reflecting surface sunbeams.

They practiced a slow walking meditation in soft sand.

They took three slow steps with “in” breath - arrived.

Three steps with “out” breath - home.

If your legs get heavy walk with your heart, she said. Everything we do is a meditation. One is one’s own refuge, who else could be the refuge?

They meditated on the process of their death.

Practice 10,000 times until you’ve got it, she said. Dive deep exploring underwater life below the surface of appearances.

Let’s have a little adventure.

I wove a magic carpet, Z said. Show me a place you remember. Let’s go.

They flew to The Temple of Complete Reality on Qinchengshan Mountain in Sichuan. It was a series of 2,000-year old Taoist temples in red orange yellow green autumn foliage.

Taoism’s home in China personified balance and harmony. They climbed for 2.5 hours. Cold winds on a clear day. They scampered up mossy stone steps and steep angled dirt paths through primal forests.  

They met Mountain Girl, ten, selling tea where a trail forked into forests. When you come to a fork in the path take it, she said. She joined them. She didn’t want anything. She wasn’t hustling. She lived in the mountain.

She diverted them away from whining obnoxious Han tourists.

She described medicinal plants and herbs. She fed them delicious yellow and red berries. Babbling tales about plants, trees, rivers and animals she shared a story about mountain spirits.

Once three men chased me through the forest. I met a snake. “Please help me escape from men chasing me,” I said to the snake. “It turned into a slim beautiful woman and said, ‘don’t be afraid. I will help you.’ 

“She took me down the mountain, saving me from the bad men. Then she turned back into a snake and disappeared into the forest.”  

 They explored a series of temples. Statues, incense, prayers and spirit energies. Inner and outer visions extended in four directions.

They shared rice, chicken, bread and water near the summit. Stone carved twin turtles and dragons guarded the entrance. The main temple was a reddish brown ornate rising sculpture. Crimson incense smoke curled into sky.

Four Chinese characters read:

Clouds circle this temple

Clouds know us by now, said Mountain Girl. 

They circumnavigated rising levels of experience on narrow wooden steps. Below them a golden statue of Lao Tzu rode a wild ox. Yin/Yang.

An old woman offered medallions of the cosmic symbol on red thread. Mountain Girl and Zeynep selected one to wear around their necks. They descended. Mountain girl fingered her threaded talisman.

They stopped at a temple for tea. A young nun washed teacups. “I’ve been here fifteen years. I clean, pray, read, meditate, talk with monks and travelers and do my work. I am focused on my goal.  My goal is to reach the root below the surface.”

 Her path was direct with heart-mind intention.

 They bought Mountain Girl food to take home and walked to her bike. He gifted her a white khata scarf from Tibet.

Zeynep gave her a hug. “Here’s a poem by Rumi.”

Your love lifts my soul from the body to the sky

And you lift me up out of the two worlds.

I want your sun to reach my raindrops,

So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.

“Thanks,” said Mountain Girl. “Every heartbeat is an eternal rhythm of universal possibilities. May you enjoy wonder, health, abundance, gratitude, and contentment.”

 

Nomad writer - Sichuan, China 

Saturday
Oct242015

Babble Fish - TLC 51

A Bursa schoolgirl waiting to be grilled maternal fish bait stood at a bus stop with a cell phone implanted in her cerebral cortex. Her mom connected, “Are you alive?”

“I dream I am a free person in a free country. I've escaped the tyranny of what if’s and maybes. I have grit.”

“Enough babble fish jack-o-lama-trauma,” said Zeynep. “Cut to the chase singing songs with abundance, wonder and gratitude."

Ms. Linguist picked Mr. I Love History up. They screwed. She dropped him off. He never paid now. He always paid later.

“Life gives you test first and the lessons later,” said Zeynep. “Blind love with a little luck is a never ending adventure.”

Stressed out over-medicated Turkish kids carried bags of fresh brown bread, black olives and poisoned red apples home to mommy dearest here’s something from my secret garden.