the center cannot hold

Blindness danced on through late yellow faltering light penetrating bamboo leaves spreading themselves over banana baskets impaled on swinging posts. Literally.

Nearby, a quiet young girl watched the Vietnamese girl do her toenails. Cutting, trimming, lemon/lime soak, cuticles, clear before applying a silver-hued glossy glean.

Nail by nail.

In a Fujian, Chinese university classroom an angry undersexed, overworked teacher yelled, "the bent nail gets hammered down." - 80 comatose students understood her implication. Keep your mouth shut. Do not express your individuality and above all do not question authority.

Authority will SHAME you in public. They will execute your parents and burn down your house. They will exile you to a Reform-through-re-education work unit where you will haul shit for years and tears.

Blindness solved the mystery of sight, crying tears of silence.

A van of blank faced stupefied white Europeans trapped behind stained glass held their rampant desires and expectations on laps. Fidgeting as uncomfortable languages floated into inner ear canals.

Assaulting their long painful strides navigating tomorrow's promise.

Blindness resolved to practice the subtle art of Tai-chi with precision.

Movement.

A dance.

A watermelon. Circle, sever center.

Slowly push the edges out from the center.

The center cannot hold.

My new little life - TLC 69

Whew, what a first week it was for my little existence, my little humanoid adventure. I began a new strange scary awkward weird and transforming evolutionary experience in two big human’s lives.

I begin at the beginning. It’s a start.

I fell out of my mom a female production company last week. Talk about letting go. She was big and fat and released me after pushing and pushing and she exhaled an infantile projection of freedom feeling her painful release and my pleasure with shock and awe as I came slathering, slipping through some universal ectoplasm fluid, like a gusher, whoosh, into millions of bright shining suns.

A crescendo of angels, luminous spirits, formless forms and shapes swirled like whirling Sufi dervishes in light waves and particles. Such splendor. My last nine months did little to prepare me or allow me to know anything.

I was born dead and slowly came to life.

My tiny black eyes welcomed light energy into my being. I am a galaxy.

Mesmerizing.

I am an Eagle nebula, a gathering of space dust melding, morphing into a solid state, a unified field theory. I am beside myself with wonder and delight. I joined seven billion in the stream of life.

Did you know that the world is made up of 98% helium and hydrogen?

The remaining atom particles are life and inside these atoms a very small part of that is intelligence.

The rest of the pyramid is garbage. Existence precedes essence.

What was your original face before your parents were born?

The Language Company

Players

Players enter the stage.

Speak their lines or silent.

Perform their actions and leave the stage through a door in the back.

The door leads to a garden.

The garden leads into...

Smile. We will help you practice.

See the Beauty and Cruelty without hope or fear.

The Middle Way - detachment and wisdom.

Our perceptions are empty.

Suffering is an illusion.

Passion and process.

It existed somewhere between an object and a concept.

learn in burma

Give us the fifty daze M-F 5:30 a.m. short van trip to CAE, the private school in Mandalay where you helped 10th graders become more human with humor and curiosity. July - October 2015.

One class from 6-7, another from 7-8.

Four male teachers left starlight and climbed into the van. Three were morose. Too early.

Their dialogue mentioned sleep disorders, international menus and the quality of their shits.

One Black guy muttered about Kuala Lumpur fast food choices while cursing mosquitos and smashing them on windows.

The others talked about teaching adventures in China.

Exciting.

Yeah, I’m going to miss them like you miss a rock in your shoe.

I understand your student-teachers rearranged desks into groups to facilitate sharing. You played jazz, blues and classical music. They drew and colored their dream in creative notebooks. Daily.

Yes. Head – hand – heart.

I reminded them their creative notebooks would sustain them for years, long after the textbooks gather dust. Long after they vomited material to pass a test. Get marks.

Give me specifics.

My room was the only team-building configuration. The other teachers maintained rigid rows of wooden benches where students hearing a dull lecture stared at the back of someone’s head.

The Black guy mumbled. They replaced him with a dour scholar from Papa New Genie.

One British teacher lectured from the book and played cartoons.

A drawling American teacher projected The Star Spangled Banner lyrics on a screen and had the class recite words.

You’re kidding me. I wish I was.

You could hear the parrots…”Oh say can you see…”

Our team-groups shared ideas prior to discussing diverse topics improving their speaking confidence.

In his final class Southern Comfort had them singing “Jingle Bells.”

Boughs of folly. Oh yeah.

My geniuses played a round-robin chess tournament the final two days. Great fun.

They’d practiced chess every Thursday and Friday for a month. They focused on tactics, strategy, activating pieces off the back row, castling, attacking through the center.

They developed critical thinking skills, planning and logic, problem solving, accepting responsibility for their decisions, respecting their opponent and sharing ideas with friends.

Life skills 101.