Light Language

A few poetic words about Kampot morning

Energies

Frequencies

Transmissions

Cool fresh dawn breeze

Swift lets in kitchen prepare bird nest soup using saliva

Boys tear down wedding celebration immaterial

after food, conversations, songs, dance concert

celebrations in narrow park garden

red bunting where loud happiness

spills into a brown river below a green silent mountain

Funky second-hand shop discovers Burmese cheroot

aha flashback to Mandalay market purveyor of rolled leaves

Dancing possibilities at dawn

Delicious stream-of-consciousness

Be invisible little angel of light

Have mercy

Wushu meditation

Comedy

Chanting monks flame orange voices

Ageless Vietnamese woman pushes wheeled trash treasures

Her spine curves toward tomorrow’s promise

Mystery light

Sensation perception intuitive

Line

Shape

Shading

Discernment

Detachment

Calligraphy

Breath

Line pressure

Sign language

Songlines

Optical Delusions

Illusions of separateness

No time

No space

Singularity

Life adventures – plot is a character looking for an author

Grow Your Soul

Landmines

“We are not here for a long time. We are here for a good time,” laughed Meaning, a twelve-year old survivor wearing a ragged Beware of Land Mines skull and crossbones t-shirt and prosthesis leg scampering a random life pattern across fields near a stilted bamboo home in Cambodia.

“Are you with us?” pleaded a landmine child survivor removing shrapnel with an old rusty saw after stepping in heavy invisible shit, “or are you against us?”

She’s been turned out and turned down faster than a housekeeper ironing imported Egyptian threaded 400-count linen. No lye.

The thermostat of her short sweet life seeks more wattage. She faces a severe energy shortage if she doesn’t find food.

She’s one of 26,000 men women and children maimed or killed every year by land mines from forgotten conflicts. Reports from the killing fields indicate 110 million land mines lie buried in 68 countries.

It costs $3.00 to bury a landmine.

It costs $300-$900 to remove a mine. It will cost $33 billion to remove them. It will take 1,100 years. Governments spend $200-$300 million a year to detect and remove 10,000 mines. Cambodia, Angola, Afghanistan and Laos are the most heavily mined countries in the world.

40% of all land in Cambodia and 90% in Angola go unused because of land mines. One in 236 Cambodians is an amputee.

*

Expanding her awareness of mankind’s genetic stupidity, Lucky showed Zeynep a Laos map illustrating Never-Never Land.

Lao Please Don’t Rush is the most heavily bombed country in history.

25% of villages in Laos are contaminated with UXO.

Upwards of 30% of the bombs dropped on Laos failed to detonate.         

80 million unexploded bombs remain in Laos.

More than half of the UXO victims are children.

*

Meaning hears children crying as doctors struggle to remove metal from her skin. She cannot raise her hands to cover her ears. Perpetual crying penetrates her heart. Tears of blood soak her skin.

The technical mine that took her right leg away one fateful day as she played near village rice paddies expanded outward at 7,000 meters per second. Ball bearings shredded everything around her heart-mind.

It may have been an American made M16A1, shallow curved with a 60-degree fan shaped pattern. The lethal range was 328 feet. Or maybe it was a plastic Russian PMN-2 disguised as a toy.

She never saw it coming after stepping on the pressure plate.

Fortunately or unfortunately she didn’t die of shock and blood loss. A stranger stopped the bleeding, checked her pulse and injected her with 200cc of morphine. Strangers in a strange land carried morphine.

*

Cut the heavy deep and real shit, said a female Banlung shaman.

Fear is a tough sell unless it’s done well, well done, marinated, broiled, stir-fried, over easy, or scrambled.

Fear is blissful ignorance.

Weaving A Life V 1

Ice Girl

  Red dust Banlung town turned windy.

Swirling quality gem stone particles and degrees of indifference spiraled through air.

Redwood slats covered open sewer drains.

  Locals watched Leo with curiosity and suspicion.

They stared from a deep vacuum.

When he made eye contact they glanced away with fear, uncertainty and doubt.

They didn’t see many strangers here.

They listened at 49% or less saying yeah, yeah with panache.

  Leo's questions were constantly repeated.

  Questions grew tired of repeating themselves.

This is so fucking boring, said one question.

We are abused. We are manipulated and rendered mute. Useless.

It's a test, said another question. Patience is our great teacher.

I’ll try, said another question.

Yes, said a question, these non-listeners

have a distinct tendency to say more

and say it louder when they’re leaving,

when their back’s turned away from eye contact and potential real communication.

I’ve seen that too, said a question, who, until this moment had remained silent.

My theory is that it’s because of the genocide and fear. It’s also a delicate mixture of stupidity or indifference, said another question. Why is the most dangerous quest-ion, said one.

  Can you explain, asked a question.

Sure, people ran away to survive. People started running and others would ask them a question like

why are you running, who’s chasing you, where are you going

or what’s the matter or when

did you become afraid or why don’t you

stay longer and the one running would keep going

trailing abstract question words behind them

like memories or disembodied spirits or molecules of indifferent breath.

I see, said a question.

That explains it. Yes, said a question. Being correct is never the point. Tell me why oh my.

Ice Girl in Banlung

Chunchiet

The Chunchiet animist people bury their dead in the jungle. Life is a sacred jungle.

  Animists believe in the universal inherent power of nature world. The Tompoun and Jarai, among animist world tribes have sacred burial sites. 

  The Kachon village cemetery is one hour by boat on the Tonle Srepok River from Voen Sai near Banlung. It is deep in the jungle. You need permission from the village chief to visit.

  I was there.

  The departed stays in the family home for five days before burial. Once a month family members make ritual sacrifices at the site.

  The village shaman dreams the departed will go to hell. In their spirit story dream the shaman meets LOTH, Leader of the Hell who asks for an animal sacrifice. The animist belief says sacrificing a buffalo and making statues of the departed will satisfy LOTH. It will renew the spirit and return it to the family.

  After a year family members remove old structures, add two carved effigies, carve wooden elephant tusks, create new decorated roofs and sacrifice a buffalo at the grave during a festive week-long celebration with food and rice wine for the entire village. 

  New tombs have cement bases and carved effigies with cell phones and sunglasses. Never out of touch.

  See your local long distance carrier for plans and coverage in your area. The future looks brighter than a day in a sacred jungle.

  Fascinating, said Leo, a shaman monk from Tibet.

  Walking is the best form of travel, said Rita. Take your time quickly. How did you get here?

  Leo said: By walking. The paved road from Pakse, Laos to NE Cambodia is for tourist buses.

Grow Your Soul

Spin Your Wheels

I have a spaceship here in SR.

It’s disguised as an old reliable small black Japanese made folding bike with 20” wheels and five gears.

It cost 50 bones a year ago at the used bike market across town or, if space travel is your lingo, across the universe. It’s fun to spin the wheels.

Considering many Khmer vehicle operators have a death wish, riding the bike is more akin to playing Russian roulette in traffic. Slow is the mantra.

While walking is the preferred way to travel especially for street photography the bike is fun.

Every kid needs a bike.

Like Laos, it’s a motorcycle culture here with many young immature zombies talking on phones while driving at high speeds.

Caution is advised. Traffic laws are nonexistent.

You do see the occasional partial roadblock by police when they stop drivers w/o helmets.

The tender gravity of kindness says howdy hi howdy ho.

Buddhist Khmer are soft and gentle. They live in the now. The advantage is being present.

The challenge for them is to focus on more than one thing at a time. This unpleasant fact is illuminated by their dopamine addiction to phones + everyone talking at once w/o comprehension. Embrace chaos.

Gadgets make great babysitters.

For the majority it’s about entertainment distractions not information.

Relationships here are like adopting a child.

All the adults need childlike supervision.