spoooky

Warrior Spirit

His pale skin outlined bones. His blue eyes were radiant and clear.

I opened the veil. Snow sky, flying clouds and soaring birds.

“What day is it?” he said.  

“Saturday.”

Icicles melted along a roof edge. Drops reflected rainbows. Across the valley a laughing father and son shoveled spring snow off stonewalls.

“May I have more ice please?”

I spooned comfort. Sky eyes rested on my face. I handed him a long piece of Gringsing, a sacred healing cloth from Bali with a story about its creation.

“It’s lovely,” he said, running thin purple vein fingers over fabric.

“I love you,” I said.

I breathed in his suffering and exhaled my love.

Feeling no pain he rested. We talked about roses, seeds, seasons, English gardens and nature. We sat quiet holding hands.

A spoon of ice comforted his dry lips. His manners never ceased, always a “thank you” for simple sweet essential ice.

Our visit was rich in quiet contemplation. His mind was alert. His thoughts flowed quick and easy. He’d pause and stare away when I opened veils. Dawn light. Afternoon light. Twilight. Sky clarity.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, a smile creasing his sallow face.

He was now. Marian and my brother Tom shared their comfort and love.

“Two things start to go when you’re over fifty,” he said. “One is your mind and I can’t remember what the other thing is.”

His warrior spirit moved on with a clear vision. His spirit accepted all. I was content to be present. Grateful to be with him seeing his joyful face, feeling his soft hands, rubbing his facial stubble and massaging worn skin.

I witnessed his joy, reflective spirit and letting go with dignity, authenticity and silence. Sharing green grapes, water and ice he said, “You know, it’s not about death, no,” shrugging thin shoulders.

His swollen left hand passed over his skeleton frame like a shaman. “It’s strange, how fast the energy is leaving me.”

“Yes, death doesn’t bother me. It’s just the energy started leaving quicker than I imagined. Still, I never imagined I would live this long. I thought maybe 72 or 73 years, so I never imagined I would live this long.” 

His voice and vision was strong.

“Sweet dreams, dear father,” kissing lips and forehead. I hugged his left arm and shoulder feeling bones. “Thank you for a fine lovely day.”

Bless his heart full of goodness, compassion and light. I read a letter to him about how I appreciated his love, kindness and virtues.

“You always were a dreamer,” he said.

Yes, always to be a dreamer, how in his heart, his truth comforted me.

For three days we cried, laughed, sharing stories knowing in our hearts it was a letting go. Our love was perfect.

I held his hand, rubbing his thin back and legs, tickling his toes, “Oh, no you don’t,” he laughed squirming. I rubbed his cheeks, kissing his forehead.

Our time together was pure. We understood the process of letting go without desire or attachment. Clarity and wisdom blessed us.

I returned to Tacoma. On May 8^th I was coaching tennis students. At 9:08 a.m. I stopped. I knew he was gone. I returned to Colorado.

A shift. Family and friends gathered for his passing ceremony. Candles and words illuminated his life light.

“He had a warrior spirit with a diamond mind. His path of light and love was a path of perfection. He demonstrated ethical and moral guidance. He allowed us the freedom to surrender old fears and habits, enabling us to cut through the net of ignorance. He was grounded in luminosity. His warrior spirit was resilient and spiritual. He has crossed the river of time. We discovered the strength to let you go. We remain blessed by your spirit.”

ART Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Feed Love

“Years ago, I broke a bunch of roses

From the top of his wall

A thorn from that is still in my palm

Working deeper.”

- Rumi

“I almost wish it were true,” said my father in our final visit, April 1999. He was 77.

I opened a bedroom curtain so he could see a radiant blue sky and free birds.

Sitting in the garden I burned incense and fed sparrows as green spring blossoms gestured beginning. Calm non-attachment. No desire. Breathing in – out with diamond mind clarity. Love and letting go.

“May I have more ice please?” he said.

I needed to break it up. In his red tool box under the yellow shelf in the kitchen where I was half-beaten to death by a crazy woman in a wheelchair were steel crescent wrenches.

I selected the heaviest one with the widest aperture. It was well oiled and ready. The small wheel turned slow scraping my fingers down to the bone. I rolled destiny’s wheel closing the vise, narrowing space with bleeding fingers. Rolling The Wheel of Time.

Turning the cold steel wheel I remembered ceremonies in Bali: Painters creating on canvas, wood carvers chipping at unexplored rough textures and a wife weaving an intricate basket of reeds into an offering filled with sweet smelling jasmine flowers surrounding a mountain of rice. Lighting incense, she placed her daily ceremonial devotion in family compound corners to thwart demons and appease gods.

I absorbed daily acts of creativity and love in Bali. Everyday was a celebration in magic light. Twilight faded dark blue below pregnant skies. Rain slashed across jungles blasting calm surfaces of rice paddies. Runoff music exploded soil. A farmer stood in the deluge. His misty figure raised a wooden heirloom hoe into the sky. He released human thunder into wet soil. He turned over an exposed part of the planet. Rain slowed.

Shadow figures evolved from jungles chopping off paddy edges, hoeing soil, gathered dry wood and dead brush. Children sang on a dirt path going home from school.

Across a ravine on a mid-level terrace a farmer trailing oxen yanked iron in an arc turning beasts in a slow slog through mud. Flocks of white herons layered sky.

I dumped ice from a plastic tray on a small towel. I folded cotton threads as if folding a love letter, his bone white dress shirt and monogramed handkerchief. I curled fingers around the cold heavy wrench. I smashed crystals of frozen water into diamonds.

Everything collapsed. My daily celebration felt the heaviness. My heart accepted the doing and being. I hammered down, folded cloth, pulverizing cubes. I wiped blood on cloth streaking red. I funneled ice into a blue ceramic bowl. I put the wrench down and selected a small silver spoon.

I fed my father spoonfuls of clear white ice.

I fed him love. 

ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Laos

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

Khmer New Year

On New Year’s Day a Kampot guesthouse mother in blue cotton teddy bear pajamas decorates the family altar with cans and bottles of soft drinks, coconuts, durian, perfume, two crystal glasses of milk, candles, candy, bread, rice, oranges, apples, water, incense, photos of dead relatives, cockroaches, howling vicious canines, baboons, balloons, clouds, clones and clowns.

She has a terrible temper. Genetic truth. She is one of a million plain sad angry women. She turns on the TV. LOUD. Her daughters, 4, 6, are entranced and captivated by the visual circus. They never read books.

This is weird because their father was a bookseller in the capital for six years. What happened to literature, what happened to paper, books and education?

Now he sleeps alone having performed his sexual duty, rents out rooms and roars around the forgotten river town on a soaped up 125cc noise machine to alleviate his boredom, spinning his intellectual wheels, pretending to be important making noise, stirring up dust.

Survivors read empty streets on swivel necks. Survivors read food. Survivors read money. Survivors read blank faces in rear view mirrors. Survivors fall in love with their reflection pretending it is real. Hello Beauty. Survivors read the sky for rain.

Survivors read mad dogs yapping, growling, fighting and fucking in the middle of empty black streets without electricity. Screaming survivors read kick boxers killing each other on television. Survivors read their face squeezing pores in a bike mirror Waiting For Godot.

A guesthouse idiot box and cell phones allow the kids, servants, tuk-tuk drivers, families and foreign rats their big chance to give up their consciousness. Another distraction, another day on new years day.

April fools is a new day, replete with new diversions and new superficial heart breaking distractions of immense random chance as people pretend to be busy. Pretending to be busy is a full time job with no social security benefits.

People sing we are pretending to be exactly who we are because we have no initiative or incentive or ambition. We are the offspring of genocide survivors in a fairy tale. Tra-la-la.

On new year TV scream day Angkor Wat Hindu dancers in gold lame silk dresses with towering headdresses perform ancient rituals. Apsara fingers, delicate hand and finger food movements. They celebrate 1,000 tears and years of seasons, fertility, rice, fish, nature, courtship and joy. They are dancing storytellers.