dance

A young woman with delicate hands, perfect posture, a five pointed gold star painted on her forehead and scuffed white ballet slippers waiting for the train turned to me.

Did you hear Mercy Cunningham, the dancer died?

No. What have you heard?

I study dance, that’s how I know. He was amazing. Dance is all about ambiguity, poetry, and acceptance. He had independent detachment. He had creative imagination. He said dance was isolated yet cooperating and independent. And, he said, because he believed in the magic of dance, that when you dance for a fleeting moment you feel alive.

What do you see? I asked. I see a circle of movement. A connected unity, a language in space. It’s more than that, said a one legged amputee leaning against the wall, There are five rhythms in dance.

You start with a circle, it’s a circular movement from the feminine container. She is earth.

Really? said the woman. Yes, then you have a line, from the hips moving out. This is the masculine action with direction. He is fire.

Chaos is next, a combination of circle and lines where the male and female energies interact. This is the place of transformation.

I see. And then, after chaos is the lyrical, a leap, a release. This is air. And the last element of dance is stillness. Out of stillness is born the next movement.

  

Papa Neutrino

Greetings,

Mr. Neutrino floated away on his raft. Before sailing away he left some instructions. He believed in human potential, joy, creativity and freedom. 

Metta.

YOUR THREE DEEPEST DESIRES (or YOUR 3 TOP PRIORITIES)

1. If you could only do one more thing before you die, what would it be? In order to answer this, you must set aside all considerations of whether you think you CAN do it or not, how much time it would take, what kind of efforts or money would be needed, etc., and especially what anyone else would think. Simply assume for the purpose of this MENTAL exercise, that you WILL be able to do whatever it is you name, but that as soon as you've completed it, your life is over. It's the ONLY thing you're going to do. Write your answer down, with the date. 

2. Now, by special grace, and because you are moving toward the one thing you want most, you are going to get to do a second thing, in addition. What would it be? Write that down, as number 2.

3. And, finally, you are given an opportunity for a third and last thing, in addition to your first and second choices. Write it down as well.

OK, now you've found your top three desires in life, at least for now. Don't worry if the answers are different tomorrow, the important thing right now is just to ask and answer from as deep a place as possible.

Next, you are going to rate your seven levels. You might want to print out the Seven Levels description for easy reference.

RATING YOUR SEVEN LEVELS

This process is going to give your unconscious mind information about your own personal evaluation of how your life is going for you on each of your seven levels. You are going to rate each level as it is now, today, based on a scale of 1-10.

The 10 is your own personal best that you have ever experienced in each level, whether it was a single peak experience or a particularly good and satisfying time period, whether it is now or at some time in the past. If this is the first time you have done this rating, you will need to think a little and name to yourself when that 10 was, picture it as fully as you can, so you know clearly what your 10 is in each level.

Then compare this to where you feel you are now in each level, and give your present status a number. Do not use any ideal or theoretical experiences as your 10, nothing you've read about or hoped for, only what you personally have actually experienced. From time to time you will have experiences that go beyond your present 10, creating a new benchmark for comparison.

Write down your present rating numbers for each level.  1. Instinctive - 2. Sexual - 3. Imitative - 4. Emotional - 5. Intellectual - 6. Higher Emotional - 7. Higher Intellectual - Read more...

Bubble Life

Greetings from a sleepy little town down south along the mighty Mekong,

After finding a pillow and delicious local cold java swimming in a glass you get a hair cut and your ears cleaned.

It's essential, as we've said previously, from China, Vietnam, Cambodia and now Laos to relax.

Sit back close your eyes hearing the whirling overhead fan rotating like helicopter rotor blades over rapid cobalt rivers inside deep forested green jungles, skimming granite mountains, swooping toward rice valleys allowing a thin man with shiny silver tools to clean, vibrate, scrape, identify, probe, assess, magnify, illustrate and remove old historical debris, leaves, brooms, the click-clack of shuttles, blue and yellow butterflies, children's laughter, language acquisition cycles, tonal frequencies, vibrational shifts and so forth.

A new marveLaos gallery is live.

http://tmleonard.squarespace.com/marvelaos/

It contains clouds, art, design, black & white, wats, paper making, rice threshing, weavers, kids and big serious humans.

The Luang Prabang airport has one simple concrete runway. The control tower needs a coat of paint.

There are two gates. A French tourist is worried because their boarding pass has a big number approaching infinity. "We only have two gates," said the serene and helpful girl behind a desk.

"Oh, my goodness," said the tourist holding a can of white paint and a brown sable hair brush. "I was so worried I wouldn't get home for Christmas. I mean I was feeling so anxious and neurotic and lost and dazed and confused and sullen and tired and suddenly I felt comfortable in a calm way knowing I will realize my vacation dream and paint a control tower at a small airport in Asia." 

"Be a work of art or wear a work of art," said the smiling girl, or, as Picasso asked, "what is color?"

Metta.

Paper is an essential part of Lao life. The art of paper is in the making, using, honoring paper in the community and burning paper to honor ancestors. Artists use white fibers from plant stems to make paper. To soften it they mix it with ash and soak it in wood fired 55 gallon drums. They pound it to a pulp. The woman spreads fibers over a screen. It is dried in the sun and used to create tactile textured paper books, umbrellas, bags, cards, lanterns, envelopes and airport control towers.

Cloe and Younn

Greetings,

I'm sitting in the market drawling in my Moleskine. Three travelers sit and sketch their environment. They use pencil, ink, watercolor pens and cool tools. They are excellent. Many Khmer people, as is all too common, just sit and stare. A few curious ones wander over to see the creativity. 

The next day I am drawing and Cloe, one of the French artists stops by for a chat. She and Younn, her boyfriend artist left France for year of total land travel. 

"We went south to the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Iran and across Central Asia to China, Mongolia, back to China, bought bikes and rode to Laos, now Cambodia then we go to Thailand and south to Malaysia, then eventually to Australia."

How was Iran? "It was great. We hardly ever stayed in a hostel. The people invited us into their homes. The culture and art and history is amazing. Everyone was friendly and kind and helpful. They talked about everything. They were totally connected and engaged with the world. We felt really safe and secure."

We exchanged links. You can read their French blog and see Younn and Cloe's amazing art from their travels. 

chez Younnecloe

Metta.

Random Connections

Greetings,

After living in a small sleepy little southern Cambodian river town for four point five months doing my work, I've shifted my base to another small, yet slightly larger, little northern river town in the now a days.

It feels good to be exploring new geography, engaging the senses, observing energies. I found a room in a rural area outside of town in a family compound along the brown river. Go with the flow. It's the perfect zen zone for gardening and writing. Playing in dirt and rearranging sentences.

No internet. This means fewer entries for now. My focus is on more extensive creative work. It reminds me of living in remote Spanish mountains immediately after 9.11 while working on the literary memoir. Writng every morning and climbing in the Sierra Grazalema mountains every afternoon. Balance. 

There, I'd jump on a local bus into Ronda at random to see electronic communications, blog and post images. Here, I really wanted to get a big black Hummer with tinted windows so my neighbors would be impressed, shocked and amazed by my ostentatious lifestyle, however, I will frugally settle for a small black bike with a bell, basket and generator light. Low tech, efficient and fun. Traveling at the speed of a single rotation.

You are a fluke of the universe. Take advantage of it. Being disconnected from the distraction of the web is a cosmic comic blessing. 

Metta.