long distance? give me information...

In a remote Cambodian jungle village along The River of Darkness they carve images of their dead.

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. It is deep in the jungle. Many go in. Few come out.

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 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 is brighter than a day in a sacred jungle.  

accept loss forever

He saw his first , or maybe second, it only takes a second, Cambodian woman with a prosthetic leg. The majority minus arms and legs or fingers and hands are men and kids. Kids love to play with buried things. Dirt play.

Today it was her turn. 

It was her gait. How she dragged the drab olive green right leg behind her.

It reminded her of a lost conversation where one whispers more than they know. More than they can reveal. Truth be said.

She was maybe 40. Give or take a moment.

It was a moment years ago when she stepped on the invisible mine. What you don't see is fascinating. Her story evolved into family taking care of her after they heard the explosion. After it rained dirt, rice, weeds, tears, light, broken clouds, false dreams, expectations, celebrations and musical thunder notes.

A doctor. Blood. Pain. Loss. Tears and memory comforted her. She absolved her faint quick belief in Buddha beyond all the mysteries.

After she went to Siem Reap she got her new artificial leg at Cambodian Handicap.

If her husband and family rejected her then she ended up in the city, like today, sitting on a sidewalk offering handmade bags and bracelets or selling her sorrow and loss and smile and understanding among friends and polite distant tourists afraid to look her in the eye. Later, she dragged it through night comforted by the fact it was a long way from her heart.

If your legs get heavy walk with your heart.

 

Dialect of love

“I am an old dialect of Kalapuya tribes. I respect the spirit energies. I hear with my eyes and see with my ears. I understand your love for the spirit power guardian. I am an ancestor speaking 300 languages from our history. Now only 150 dialects remain.

“A hunting gathering people, speaking Pentian, we numbered 3,000 in 1780. We believed in nature spirits, vision quests and guardian spirits. Our shamans, called, amp a lak ya taught us how seeking, finding and following one’s spirit or dream power and singing our song was essential in community.

“I speak in tongues, in ancient dialects about love. Dialects of ancestors who lived here for 8,000 years before where you are now. In the forest near the river all animal spirits welcome you with their love. They are manifestations of your being.

“I am blessed to welcome you here. You have walked along many paths of love to reach me.

“My dirt path is narrow and smooth in places, rocky in others. I am the soil under your feet. I feel your weight, your balance—your weakness and your strength. I hear your heart beating as my ancestors pounded their ceremonial drums. I feel the tremendous surging force of your breath extend into my forest. Wind accepts your breath.

“I am everything you see, smell, taste, touch, and hear. I am the oak, the fir and pine trees spread like dreams upon your outer landscape. I am your inner landscape. I see you stand silent in the forest hearing trees nudge each other.

“Look,” they say, “someone has returned.”

“I love the way you absorb the song of brown body thrush collecting moss for a nest. I am the small brown bird saying hello. I am the sweet throated song you hear without listening. At night two owls sing their distant song and their music fills your ears with mystery and love.

“I am warm spring sun on your face filtered through leaves of time. I am the spider’s web dancing with diamond points of light. I am the rough fragile texture of bark you gently remove before connecting the edge of an axe with wood. You carry me through my forest, your flame creates heat of love. I am the taste of pitch on your lips, the odor of forest in your nostrils, filling your lungs. It is sweet.

“I am the cold rain, and wet snow, and hot sun, and four seasons. I am yellow, purple, red, blue, orange flowers from brown earth.

“Language cannot be separated from who you are and where you live.

“I say this so you will remember everything in this forest. I took care of this place and now your love has the responsibility.

“Respect and dignity with mindfulness.”

memory 5, 2

this is memory 5. let's see what we don't know through a turkish lens. light and angle. a woman waiting at sophia for someone she's dreamed of in a future arranged marriage, a boy at a sewing machine, an old man walking, a shaft of light on a carpet, yellow pipes and a white cloud at a metro stop, a door surrounded by stone, arches, a halloween ghost. 

this is memory 2. a mudanya baker with his art, a fisherman repairing a net, empty oilve cans, shoes and yellow wall, pans waiting for burnishing, farm tools. life is simple in turkey. 

The sky is Falling

On an edge of planet Earth spinning in a galaxy,

Countries adjusted advertising concepts of insecurity.

They sold Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, Adventure and Surprise.

Consumers washed it down with a super-sized sugared sixteen-ounce big gulps.

Populations accepted multiple real and imaginary nightmares of unknown caloric proportions.

The sky is falling. Love is in the air. Run for cover.

Really? 

 The Children's Hospital in Siem Reap has 22 beds in one room. They are full. They are filled with infants and children wearing air hoses in their nose. They suffer from pneumonia and tuberculosis. This is common in Cambodia. A parent holds a tiny hand.

 I.C.U. has five beds. They are full.

400 mothers cradling kids wait to see a nurse. The nurse can dispense five medicines. Cheap generic pain killers.

Life is a pain killer.

Two drugs are generic placeboes. The mothers are happy to get SOMETHING, anything. They have no knowledge about medicine.

One effective pill prescribed by a doctor costs $1.00. Parents need to buy 15. 

$15.00 is a fortune. Out of the question. Parents accept cheap ineffective drugs.

Parents need a miracle.

How much does a miracle cost?