Voices

Greetings,

A man's voice from magnified speakers echoes down river on new year's day. He talks about what ifs and maybes. Exhortations about the dire need for clean drinking water, sanitation, education and medicine.

What is the significance of new year? Another day, another opportunity for talking animals to discuss, share and elaborate on gaseous topics like:

• how to mill around without causing damage to the environment
• how to wear a yellow "HELLO" cell phone t-shirt without a license
• how laughing orphans fill up a wheelbarrow with lost dreams
• how perpetually distracted humans face unpleasant facts
• how loose tongues are required to discuss, share, elaborate or mystify a woman slicing limes
• how three foreign female educators chew nails and contemplate new programs in circular fashion
• how humans will never escape 'art'
• how teams of ants try, try, try to maneuver a large piece of sugar candy up a steep cement mountain
• how an experienced bicycle traveller from Holland named Harold helps at the grassroots level to improve children's quality of life in Cambodian orphanages and Burmese refugee camps. How he eschews large organizations working directly with the people. 

How bullet points fly to a target.

On new year's day, the woman in her blue 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 dogs, baboons, balloons, clouds, clones and clowns.

She turns on the TV. She turns it really LOUD. Her daughters, 4, 6, are entranced and captivated by the visual circus. They never read books. The idiot box allows the kids, servants, tuk-tuk drivers, husband and foreign guests to give up their consciousness. Another diversion, another day, a new year day. April Fools!

New day, new diversion, people pretending to be busy.

Angkor Wat Hindu dancers in gold silk lame dresses with towering headdresses perform ancient dances. Apsara fingers, delicate movements. They celebrate seasons, fertility, rice, fish, nature, courtship, and joy. 

She is frail, about 80 with silver hair. She sits in front of her house. Her left hand rests on a cane. She wears a beautiful purple sarong with golden threads and a white lace blouse. Her daughter trims her hair above the left ear with shiny silver scissors. The woman's smile illuminates her tranquil face.

Metta.

Fools

Greetings,

I'm a fool weather I dance or not so I may as well dance. This is what one fool said to another fool.

They fooled around behind naked dark glasses studying human fool stupidity, volatility of desire's rampant manifestation inside a radiant energy field. Fools are particle colliders, small sub-atomic energetic expanding fields with a distinct glowing full moon dancing overhead.

Dancing fools practiced calligraphy with a calm open mind. Fools danced with silence between notes. The infinite white space is silence.

• it's clear because there is no meaning
• laughter forgets everything inside dawn's vapor
• a young girl remembers how to draw outside the lines
• a tongue quickly adapts to a violin
• colors become silent inside forests
• a wok needs heat to play the piano
• fireflies are dead relatives of stars remaining on Earth to help fools
• dancing memories create a new fiction
• sleep is popular among large groups of sheep
• destiny is determined without knowing
• a mountain and a sword create harmony
• whistling causes earthquakes
• a good fool is hard to find
• fools speak of joy and poverty's boredom with theoretical lightness
• how can we speak of joy on this dark suffering planet asked a fool
• how can we speak of anything else, said a fool. we've heard enough of despair
• 1984 is a reality in many countries where a woman carries the world on her back
• this is what some fools learned, dancing

Metta.

Opportunity Cost

Greetings,

The opportunity of being on location, scouting film destinations is how you become native. You speak in mono-syllables and sleep forever as long as forever is. Be resilent, strong, cunning, exiled in cast off pajama clothing with floral designs and cartoon characters from dead regimes.

Especially on a Sunday near blue flowing rivers wearing tattoos along its arms climbing over sun burned shoulders as a tall Jaguar reveals her skin song. Her French big game hunter takes his time scaling long limbs, drowning inside wild black eyes exploring a thin Apsara dancer neck smelling desire unlike pleasure, a source of suffering, pain and hatred hearing rainbow heartbeat, exploring mountains, clearing brush, lighting a fire as his dogs flush prey.

What you don't see is fascinating.

Orange sun fires trees. 
Six people on a cycle pass. 
A voice asks for help. 
A woman desperate for love/security frames her vision through SLR optic glass. 
Before and now mean the same.
A neglected girl learns how to sew in a safe environment. 
A silver spoon decorates glass with music. 
A young girl draws portraits with poise and serenity. 
A gardener waters yellow and purple orchids at dawn.  
A stranger sits in a local market.
Cui Weiping, a female Chinese literature professor prevented from attending an international poetry conference as punishment for believing in free speech.

Read more... 

Metta.

Angkor Draft

Greetings,

If I begin this dance by calling it Angkor Draft you may surmise it is about a local beer. It's not. While the beer is very popular with tourists and locals, the latter consuming huge quantities to cement construction deals, it's actually a urine based liquid reference favored by extremely thirsty red dust covered humans unloading huge packs with a weary sigh of relief. They've traveled far and wide to reach this epic point in their short sweet life. The average tourist will spend 3.5 days here and consume 9.6 large bottles of Angkor Draft.

As I wrote, in early January, I bought a 7-day pass for the Angkor Wat complex. This allowed for seven relaxed visits over a month's space-time. This was necessary due to the intensity of the experience. In advance I visited the Angkor National Museum to learn about the Khmer culture and Angkor. These entries are in the January Blog Archives. 

The Angkor image galleries are in a folder with a descending order of discovery. I began far away; specifically at Banteay Srei (9th C.) and The Roluos Group (8th C.) My last two visits included the main Angkor temple and the Bayon. I also revisited Preah Khan, Ta Som, Ta Prohm and Banteay Kdei. 

Angkor Wat was built in 1113. It is the largest religious monument in the world. It took over 30 years to complete and is dedicated to Vishnu. It is a symbol of the divine; Mount Meru in the center, surrounded by smaller peaks, courtyards (continents) and a huge moat (oceans).

After the 13th century it was a place of Buddhist worship. Extensive graphic wall galleries and carvings depict battles, regal processions, heaven and hell, and the Hindu creation epic "Churning The Sea of Milk," where gods and demons cooperate to create the elixir of immortality. Galleries also include battles between Devas and Asuras, and the Battle of Lanka.

Angkor reinforces the reality of small humans. How did I feel here? Serene. Impermanent, calm and centered. 

The Bayon is a three-tiered pyramid temple with 49 towers. Archeologists theorize the multitude of faces symbolize the god-king looking over the entire country. There are fine bas reliefs. My feeling was the immensity of energies and perspective. I avoided crowds and found solace and serenity in secluded places. The image below is an example. Not a single traveller exploring Western walls, courtyards or just sitting.

"You cannot photograph space," said a girl sitting in the shade.

All the temples offered deep surrounding forests, labyrinths, mazes, delightful discoveries and magical light-shadow play. Feel free to wander around at your leisure. Double-click on images to see larger visions. 

Angkor, Bayon and beyond...

Metta.

Blog dance

Greetings,

Let's dance. To the sound they're playing on the radio. Under the serious moonlight. Let's blog to the dance of letter-words.

There are 30 million bloggers in the states. Various states of confusion. Let's be various. Young people prefer social networks like Facebook (Fabulously Boring) and Twitter. Faster, shorter and easier. It's so exciting to live fast, short and easy. If I suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder, and everyone suffers from something because existence is suffering, I'd be a bird practicing social twittering. Kiss and type. 

Anxiety meets the tourist. They whisper, "I'm behind in getting my images up on Where Is My Face?" Once upon a space-dance there was a humbling life changing experience. Laughter was life learning dialogue.

I arrived hoping to teach at an isolated rural school 50km from Siem Reap. HOPE, the U.K. based charity organization sponsors the proposed school; My Grandfather's House. They require volunteers to have a criminal background check. As everyone knows, all-knowing, all powerful authorities do not issue this bureaucratic paper to aliens, nomads, misfits, vagabonds, itinerant weird genius teachers or other highly dubious life forms. So it goes.

I exist outside adult time.

Metta.