Practice 10,000 times

Zeynep in Bursa taught me how to swim with gigantic sea turtles.

We practice a sitting mediation. We practice a walking meditation. When you walk you become nobody. If your legs get heavy walk with your heart, she said. We meditated on our death.

Everything we do is a meditation. Practice 10,000 times until you’ve got it, she said.

Dive deep exploring coral and underwater life below the surface of appearances.

Let’s have a little adventure, I said to Zeynep.

I wove a magic carpet, she said. Let’s go.

We flew to the Temple of Complete Reality on Qinchengshan Mountain in Sichuan. It is a 2,000-year old series of Taoist temples in red orange yellow green autumn foliage.

Taoism’s home in China is balance and harmony in nature. We climbed for 2.5-hour in green hills, mountains, and clouds knowing us by now, feeling strong cold winds on a clear day. We caressed old stone steps and steep angled paths through old growth.  

We climbed through primal forests with Mountain Girl, ten. She sold tea near a trail fork. We didn’t ask her to guide us. She attached herself to us. She didn’t want anything. She wasn’t hustling anything. She lived onthe mountain, not below the mountain.

She diverted us away from whining Chinese. She pointed out medicinal plants and herbs in meadows, showing us delicious wild yellow and red berries. She babbled stories about the forest, plants, trees, rivers and animals. 

She shared a story about mountain spirits. Three men chased her through the forest. She met a snake.

“Please help me escape from men chasing me.”

“It turned into a slim beautiful woman.”  

“Don’t be afraid. I will help you.”  

“She took me down the mountain, saving me from the bad men. Then she turned back into a snake and disappeared into the forest.”  

We climbed through a series of temples. Statues, incense, prayers and spirit energies. Inner and outer visions extended in four directions.   

We shared rice, chicken and bread near the summit.  

Twin turtles with dragonheads guarded the entrance. The main temple was a reddish brown ornate rising sculpture. Large crimson incense smoke curled into sky.

Four Chinese characters reflected light.

Clouds circle this temple.

We circumnavigated levels of experience on narrow wooden steps. On the main level was a gigantic gold statue of a Lao Tzu riding a wild ox. Yin/Yang.

An old woman offered medallions of the cosmic symbol on red thread. Mountain girl and Zeynep selected one. They put it around their necks. We descended. Mountain girl fingered her threaded treasure. She was a treasure for us.

We stopped at a temple for tea. A young nun washed teacups. “I’ve been here fifteen years. I clean, pray, read, meditate, talk with monks and travelers, and do my work. I am focused on my goal.  My goal is to reach the root below the surface.”

Her awareness is direct with heart-mind intention.

In twilight we bought Mountain Girl food to take home and walked to her bike. I gifted her a white khata scarf from Tibet.

Zeynep gave her a poem by Rumi.

Your love lifts my soul from the body to the sky

And you lift me up out of the two worlds.

I want your sun to reach my raindrops,

So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.

“Thanks,” said Mountain Girl. She smiled and zoomed away.

Every heartbeat is an eternal rhythm of universal possibilities.

“We went up. We went down,” said Zeynep, after we returned to Bursa, breathing through tribal masks.

“What kind of mask? Is it hand carved from memories?” 

“Masks are symbolic manifestations in primitive cultures,” she said. “Mask dance is a shamanic ritual, a dance trance. Wearing a mask you become the thing you fear the most, your basic human nature. Masks hide a human’s consciousness of fear.

“Dance is about process, becoming. Destroy Time. Shiva symbolizes the union of space and time and destruction. Dance is an ancient form of magic. People wear masks to hide their transformation, seeking to change their dancer into a god or demon. Dance is the incarnation of eternal energy. You see them everyday, everywhere. Have the courage to be natural with your mask. The entire universe is a vast theatre. The two critical elements of intelligence are humor and curiosity. Do you remember James Joyce, how he went into exile with silence and cunning?”

“Yes. He knew how to put seven little words in order. He was a cunning linguist. He said, ‘everything I do is an experiment.’”

“So it is. Your ability to imagine and scheme and deceive is raw instinct,” she said. “It separates you from lower life forms like apes, plankton and sea enemies-anemone (fish eating animals) and androgynous androids in the deep subconscious. Writers lie for a living. Literature is the best way to make fun of people. They treat their mental illness every day. They say what others are afraid to say. Being a writer is like having homework every day.”

“We are the only animals who laugh,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “and we are the only animals who know we are going to die. We imagine our death, our mortality. This fills some with dread, psychological neurosis, lack of purpose. For others it’s a release, a joy, and a dance. Freedom is unconditional. I was born laughing.”

“I was born dead and slowly came to life. Are you a clown? Perhaps a clown fish?” I asked.

“Look in your dream mask mirror,” she said. “Not all the clowns are in the circus.”

“Under this mask, another mask. I will never be finished removing all these faces.”

“Let’s dance. Let’s meditate on the process of death.”

My name is Beauty. Death is my mother. I have no tongue.

Your mask eats your face.

Martha's Zen Card

I am a short story.

You are a novel.

It never occurred to Matt to buy indigenous cultural music while traveling.

Martha his girl friend considered it essential.

Music made her edgy and alive.

When she heard music she danced.

She returned to her primitive self.

She danced naked.

Ballet. Flamingo. Tango. Cha-cha. Lambada. Waltz.

He wrote naked verbs. They loved naked. Naked cherished syllable skin music.

They wrote, danced and lived like they were dead.

One day they would be. It's now or never.

They were free. It's the way to be.

Culture is what you are. Culture means you can forget.

Nature is what you can be.

People are nature's tools.

Passing through Body Sat Quiet in Asia on a three week, “Look, don't think” holiday from frozen Europe they happened into an 8th century tourist town music repository.

They smelled music before they saw it. Seeing music is an art form. Synesthesia.

In music like life, the end of the composition is not the point.

A music boy handed Matt an orange book. Write your melodic request here. Matt opened the book. A vignette floated free.

A Cambodian orphan girl popped out of blank pages: I am sorry. Goodbye and good luck to you and your family. These are our famous words. Big vocabulary. Tongues speak. Small life. Big chance. Yeah. Yeah.

Hunger Angel watched 24/7 in the big leagues.

Sanitation workers in green environmental vests with broom music swept streets for the New Year. Make it new. Make it new.

We should be so lucky to have crystal clean sheets.

Every day is anew year.

One day is like a minute.

One minute is like a day.

That's relativity. All my relatives are dead.

Never trust an atom. They make up everything.

When you know what you don't know you realize moral character with social intelligence, integrity, and courage.

Courage is an unknown word in our head and heart. Running away is our way. Everyday I have the blues. No one loves me but my mother and she could've been lying too.

You absolve in the rhythm when you have adequate life experience.

Silence and hunger are identical naked twins.

Fear and Ignorance produced Expectation & Greed.

I am good at two things:

Eating and sleeping.

Fighting and fucking.

Laughing and crying.

Reading and writing? That's for idiots.

The less I do the fewer mistakes I make, said Insecurity.

The fewer mistakes I make the less I am criticized, said Fear.

We know the essence of survival. Keep your fucking mouth shut.

One day, Bliss's part-time lover said, buy me a TV.

NO.

You have a job, a TV, a mother, a 12-year old daughter, two brothers, no father and no husband. I gave you money to buy a bike for your daughter and she lost it, money for clothes, money for medicine, money for food, money for temporary naked lust and currency sobriety. You play me for a sentimental fool. You're fucking crazy.

Her arrival was sporadic at best. She visited randomly at 8:37 for a shower, fucking and another shower.

He explored her lips, thin neck, small ears, crest of skin throat, narrow brown shoulders, pinpoint breasts with tongue talk, flat belles letters, long legs and played his way into her valley of potential.

He loved giving her oral pleasure.

Edging rose lips, long and deep. Slow and sweet.

Little man in a boat sang, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

She reciprocated playing his bone flute.

Riding the pony, priming her G spot grinding hard and fast she exploded with precision and extra ambition whispering, Give me a baby. Give me a baby.

He deferred chromosomes. Fat fucking chance, there's no way under the tropical son I'll give you anything but short time, small money, temporary love and the high hard one in your strike zone with runners in scoring position.

Here's the pitch.

She stayed until 9:45 and left for work at an upscale spa wearing aromatic Grecian urns. He gave her 10 bones. Feed me.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

Get out of my life, said Telepathy. You are subservient and I am stupid to put up with this shit. He creased her indifference into a cumulus cloud. It rained goodbye and good luck.

She sat on the bed with her back to him. Sniffle, sniffle.

Her fake tears formed rivers named Regret and Hopelessness and Indifference.

Fish behind twelve Laotian dams financed with Chinese capital to provide electricity to Thailand fed 60 million Asians downstream in deltas.

His NO created black-eyed daggers. They stabbed him with hatred, loss, self-pity, violence and starvation. Revenge is best served cold with DNA.

They put on death masks.

Your mask eats your face.

They walked out into tropical heat. Separate directions.

Waves of loneliness shuffled down a broken street. Children dying of malnutrition at a health clinic on the coroner of Hope cried as desperate mothers received free blue placebos.

The day after tomorrow belonged to orphans and lucky losers with Wabi-Sabi.

Wabi - the beauty of the most ordinary circumstances and objects.

Sabi - to feel one's own sharp existence.

Martha and Tolerance danced through life. 

Everything you know is a lie.

What did you expect?

I am a cognitive psycho-neurolinguist.

Wandering deep into the Tarim Basin along the Silk Road in Central Asia I discovered the Tokharin language and Afansievo culture dating 4,000 years. It was a proto-Indo European language with Celtic and Indian connections established by trade caravans and explorations. I suspect it is Qarasahr or IA, based on an Iranian dialect.

A change of context changes experience. On the loom of time the three fates weave the word context from Latin.

Con (with or together) and texere (to weave).

A change in context is an essential and active process. Weaving directs thoughts, emotions and actions.

A kairos shuttle passes through openings in the space-time continuum. The loom binds or connects the weaver’s ability and power to speak.

Dancing in dunes away from precious oceans the wise spirit of Hsuan-tsang, a Chinese Buddhist monk recitesThe Diamond Sutra, the world’s oldest printed book dated May 11, 868.

As Gascoigne, the author of The Dynasties and Treasures of China said, “The text is printed from six large blocks, each of them two and a half feet long by almost a foot broad. The scroll is a worthy and complete ancestor of all subsequent books, for it contains not only a superb woodcut as a frontis-piece...”

Hsuan-tsang was a Chinese pilgrim. He traveled to India along the Silk Road seeking out original Indian Buddhist holy books. He discovered 1,000 deserted monasteries destroyed by Hun invasions in the 5th century. He wandered through India for sixteen years visiting Buddhist places. He collected Indian holy books and carried them back to China.

While turning pages between Sanskrit words, mlecchita-vikalpa, the art of secret writing, Hsuan-Tsang tells us existence is formless. The human condition is actually hopeless, humans will never really know the universe and the concept of soul is an illusion.

Suffering is an illusion. Abracadabra!

Curious to see more to know less, I glide on after removing a grain of sand from my shoe. It isn’t the mountain that’s hard to climb it’s the grain in one’s shoe.

Years later in Colorado I met a mountain climber who, after confronting trial, error, doubt and fear reached a rocky mountain summit.

“Well, how did I do?” she asked her instructor.

“Are you still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what did you expect?”

I asked her, “Where do you step from the top of a 100 foot pole?”

Down in the southern province of Suhag in Egypt where King Scorpion lived 5,300 years ago I worked with archeologists discovering clay tablets.

Humans recorded taxes on oil and linen; a material Egyptians considered ritually pure under the protection of the goddess Tayt. The hieroglyphic line drawings of animals, plants and mountains revealed stories of economies and commodities.

In Nevali Cori we found 9,000 year-old shards of ceramics pottery depicting dancers.

“These images,” said a metaphorical digger, “reveal a common ancestor creating to integrate their community.”

A camelhair brush cleaned shards. “Anything else?”

“Well,” one said sifting dust, “we surmise these images established a collective discipline in their community. See how the figures are holding hands? What do you see now?”

“I see a circle of movement. A connected unity, a language in space.”

“It’s more than that. There are five rhythms in dance. You start with a circle. It’s a circular movement from the feminine container. She is earth.”

“Earth?”

“Yes, then you have a line from the hips moving out. This is the masculine action with direction. He is fire.”

“Fire is the driver.”

“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. The last element of dance is stillness. Out of stillness is born the next movement.”

Language dances in space.

Every fourteen days a living language dies on Earth. The last speaker says good-bye.

6,100 and counting.

Storytellers sing oral traditions. They memorize stories, songs, poems, seasons, celebrations, rites, magic and ceremonies. They create and exchange family, clan, tribal myths and legends. Their children listen, memorize, chant and recite ancestor songs.

An historian’s job is trying to understand what happened through time.

An anthropologist’s job is to understand how people told their creation stories.

Mircea Eliade, a historian of religions, said, “Myths tell only of that which really happened.”

Myths suggest that behind the explanation there is a reality that cannot be seen and examined. A myth is a story of unknown origins. Myths are sacred stories of religion based on belief, containing archetypical universal truths. They are in every place and no particular place. The world is sacred.

Myths, legends, stories.

Neurons fire on all cylinders. Seven trillion human cells dance. The honorable monkey mind trickster sleeps, sensing pure purpose, destination, goals and reflections. If I do not pay complete attention the monkey mind identifies with a mental movie and runs wild splashing green jealous slashes, red anger strokes and blue attachment colors on pure empty canvases. I respect wild monkey mind. Keep a meditative eye on it. Mindfulness.

Magic words grow here.

Old roots expose wired genetic guilt and illusionary fear traps.

Intensity propels ten claws across twenty-six keys. Reed-like digits reflect use and neglect.

Psychology handles the branches. Mindfulness swims with roots.

Evolution flashes flickering beams of incandescent auras and pulsating electro-magnetic fields evolving character, attitude, values, behaviors and intention.

Intention is karma.

Perpetual transformation.

A Century is Nothing

5 rhythms in dance

Relaxed, he asks what I dream about. My imagination, perception and sensation means scrubbing cloth, wringing out water, hanging cloth on hangers, ironing cloth, folding cloth, bagging cloth, weighing cloth, handing cloth to strangers, accepting money, smiling and dreaming of freedom. I dream dance.

He traces my forehead, breasts, and jealous thighs. He dreams I have a real life with real opportunities. Courage. Self-esteem. Freedom. Dignity. He takes me far away from here. We escape to a beach. I see silent crashing blue and white waves. Feeling the sun on my face I smell the sea. I run into blue/white water shouting The Sea! The Sea!

I wear a long white cotton dress. It feels invisible on my skin. I am brown and content. I am free. He memorizes my small brown hands, heart, head and lifelines. They are heavy deep real and calloused from laundry. He is gentle with me. I am a hungry animal. I release my repressed sexual energy. I trust him. I give myself to him.

I am a slave. He cannot save me. This is an unpleasant fact.

Edging my skin realizing sensations, I feel safe and protected. I curl into his arms.

Without words I say my family is poor. There is no chance for us. He’s been in country long enough to know how my culture works.

My father is seventy-three and ill. I have numerous aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and abandoned relatives. They smell money when they see a white face. They beg for money with fake reasons. They play their woe is me sympathy card. They are traditional and narrow-minded. They suffer from ignorance, envy and jealousy and want.

Desire and greed is their master. I told them Thorny is my benefactor. Thorny thinks I was abused as a child. He found a doctor to assess my condition. They said it was too late to do anything to help me. My life is more silent laundry.

Thorny talked to my father using an interpreter. Thorny asked specifics - was she abused? Father said I wasn’t abused. Was she hit in the head as a child? Did she suffer from a head injury? No, no, no, my father said. He said something happened to me when I was two.

I think they are afraid of Thorny and don’t want to tell him the truth. He flew home for three months. He plans to come back and get paperwork so I can leave and join his family in OZ. Fat chance. My luck ran out.

I don’t hold my breath. I dance.

I exhale my dancing quest. I showed my lover and he’s happy for me. If it’s possible, he signed. He knows my father has to approve any relationship with Thorny depending on cash amount. Marriage is a big maybe like my sister did.

If my family agrees they determine a pre-paid wedding dollar amount, say $3 grand. There’s a pre-nuptial waiting period, filing government papers. Pay greasy greedy officials. The government requires foreigners to prove they make $2,500 a month. Everyone here has a hand out. A wedding party will cost $200-$5,000 to impress friends with our social status. Big deal.

My father is afraid to lose me. He will say no. My lazy sister needs a slave. This is my fate. I am happy. It’s all I’ve known, know now and will know.

My life dance is ambiguity, poetry, acceptance, independent detachment and creative imagination. Dance is isolated yet cooperating and independent. I believe in the magic of dance.

When you dance, for a fleeting moment, you feel alive.

What do I see? I see a circle of movement, a connected unity, language in space. There are five rhythms in dance. You start with a circle. It’s a circular movement from the feminine container. She is earth. 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 male and female energies interact. This is the place oftransformation. After chaos is the lyrical. A leap. A release. This is air. The last element of dance is stillness. Out of stillness is born the next movement.

I’ll dance until I die.

oral sensation

Dance is motivated by emotional expression. Dance is about itself. Dance is a free playful existence. Life is a silent dance.

My spirit is destined for obscure happiness. Dancing my existence I regain incentive, communicating with gestures. My beauty. Symmetry. I am a formless form in a world of forms. Skin textures are perfect. Complete. My life is pure essence. Radiant. I dance with energy and freedom.

I am free. Clear. Pure. Luminous.

When you dance you are connected to the source. I am the source, the vast self. My lack of speech and hearing is a blessing. I am grateful. My body is my instrument. I am a golden sprite, a fairy maiden. I am a young, innocent, shy, ferocious wild tiger. My claws feel this intensity. I lie down with death.

My needs are met on every level of being. It is sensual, playful.

I gesture to him. Go upstairs. Shhh.

I lock the door. We are safe. I am safe. I take off my clothes. My dance flows love. My childlike love caresses air. It is the stillness of dance, my free form.

Touch me. Nibble my ear lobes. Kiss my neck. Use your tongue. Ask me without words if I want it gentle, medium or hard.

I lie down. Hold me. Breathe deep. Exhale eighteen inches out. Deep space. Empty your mind. Feel our bodies. Give me a full body massage. Start with my feet. They are erogenous zones of pleasure. Touch pressure points on my souls. My brain is an erogenous zone. Work up my calves massaging lower back, along the spine expanding out across upper back muscles and shoulders. My neck muscles are tight from doing laundry. Knead tension out. I’ll tell you how it feels with gestures of pleasure.

Listen and feel my body. Hear my breath exhaling sensation. Roll me over. Let your tongue do the talking. Stimulate me slow and easy as I feel your tongue caress ear lobes and neck, across breasts. Caress aroused purple nipples. Move south across my belly. Clear the department of the forest before tonguing my little button and labia rose. It’s highly sensitive. Slow. This is a powerful erogenous spot. Explore my blood filled flowers. Tongue lips deeper. Inhale my fragrance.

Feel my response as I move with you. Dance with me. Explore my mysterious cave with a slow moving tongue. Feel my response. Hear my breathing. If it’s fast and shallow I’m excited. I press your face deeper into my forest getting what I need.

My body is your teacher.