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Entries in empathy (12)

Monday
Nov012021

her chance

Bursa, Turkey

the woman on the metro

with a burned leg - you remember her clearly
how she sat after dragging her bad leg

into the compartment
this image of her
alone
cold
scared
in pain
how did it happen? why is she alone?
on a cold night in a flimsy sweater

her skin below the knee
running to her ankle
all burned away
exposing blood red lines

her abstract expression
her sacred scared distracted face
watching night fly past windows
where blue televisions and children eye each other

how she kept going
on the metro past a stop
where the expensive private hospital on a Roman
hill gleamed its extensive intensive pensive care
ward and her treatment was delayed
forgotten useless
here

because she is poor
so she stayed in her seat
anxious now feeling her pain
wondering where she would go
where she would end up this night

as a stranger studied her anxious passive 
expression feeling burns, violent burns
inside sensations fire and heat
nerve impulses darting through

along sensory
channels where signals blocked by
neurotransmitters shut down
her chance

Tuesday
Sep142021

Buy Low, Sell High

In the Sahara removed from death, chaos, tears and 3,000 funerals I suggested to Omar maybe it was about economic terrorism, poverty and empathy.

He understood the economics of survival, bartering, trade, exchange value, supply, demand and getting the best price. Not too low and not too high.

“A person cannot drink or eat more than they need. It’s about hospitality,” he said.

Omar’s tribe migrated from Mali, Southern Algeria and Mauritania. Prior to 1956 there were six million Touareg on nine million square kilometers of desert with no government borders controlling movement. Now there were 7-10,000 in the Sahara Occidental.

Berbers controlled the Iberian Peninsula as a colony from Marrakech castles. Fierce warriors, they resisted outside control while maintaining their language and culture during Roman, Vandal and Arabic rule.

“Your enemy is my friend,” said Omar.

His tribes conquered and ruled Spain for centuries.

He’d seen boring television images. He preferred human conversation. Omar knew television and cell phones were the most insane consciousness-stealing inventions of all time. They sold desire and greed designed by advertising companies pitching food, sex, self-esteem and illusions of false happy secure lies.

After the successful 9/11 attacks desperate stories, lies and myths evolved, adapted and adjusted like petri dish cultures.

They created new languages, art, music, attitudes, values, principles, weapons of mass distraction and historical chaos in the long now. They took on new fragmented impartial impervious identities.

“Buy low and sell high,” said Omar as sand shifted below a blue sky.

“Simple as ABC,” I said.

“It’s easy to comprehend at the heart-mind level.” He was a man of few words. We contemplated a vast silent world.

“No language, no culture,” he sang as shooting stars played celestial tag.

I visualized elements of fear, disinformation, misinformation, bias, lies, half-truths and paranoid propaganda bloviated by politicians, popes, prelates, mullahs, and animists in every oral language on a spinning blue marble in space-time. 24/7.

Fear sells. People buy.

Human brains overflowed with data and visual distractions. Incoming! Run for cover.

Free C-19 vaccines were administered to seven billion humanoids.

Survivors crammed mountain caves as orphans sang, “A tisket a tasket we need a casket.”

Peaceful people lived wisdom, empathy, and compassion. Meditation, deep breathing, harmony and forgiveness of Spiriti Sanctus were portals into clear awareness.

Arabic speaking scholars recited poetry by Rumi. They shared stories about rising and falling civilizations. Transmitting oral stories they diagramed hieroglyphics, cave paintings, metaphors and unconscious archetypes.

I envisaged historians, political scientists, talking heads, taxi drivers, unemployed fortunetellers and morticians answering suicide hotline calls. The number of callers increased exponentially.

Governments increased military spending.

They cut education, health care and social programs.

Citizens overwhelmed hospital emergency rooms pleading, “Give us drugs to alleviate our fears and illusions of desire and suffering.”

Fear and Consumption demand outstripped supply.

Scarcity was thrilled.

“What happens when they run out of CONTROL programs and advertising?” a girl asked her mother, the mother of all answers.

“Don’t worry my sweet,” said her mother living her worst nightmare, “They will invent, fabricate and illuminate something new. The manufacturing sector will rebound when shelves are empty. Advertising and propaganda never dies. We’ll always have sugar and we can always go shopping.”

“How long will it take to reduce these feelings of imaginary fear?”

“Healing, empathy and compassion require our individual intention. Many practice a calm way like there’s no tomorrow,” said her mother.

“Healing energies, peace and love sustain us.”

“There is only F.U.D.,” said the mother twisting her daughter’s hair until it caught fire.

“What is F.U.D. mother?”

“Fear, uncertainty and doubt. It’s part of our DNA since we jumped or fell or were pushed from The Tree of Life 60,000 years ago. FUD evolved with a vengeance as hungry unconscious greedy demons.”

“What about adventure and surprise?”

“They are factors in our adaptation as a species. You ask great questions my dear,” fanning her daughter’s flame. “A long now-time. A century is nothing.”

“It’s good to know some things,” said the girl. “We know so much and understand nothing.”

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I’ve already said a lot.”

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Tell me the truth,” mother. “I want to know your truth.”

“It’s a miracle we are here is my truth. It’s a big cosmic joke. Our insecurities are disappearing and our strengths are growing. Consider this. The letters F.E.A.R. can mean face everything and recover, or fuck everything and run away.”

“Life is a magical celebration, mother. We are flukes of the universe. We are miracles. Life is a beautiful short dream. There’s no rhyme or reason. It’s about realizing peace and gratitude in our heart. We connect with family, community and world tribes. Inhale other’s suffering and exhale healing. Cultivate our heart-mind awareness.”

“I love you,” said her mother.

“I will be present and grateful mother. May we go out and play now? May we take the day off and be creative?”

“Yes, let’s invent a game theory my sweet.”

ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

ART: Adventure, Risk, Transformation by [Timothy Leonard]

Wednesday
Aug042021

Visions

I am an atom in the universe that has access to infinite possibilities of development.
These possibilities I want, gradually to reveal. 



Empathy
Gratitude

Humility

 

Courage

Friday
Jul232021

Precise

Writers are shamans.

We go into the mountains and we come back with visions for our tribes.

Our holy assignment.

Wolf meets dog. Freedom vs. slavery.

Writing is a river with many tributaries.

Empathy - Cognitive & Emotional

Mushin - no thought, no emotion, no expectation

Kafka - it's about impossible situations and ambiguity

Dialogue with an image. What / why it speaks to us. What does it say to us?

Saturday
Jul172021

I am the arrow

Kampot river market long ago and far away

Where the bad people hung heads as a warning 1975-1979

Hungry ghosts

Old haunts discover language light zones

Paint with light

Familiar stranger

Vocal chords produce conversations magic music

Laughter’s labyrinth

Meditate on emptiness

Self directed kid

Zen arrow

Talented people hit the target others can’t

Genius hits the target others can’t see

Want

Need

Market light energies

Golden chickens

Silver fish

Lost and confused simple kind locals

Noodle mama mystery buy / sell eye candy

Shuffling teddy bear pajamas sing voice wind

Intersection of Durian fish gold fabric

Blind string man creates haunting music

His daughter leads him by pulling his shirt forward

They wander broken cement market paths

Echo lament notes drift into / through ears

Unconscious ice melts

Dead kind eyes stare at a stranger

Scribbling non-sense data...laughter's memory

Japanese tourists wear black and white cotton elephant pants

Cheaper than ivory tusks

In heavy carry-on emotional baggage

Rain quality

Market energies dance light

Community flow excellence

Relationship b/t you and your experience

Empathy

Fragments

Live a meaningful life

Hunter with optics

Breathe and squeeze

No form or substance

Excellence

Non-duality

Singularity

You are a stream-winner

Raindrops

Samuel Beckett minimal absurdity

Your begging bowl

Wanders floating world

Memory market hum

Her New World Order

t-shirt danced past...a woman with basket of bread, a woman gently slicing then chopping bacon, a woman scaling silver fish, a woman dividing coconuts, an old woman negotiating passages with her begging bowl, a man carrying bananas on his thin back,

a woman fingering REAL notes, lost humans inspecting hope despair laughter and song,

girls doing a pedicure, a woman polishing red apples,

shadows dancing with impermanence,

spoons stabbing ice, glittering silver stars on a headscarf reflect elegant universe

The world is illusion

Just sitting

Experience

One day = one year

One year = one day

 

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