downstream

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.

Nature

Greetings,

Nature is a gigantic, sublime, violent experiment. Nature is an awesome, beautiful, terrifying and magnificent dramatic lesson in natural laws. Magma at work. Do not disturb. Nature is a wonderful teacher. Nature informs humans in clear non-negotiable terms, you adapt, adjust, evolve or you die. This is natural selection.

Simple as that. Nature said, Unfortunately for all living species, I have no agenda, flight plan, schedule, meeting, commerce, economy, plan, or boarding pass. My departure gate is the crust.

I have a free pass. I have total power. I am unpredictable. I am violent and I am benign. I am gentle, kind and generous. I giveth and I taketh away. Humans will never, with their severely limited intelligence control me, manipulate me or own me. I have vast powers. I create and I destroy. That's my Nature.

Some humans call me Shiva, the Auspicious One. I am the destroyer of life. Fire is my source of power.

Another manifestation is Mahakala, the Lord of Time.

Humans are naturally naive. Naivety and stupidity and laziness is their Nature. They don't listen or pay attention to Nature until it, for example, shifts the plates below the Tibetan plateau causing an earthquake. The natural result is loss of life in Sichuan because shoddy buildings built by greedy humans all fall down smashing 10,000 children. 

Humans use fire to cremate bodies because there are not enough vultures to eat the remains. 

Japan is another example of my power.

Ash, on the other hand, a buy product of Nature goes with the flow.

Metta.

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.

Tools & Future Plans

Greetings,

After seeing a film The 11th Hour I've reposted this entry. Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, the film illustrates human greed, corporate power, and consumption habits. There are excellent commentaries by scientists regarding the scale of Earth being consumed.

Save the Earth is more like Earth doesn't need saving. Earth is a natural biosphere. It is a self generating ecosystem. Humans need to change their attitudes and behavior. 

Human animals developed tools. They have learned how to plan. They can visualize the future. Intelligent life on Earth is a rumor.

Earth is a property. It produces natural resources. As we know, humans have developed an insatiable appetite for: minerals, water, forests, fossil fuels, animals, and laughter.

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf is a perfect example of human stupidity based on corporate greed and power. This is compounded by lies, deceit and finger pointing. No one wants to take responsibility for the consequences.

Create the market for shampoo products. It's all petroleum based. Rinse your brain.

As Wade Davis says: "You are either a human or property." The property is being consumed. Greed. Market. As a speaker says, the means and the ends are distorted. Humans are creating their own extinction.

On Earth inside the Milky Way galaxy filled with 100 billion stars is a small town. In the town is a market where people meet, eat, drink, walk around, sleep, talk, gossip, sell, barter, trade, buy, cry, beg, laugh, and use tools to make things.

What are tools? Tools are things to make things. They make something and use it to make other things. This is called human activity. People once used stones to sharpen other stones to make tools.

Can you show us someone making something?

Ok. Here is a man using a mechanical tool to make a gold bracelet. His tool is made of iron, steel and other materials. It uses energy to work. A woman works makes money and buys the thing. Her friends see it and their desire creates demand.

Where does the energy come from? The energy comes from machines converting sun, wind, ocean currents, burning coal and processing high grade uranium 235 isotopes into energy. 235 is capable of sustaining chain reactions producing energy to run machines called plants.

Do you mean a plant is a tool? Yes. A plant is a living organism and very valuable. As well, there are plants that kill humans, like hemlock. Plants collect energy from the sun to grow. Humans harvest plants for medicine and food and so on.

If a man and woman combine their tools can they make things grow like plants? Yes. More like weeds. This human activity is called procreation. Earth has about 6 billion examples and signs of intelligent life is rare.

Show us another tool. Ok, A woman's fingers are tools. She uses her tool to sew colorful objects on a piece of fabric with another tool. The tool is a metal needle. Humans evolved opposable thumbs enabling them to grasp objects. Her thumb is opposable to her forefinger allowing her to use the tool with precision.  

We have time for one more tool. Show us a good one.

This man lives in a poor rural village in Sichuan, China. He is a tool like the gold worker and the seamstress. They are controlled by others and used to perform unpleasant tasks for someone else. They are the means of production in a social and economic sense.

He is using a tool to make new tools. I said this at the beginning of today's story. The stone tools he makes will be used to make a wall, another tool. 

Why do they need to make another wall? They already have a famous wall.
The Chinese have been building walls for 5,000 years. It's in their genetic makeup. 
What is genetics?
A sledgehammer. 

Thank you for your attention.

Metta.

11th hour action site...

Metta.

One River

Greetings,

One key to survival in the jungle is to be silent. Patient. Move slowly.

A stranger goes for a bike ride on a dusty red potholed road. Very common, these roads. It runs parallel to a river.

Locals stare and then forget. They are busy trying to find food.

He's been been on this river before. The river in the world and other places. It winds past simple bamboo thatched homes. There are one, perhaps two rooms. Wood floor. The rear opens to the river. They have wells for drinking, washing, bathing. If the home's on stilts, the lower area is for hammocks, resting in the shade, family gatherings and eating.

Palm trees line the road. Plastic bags litter the river and adjacent patches of dry unproductive soil. He sees one garden. It's large and fenced off with barb wire, wood slats, fragmented sticks and string. The vegetables are bright green and strong. 

Rare middle class glass and brass stone homes scream "We are rich!" They are monsters with stone front yards, weird plastic toy animals, high cement walls, sharp lancer fences and imposing gates. Protection from whom or what? Bored butterflies? Machete wielding lizards?

Metta.

They discuss love and space travel.