Kalapuya

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. They are 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 spreading 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, and red, blue, and 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 with respect and dignity and mindfulness.

rhythm

Namaste,

when I learned the alphabet
late in life toward primordial birth

infinite moment before now and then

air whispers sang
from my trash collector’s plastic bottle
pulling my rolling cart filled with cardboard
singing a muscular rhythm
stirring sonomulent dust on broken stones

in a deep forest

Metta.

it's all mine

She wore a permanent tear imbedded on her left cheek. She is not smiling.

She said, Here I am. I communicate my reality to the world. Do you like my shirt?

Can you read words or do you need a picture? How about a picture of a picture? I don’t know how to read so I like to look at pictures. My country has 11.5 million people and maybe 6-10 million land mines.

Adults say there are 40,000 amputees in my country. Many more have died because we don't have medical facilities.

Mines are cheap. A mine costs $3.00 to put in the ground and $1,000.00 to take out of the ground. I'm really good at numbers.

Talk to me before you leave trails to explore the forest. It's beautiful and quiet. I know all the secret places. I showed my picture to a Cambodian man and he didn't like it ;-( They call this denial. He said it gave him nightmares. He’s seen too much horror and death in one life. So it goes.

My village is my world. Where do you live?

On the mean old street near the Khmer House of Blues filled with wailing songs of loss, betrayal, neglect, abandonment, misery, hope and mercy on slide guitar backed by a harmonica in the key of C crying in her heart, a girl stared up at a mirrored skyscraper watching the wheel of life flash prisms into the sky. 

She’s been turned out and turned down faster than a housekeeper working with imported Egyptian threaded linen with a 300 count. No lye. The thermostat of her short sweet life seeks more wattage. She faces a severe energy shortage if she doesn’t find food.

Metta.

Leica the day

Greetings,

What a pleasant day. I visited four temples - there are perhaps 1,000 - at, around and away from Angkor Wat. An evolving diversion from previous impressions.

Phimeanakas, 10th c., in a large forested enclosure means "flying palace" in Sanscrit. It was topped by a golden spire. I sat near Phimeanakas and then wandered toward ancient walls. In between were painters offering their art. Green and yellow leaves fluttered through broken light. Earth's new blanket. 

The Preah Pithu Group are five Hindu and Buddhist temples from the 15th c. The forest path is crackling. I walk slow, breathing in the fragrance of leaves, trees, fresh air, leaving only footprints.

Over a simple meal of rice and vegetables a group of young Czech men talk. One said, "We have to DO everything in a short time." That sums it ALL up.

Thommanon, 12th c. is in great condition with fine Buddhist art and complements Chau Say Thevoda. Chau is undergoing renovation using Chinese government funds. Dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu.

A cleansing ceremony at Preah Palilay.

Metta.

Phimeamakas, Preah Pithu Group, Thommanon, Chau Say Thevoda galleries...

Open palm forest

Greetings,

Fresh air behind you in open palm forest. Aquamarine blue sea. Distant Lombok is-land and Rinjani volcanic dome edges blue sky as white clouds fly north.

Tribal wind music, wandering dirt paths through an Air village. A group of kids build a new fence using live branches from a tree. A boy high above hacks them off, they sail south, grounded. A girl lays out a branch and cuts away unnecessary stems. They hollow out earth bordering other branches along a field green with grass, filled with palms.

A living fence.

Star filled sky light. Pulsating waves.

See colors and hear music. Hear sounds, see colors.

Metta.