Panda talks about freedom, family and her attitude. Willing to share honest truth & emotions.
Unname the present to see visions of the future, said a prophet.
The army of trees, river saga, roots.
How much are you willing to give up to play this music?
What I want to hear is what you don't know.
I'm just a beginner.
Transcendent function brings opposites together.
Memory, logic, imagination.
Writing is a river with many tributaries.
Photography: intuitive, creative impulse, timeless, presence, aura of death, a diary, essence.
The Divine Comedy. A romantic dreamer wanders Earth.
Act. Find the truth. Emotional honesty. Don't be afraid.
Dance is freedom. Movement never lies.
What I want to report is that I've done nothing of value and that is my accomplishment.
What is your myth - the myth in which you live?
Now it happened one Sunday in Ankara, when streets were dead, everyone having evaporated to vote for someone special important and wealthy who’d change alter and manipulate the course of the Turkish future with panache, charisma, dedication, fortitude, and cold hard cash ...
After 4,000+ years of invasions, intrigue, bells and whistles, harems, delicate Blue Mosque mosaics, gongs, cymbals and flutes in life’s chess game, survivors said YES we have realized truth and freedom and democracy in digestible form. One size fits all.
I stood on a main artery filled with silent rusty water fountains of youth. Shuttered stores gleamed with expensive watches, clothing and exchange rates. A bundled man in stone cold shadows sold Simit, a common thick round seedy pretzel from his red and white rolling carnival circus wagon.
Five women in shimmering red, green and sea blue silk danced along shiny plate glass windows admiring their reflection. Hello Beauty. They hugged each other exploring visual perceptions. Their dark skin, sharp noses, deep black eyes complemented long hair under bright head scarves. Clothing reflected silver balls and small mirrors. They jabbered in Farsi.
Three posed in front of a clothing store to have their picture taken with a male mannequin. Men talk nonsense, make war, babies and are real dummies. A white frozen dummy wore a dark pin stripped suit.
A tall woman used a point-n-shoot digital camera to trap an image of her laughing friends. One didn’t smile because she was sad, serious and a long way from home thinking ...
How are my brothers and sisters today are they alive trying to find food while the Taliban coerces them into religious ideologies resembling spider webs composed of incessant swarming angry bees beheading and stoning and honor killing innocent women for trivial behaviors in public like walking, turning, gesturing, laughing, weeping, or pausing?
Breathing was a major crime.
Fundamentaliism is the Big H smack, said Louie, a barbarian crusader … look at world’s religions ... Christians have a booze addiction ... Catholics have faith in dope, weed, grass and ganja ... Agnostics have a library card.
Shhh ... said one woman whispering to herself, One should keep quiet, practice self-censorship. Think freedom but don’t say it. A mantra for billions.
Don’t you realize how the dying religious leaders sleep together and will shuffle your deck, rearrange their animosity, hunt you down like a dog and pick their nose in private before blowing your life, wife, strife into their rag?
Do be pious, stupid and poor in mind body and spirit swallowing religious addictions controlling your gravitational awareness with mathematical rational certainty.
Her family, praise Allah, were still alive when she returned and she wasn’t sure about their destiny or hers because life is filled with unexpected complicated and complex random surprises and inconveniences and nature is a cruel beautiful illusionary dream.
At that exact moment bi-lingual Asian orphans played hide n’ seek in secret gardens above landmines far removed from adult stupidity, regrets, indignation, jealousy and revenge-tainted anger.
The photographer finished. I gestured if she wanted me to take a picture of their group. Yes, she said, in impeccable English, Please ask your friends, your sisters to stand there, pointing to a wide area where full trees created a soft background. She sang to her friends. Two shy ones hid behind flowing skirts. They were coaxed out of hiding. Click.
I handed her the camera. Where are you from, We are from Kabul, Why are you here, We are doctors, we have been attending seminars and will return home this week.
Are you all from Kabul, No, gesturing to the women hiding behind their sisters, They are from distant provinces, I see ... How is the medical situation now in Afghanistan, do you have enough medicine … It changes we are fortunate to receive medicine from international aid agencies, our hospitals need more equipment, it’s a struggle at times especially outside the capital …
How are the children doing in your country, are they receiving medical care and enough food, can they go to school ... We are doing our best to take care of the children ... I wish you well in the future, knowing you face large responsibilities, it was nice meeting you, Thank you, she smiled, Good-bye, joining her friends passing shops, talking free.
One whispered to her shy sister, Our friends in Kabul will never believe it when we tell them we walked down a street talking, feeling free, how we had our picture taken by a man who wasn’t an immediate relative.
Her sister laughed, Yes, it’s strange feeling free to be your true self without fear of the religious police following you step by step, day in and day out like snakes ready to bite you, Someone should cut off their head, said another sister dancing her mirrors ...
My dream, said another sister, Is to be a free person in a free country ... Is that too much to ask, Freedom is a life changing experience with responsibilities, said her sister, smelling wild roses, I feel free.
When I related this encounter to a TLC student she asked, Were they open or closed, referring to veils not their liberated emotional being, They were open.
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?
I'm one of those people who has learned through living
that there is nothing and nobody in this life to cling to.
I am a metaphor looking for meaning.
I feel free to move away from safe familiar places
and keep moving forward to new unexplored areas of life.
Drifting some would say.
Floating.
If I had one red cent for every time someone asked me when I’d settle down I could afford a world hypothesis! Settling down was not an option.
Yes. I could bid on blessings.
I’d sacrifice pre-linguistic symbols and create silent metaphorical abstractions.
My linguistic skills would evolve into love into discursive logic.
26,000 year-old Paleolithic iron and copper paintings create
a secret symphony of ancient magic stories in a Spanish cave.
No lengthy drawn out off-the-wall abstract
explains my small empty happy self to anybody
by virtue of who I was, am, and will be.
Life is a palimpsest.
“There are only two stories in the world,” Leonardo said to the Moroccan. They carried boarding cards through the Casablanca terminal. “A stranger arrives in a village or a stranger leaves a village.”
“Yes,” said Omar, a blind writer overhearing their conversation, “we might add there are also stories about love between two people, stories about love between three people and stories about the struggle for power. Stories are about characters revealing emotion through dialogue and action.”
He handed Leonardo a pile of yellow papers wrapped in rushes.
“A gift for you. It contains a farrago of evidence. Keep it simple.”
“Thank you.” Where do I find you?”
“In the caves south of Ronda. It’s a long walk.” He disappeared into Baraka.
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