Halloweenie

"I wish everyday could be Halloween. We could all wear masks all the time. Then we could walk around and get to know each other before we got to see what we looked like under the masks."
 - R. J. Palacio

"There was a time when the coming of this night meant something. A dark Europe, groaning in superstitious fear, dedicated this Eve to the grinning Unknown. A million doors had once been barred against the evil visitants, a million prayers mumbled, a million candles lit. There was something majestic about the idea."
 - Robert Bloch  Read more…

  

wisdom Ghosts

Greetings,

Here's a link from World Hum which may interest you. It concerns The Odyssey by Homer.

"Cavafy is hinting at one of his poem’s themes: that life consists of experiences of intrinsic sensory merit, whether or not they’re extraordinary, whether or not they’re linked to success or failure. Only later, when we adopt the conventions pressed upon us and our sense of wonder dulls, do we begin to speak of success or failure, or set up temporal milestones to be reached, lest the quotidian occupation of existing be too tedious to bear."

World Hum...read more

Delicious. The Giants are playing great fall ball. 20 runs in two games.  A group of wild and crazy misfits, low-budget loose and well orchestrated combinations of excellent pitching, timely hitting and orange juice. My mystic lover says they take it in five. No jive. Fear the beard. 

What a long strange trip it's been. So speaketh Homer.

Dancing with The Grateful Dead. 

Spook-speak. 

Metta.

Fire talks

Greetings,

What's louder than a group of Khmer people? Another group of Khmer people. Get used to it. Volume. Noise. They love distractions. They live, eat and breath distractions and noise. They love talking over each other. Listening is hard work. Silence is known for killing people. Fear of death is a one long conversation.

They've been traumatized by their long past into the immediate present grasping the future. It's a time machine, a time warp, a consciousness warp.

It is curious to see with complete clarity the FIRE inside the cement stove in the simple local java and tea shop at 0615. Orange and bright dancing red flames consume kindling. It heats water for tea and java. Reminds me of a winter stove in Lhasa warming a room with joy.

Words crackle, spit, dance with laughter's sensation of heat.

Piles of kindling are stacked between cement slabs like orphans waiting to exonerated.  

It's a male thing. The men are over 40. They are survivors of The Dark Years.

All the men wear fresh pressed shirts and long pants. They have jobs. They talk about life: business, jobs, paper, kids, wives, weather, facts, opinions, big plans and ghosts. They eat fried bread, drink brown tea and java. Their spoons create music with glass. 

1.7 million ghosts dance through their silent conversations. No one talks about it. They prefer to talk about the now. The future. Ghosts live in the past. Leave it there, said one man. Half our population is under 30, said another man. They have no memory of the past. Education is the key, said another man. Yes, said another man, We missed our chance.

The only chance I had, said another man, Was to run and hide in the jungle. Look at my hands. Now I spend my days rewriting history.

A human is a kind of conversation. Many humans live lives of quiet desperation. Fire knows this fact.

Metta.

Living with ghosts

Neil Gaiman won the Newberry Award for children's books.

The Graveyard Book 

Spooky stuff. Fade in-fade out.

Metta.

Hallow's Eve

Your letters say, "A body is required. Unable to complete your request."

Waiting. 31 October. Dark is the night, cold is the ground.

Waiting for the night, for the quiet reflection shadows, waiting for you to rise and fly, to wander among friends,

Sharing stories and tales. Memories of laughter's bliss, music.

Dancing on graves smelling roses, hearing water. How you came to this place.

Bones rest in dust. Exhale exile. 

Waiting.