South of Mandalay Part 1

Fog shrouds trees before dawn on a chilly December morning.

Mornings are fraught with mist as an orange burning orb rises over forests and rice paddies.

Crows caw sing wing wind songs above monks chanting sutras at a pagoda. A bell reverberates.

Leaves dance free from The Tree of Life.

This raw, direct immediate experience reminds a traveler of Phonsavan, Laos near the Plain of Jars, long ago and far away in the winter of 2013. A Little BS came of it.

Here at 5:45 a.m. below trees with yellow leaves,

100 grade ten female students with dancing flashlights trace a dirt path.

They've escaped the comfort of hostel dreams.

They dance toward classrooms and a cavernous dining hall for rice and vegetables.

Hot soup if they are lucky. Mumbling voices scatter singing birds.

Female student voices reciting scientific lessons at 6:15 a.m. echo from classrooms at the Family Boarding School.

Dystopian wrote memorization. Utilitarian. Repetition. Learning by heart. It’s not about learning. It’s about passing the exam and marks. Vomit the material.

The wisdom of the heart is deeper and truer than knowledge in the head

They drone on huddled, hunched over wooden benches in jackets and yarning caps with swinging tassel balls. A bundled teacher scratches white words on a blackboard

Today is the day of my dreams

A narrow garden of hanging pink, orange, purple, white orchids reflect shadows before scattered light sings. An office girl sprays H20 diamonds on petals and green leaves

A distant solitary bell reverberates
Monks chant sutras at a pagoda

Poetry Ash

"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well poetry is just the ash." - Leonard Cohen

Kafka - Level of voice, the situation, the posture, the incident, the line.

Great writing is simple but not easy.

Blow / draw blues harp. Sing alive!

Wild deep pleasure w/supple friend

Massage to sweet O surrender, laugh, relay skin talk

Pleasure wisdom joy

"Those who love with heart and soul there is no separation - distance from a lover and from time, feeling, experience ... In your light, I learn how to live. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no one sees you, but I do and that sight becomes this art. Those who love only with eyes feel separation when they say goodbye." - Rumi

Heart Monitor - TLC 45

On the Metro he sat across from a young boy, his mother and father. Father’s hands were hard calloused.  

The boy smiled, fascinated by whirling flashing light prisms. His father pulled up his son’s shirt. On his chest were two plastic suction cups and a machine the size of a deck of cards. Ace high. The heart monitor measured his beats, his life rhythm regularity. His father checked the display, saw the cups were secure and dropped the shirt.

“It is a machine for my son. It helps him,” he said with tired eyes. “We got it at Hospital A. Doctors said it was essential for his life.”

The boy and Lucky smiled, cupping hands around eyes scanning the universe, explorers with telescopic magnifying lenses.

He’s a happy kid. Not afraid of a thing like Tran my five-year old Vietnamese friend in a Da Nang hospital missing a leg after stepping on a landmine teaching me Courage.

“We should all be so fortunate,” said adults streaming sad life tales, “Oh pity me. I am so, so tired.”

Talk to the kid. He’ll tell you how tired feels.

Echoes of umbrella digger stone music faded near young lovers huddled on benches and a beggar dreaming on tarmac.

Children with sacred eyes on magical adventures balanced on silver tracks escaping dark tunnels. They disappeared into wild winter aspen forests as two black-shawled women negotiated muddy paths through foliage waiting for spring to thaw out relationships with nature.

Rabbits running in ditches sang The Season of the Witch.

Living breathing bipedal accidents with a pulse craved a place to happen with insight, precision and brevity. Pearl letters played out on a fragile necklace of water-beaded molecules inside an instant in eternity.

Time is a strung-out pimp looking for a fix and exit.

The Language Company

Smiling is a virus

The magic IF.

Smiling is a virus.

Risk vs opportunity.

Murakami - themes - boredom, loneliness, loss.

See a situation.

Create characters.

Shame and guilt issues.

Death is the mother of Beauty.

Beauty has no tongue.

She is the mysterious light. She is a light worker. She sings with her light.

She is a fiction. A white butterfly named Psyche wings her face.

A messenger from higher realms of beauty.

She is a scale. On her scale two are two objects. One is a human heart. A feather.

Season of the witch, all the rabbits running in the ditch.

West child - where did I come from?

East child - how did I grow?

develop character

The world is a myth. We live in a fable.

I used to be someone else but I traded him in.

Vientiane, Laos.

Helping grades 6-7 how to be more human. Develop character - strength, optimism, persistence, social intelligence, gratitude, with curiosity and humor.

Practice good manners. Treat everyone with respect. Be aware of other people's feelings and find ways to help those whose feelings have been hurt. Help others.

Moral character: fairness, generosity, integrity.

Trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, caring, citizenship.

Performance character: effort, diligence, perseverance.

Are you fair?

Are you honest in dealings with other people?

Are you a cheater?

Are you a good person?

Behavior and values.

Kids needs challenges - hardships and deprivation. Trial and error. Taking risks.

How do you build grit and self-control? Through failure.

Think for Yourself Academy exam questions.

Why do we exist?

Why are we here?

What's it all about?

When your legs get tired walk with your heart.

If its not in the heart it's not in the head.

Focus and simplicity.

Have the courage to follow your heart & intuition.

Real eyes realize real lies.