long distance? give me information...

In a remote Cambodian jungle village along The River of Darkness they carve images of their dead.

The Chunchiet animist people bury their dead in the jungle.

Life is a sacred jungle.

Animists believe in the universal inherent power of nature world. The Tompoun and Jarai, among animist world tribes have sacred burial sites.

The Kachon village cemetery is one hour by boat on the Tonle Srepok River from Voen Sai. It is deep in the jungle. Many go in. Few come out.

The departed stays in the family home for five days before burial. Once a month family members make ritual sacrifices at the site. The village shaman dreams the departed will go to hell.

In their spirit story dream the shaman meets LOTH, Leader of the Hell who asks for an animal sacrifice. The animist belief says sacrificing a buffalo and making statues of the departed will satisfy LOTH. It will renew the spirit and return it to the family.

After a year family members remove old structures, add two carved effigies, carve wooden elephant tusks, create new decorated roofs and sacrifice a buffalo at the grave during a week long celebration with food and rice wine for the entire village.

New tombs have cement bases and carved effigies with cell phones and sunglasses. Never out of touch. See your local long distance carrier for plans and coverage in your area.

The future is brighter than a day in a sacred jungle.  

blind sex

i like him.

it's a hungry combustionable combination of lust, loneliness and real.

skin is currency. exchange value and user value.

you can trust maybe 10% in vietnam. they are good at sex. they steal your money.

here it's maybe 50%. we are poor at sex. we don't steal your money.

we steal your _____. down at the crossroads.

he comes to me at mid-day. it is sweltering and sleepy. i welcome him him with fingers on lips...shh.

we go upstairs. we dance naked. when you dance you are truly alive.

we explore geography and invisible borders and silent musical interludes.

i am the silence between notes. harmony, rhythm, and melody.

i am his melody and he is my harmony.

my speech voice is missing. i make rolling guttural sounds expressing metaphors, similes, intonations, frequencies, meaning, sense, time, space, ideas, dreams, relationships, secrets, traditional family values, fear, passion, heart, joy and sadness.

he is blind and i am deaf.

our music is not available for download. 

Bike it

 The first real grip I ever got on things
Was when I learned the art of pedaling
- Seamus Heaney

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man.
Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish.
Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.
- Iris Murdoch

I feel that I am entitled to my share of lightheartedness and there is
nothing wrong with enjoying one’s self simply, like a boy.
- Leo Tolstoy, Responding to criticism for learning to ride a bicycle at age 67

Life is like riding a bicycle.
To keep your balance you must keep moving.
- Albert Einstein

 

Check out Steve McCurry's excellent bike images. Here.

Above the 45

Above the 45 post by David duChemin contains this gem.

"In the artist’s life there are two axes: on the Y axis is challenge (or opportunities), on the X is ability.

"When the opportunities we take equal the talent or ability we have, we are living on the 45-degree angle formed between the two. Perfect balance, and generally, to put it into blunt terms, stagnation.

"But when the opportunities we create or seize seem to outpace the talent or ability we have, we grow in that ability to meet the opportunity, and are living above the 45."

Expand, evolve, explore, take risks. 

 Full post.

Branch Out

My Planet is asking for images of trees.

Explore a floating mangrove forest. Before 9 July. 

I will never see
A poem as lovely 
As a tree.