Future

Namaste,

Once upon a time there was a rural village. One hour from town.

There was a primary school. The kids were antsy, it was hot, they waited for vacation. Their families needed them to plant rice.

There was a teacher in the school. She graduated from a university. She graduated from a government pedagogic school. She found a job teaching 6th grade.

This is how it works, said the boss of the teachers.

You are new. Your salary is $40 a month. You teach for eight months with no salary. After completing eight months you receive 70% of your salary until you complete one year. After five years you get a raise. 

I'm going to have a find a part-time job to feed my family. 

Vacation arrived singing, No more school! Go to the fields and plant rice. 

60 students finished grade 6. We are free. Let's run, play and sing. 

Of the 60, only ten would attend 7th grade in the fall. Rural opportunity cost.

The other 50 played, planted, harvested rice and worked at local brick factories for $1.25 a day.

Metta.

donate blood

Namaste,

You follow the 39 steps through blood bank doors. You fill out forms answering 20 questions on the donor consent form, such as:

1. Are you in good health today?

2. Do you have an infection now, or are you taking antibiotics now?

3. Since the age of 11, have you had yellow jaundice, liver disease, or hepatitis?

4. Have you ever tested positive for hepatitis?

5. Have you ever used a needle, even once, to take any drugs?

6. In the past three years, have you lived outside of the U.S., except Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan or Western Europe?

7. In the past 12 months have you traveled?

8. In the past 12 months have you received a blood transfusion?

9. In the past 12 months have you had a tattoo, ear or body piercing, acupuncture, accidental needle stick, or come into contact with someone else’s blood, or snorted cocaine or any street drug?

10. In the past 12 months have you ever had sex, even once, with anyone who has ever used a needle for non-prescription drugs?

11. In the past 12 months, have you had sex, even once, with anyone who has taken money or drugs in exchange for sex?

12. In the past 12 months, have you given money or drugs to anyone to have sex with you?

13. In the past 12 months, have you had sex, even once, with anyone who has had AIDS or tested positive for the AIDS virus?

14. Are you a female who, in the past 12 months, has had sex with a male who has had sex, even once, with another male?

15. Were you born in, or have you lived in, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Niger, or Nigeria?

16. Have you had sex with anyone who was born or lived in any of these countries?

17. Have you been injected with bovine beef insulin?

18. Have you ever had a bleeding problem?

19. Are you a female who has had two or more pregnancies? 

20. Have you or any blood relative ever had a dura mater or brain covering transplant during head or brain surgery?

The questions are endless.

Finished circling N answers and doodling in margins, you agree and understand your blood and plasma will be tested for the AIDS virus and other diseases and if there is a risk your blood will not be used and you will be notified and you understand the answers are truthful and to the best of your knowledge and you sign the form and sit in a comfortable deep brown chair watching donors thumb old magazines, devour recipes and eye candy.

Your name is called. Outside plate glass in August haze shadow hills full of dense dark evergreens in hot sunshine beam down white blast furnaces magnifying brilliance.

Nurses pull air conditioned nightmare identity theory cards from files peopled with conversations and delight a slight acquaintance. Take a seat as a smiling nurse pricks your finger with a thorn asking thermometer questions, checking arms for signs of Needles, a California desert town.

You sign more forms you witness you provide credentials you slide into a main room where volunteers direct you to a reclining seat asking which arm left arm you say as she tightens the belt around your arm conditioning blood pressure pump as she swabs down arm holding needle veins out handing you a styrofoam ball telling you to squeeze every three seconds as a machine ticks off down below out of sight out of mind as your blood rocks back and forth inside a new time measurement piece measuring platelets.

You drink lemonade squeeze release squeeze release when machine stops she takes the pressure off takes the ball gone tape off needle out gauze band aid arm up for three minutes drink lemonade make small talk blood in plastic bag dark red liquid sealed documented evidence with bar coded lot number you get off table walk down a hall receiving a key chain after 100 donations.

You sit in shade looking at a universal key chain environment.

This implies you need to find keys, alphabets, script, bones, dust and calibrated songs of ghost dances for the space-time chain.

Two months later you will do it all over again with joy. Your blood goes to any Childlighter child with A negative. One in 16 (6.3%) with statistics, there are lies, damn lies and statistics not knowing who, just knowing  someone out there young and alive lives with your small anonymous gift of red language.

Metta.

Detach

Namaste,

They needed masks.

They needed to understand the underlying unconscious animist mysteries inside their masks of death. They confronted the realm of spirit. They bought masks in open air markets on their pilgrimage, masks signifying the dignity of their Being, thwarting demons, Being demons and ghosts dancing in light. 

It was all light in their shamanistic interior landscape. They learned to let go of the ego, detach from outcomes, eliminate the need to control, trust their spirit energies and remain light about it.

Inside light with slow fingers and long thin ivory nails they turned clay into pots. Spinning circles danced turning on a Wheel of Time.

They finished throwing them, used them for tribal ceremonies and smashed delicate clay pots to earth. They exploded into air creating volcanic ash coating everything in a fine dust.

Metta.

Metro Woman

Namaste,

He saw her through a window when the metro pulled in.

Alone and cold, she waited for the green metro door to open.

It was late. She wore a thin black sweater and long gray skirt.

She was slight...olive pale skin, black hair pulled back, around 45. 

She limped into the car dragging her right foot. Her left foot was normal. Her right foot looked like a case of elephantiasis. She sat twenty feet away. 

She bent over and slowly raised her skirt from around her ankles. The burned and bloody skin damage ran three inches across and ten inches high. Either first or second degree burns. A layer of skin was exposed, red, lined with white. Bare and exposed. She needed medical attention.

Two men across from her stared and diverted their eyes.

She sat, fingered a phone and grimaced. No tears, just a stoic face. 

The metro rolled through night. It passed a river, a neon bright Everest furniture store, fast food emptiness and an expensive private hospital filled with antiseptics, bandages, lotions and potions and patients with money.

She inspected her ankle, touching an edge of fried skin with a white tissue. Clear cold air sent shivers through her central nervous system shutting down pain receptors. 

Metta.

myth stories

Namaste,

the stories we live
comprise the mythology
of our lives
and in that mythology
lies the key to truth and mystery

Metta.