Hope & Exile

Hope had many choices and she chose Exile. They married at the Cathedral of Dreams and ran through fields over Spanish mountains to the edge of the Mediterranean. 

 “There’s a big world out there,” Hope said to Exile pointing over the sea. 

“Yes and that’s only the top of it. Let’s share an orange,” Exile said to Hope. 

“Yes,” said Hope, smiling at real and imaginary worlds over the horizon, “we will sacrifice the peel to enjoy the fruit. Delicious.”

Hope birthed Patience. Raising Patience was a test for Hope and Exile because she gave them the test first and the lessons later.

Exile was a strange wild bird and while he loved Patience she challenged it, his love. She tested his stability, honesty, devotion and his way of constructing a world inside a world, a universe inside the swirling molecules of their experience. He was a risk taker not a ticket taker and Patience admired this reality. 

They studied and evaluated their character traits and imperfections. They took personality tests. Patience tested his trust, his ability to forgive and forget with gratitude and love. Patience handed him small portions of fear, anger, jealousy, ignorance, and desire. He created a diamond reflecting 10,000 things. These were the things Patience cherished.

Hope was relieved when she saw Exile was content. She didn’t know how long it would last. He always enjoyed living on the edge of somewhere else.

The old forest when they saw the axe handle entering, said, “Look it is one of us.”

“No one dies,“ Exile said one evening as they chopped and carried wood on the edge of a rain forest.

“No, I suppose not,” said Hope. “Patience will never die. She will live forever because she has a magic about her. I felt it before she was born. It was like a stream of light was floating inside me.”

“She is radiant,” Exile said. “She is beauty, truth and wisdom incarnate. She will learn how to float, how to project her spirit energies. She will be a fine healer.”

Exile raised Labrys, his double bladed laughing axe above wood. Streams of splinters blasted into twilight. Exile chopped and Hope carried. These were the choices they made as the moon rose through orange and blue streaks of light.

“He went to the cemetario today,” Hope said. 

“Who?”

“The forcestero, the outsider.”

“He was there yesterday as well, why?”

“Visiting the spirit sources.” 

“Indeed,” said Exile, “they will be out tomorrow with the full moon. Clearly.”

Hope and Exile danced in the meadow under the moon.

Light pierced their being and they floated. Nobody else saw them floating. They were protected by a veil of light dancing behind a curtain of surrender. Their spirits were free of their physical being. They were free spirits in a free world blessed by their imaginary limitations. 

They left their temporal bodies and floated down to the Rio Guadalete to combine their energies with water. The water was clear, cold and delicious. It flowed from dark gray Sierra mountains in a rush of sound through a rocky path. It flowed flowers absorbing their scent inside water. 

As petals danced in air Exile and Hope gathered warm flowers around them below the moon. They ran along the valley through fresh turned soil, past olive and cork trees, inside forests of pine, fir, evergreen, pinsapar, maple and trees without a name. 

Bare trees pointed at the moon.

“Look there,” trees said, pointing thin branches toward the sky, “there, there we are.”

Trees pointed to pulsating white stars. “Yes,” they sang, “there we are.”

“Look,” said one, pointing far away, “there we are.”

“And there and there,” they sang reaching every direction. The wind listened to the stars whisper secrets telling star tales seeing star trails across the emptiness of sky inside the vast vacuum of silence. 

Hope and Exile were light.

Kalapuya

Children watched everything from a council bluff where Native American tribes of their nation gathered for a Ghost Dance ceremony. They shared a spirit vision of a Northwest tribe called the Kalapuya.

A hunting gathering people speaking Pentian, they numbered 3000 in 1780. They believed in nature spirits, vision quests and guardian spirits. Their shamans, called, amp a lak ya taught them how seeking, finding and following one’s spirit or dream power and singing their song was essential in their community.

An ancestor spoke to the tribes. “I speak in tongues, in ancient dialects about love. Dialects of ancestors who lived here for 8,000 years before where you are now. In the forest near the river all animal spirits welcome you with their love. They are manifestations of your being.

“I am blessed to welcome you here. You have walked along many paths of love to reach me.

“My dirt path is narrow and smooth in places, rocky in others. I am the soil under your feet. I feel your weight, your balance, your weakness and your strength. I hear your heart beating as my ancestors pounded their ceremonial drums. I feel the tremendous surging force of your breath extend into my forest. Wind accepts your breath. 

“I am everything you see, smell, taste, touch and hear. I am the oak, the fir and pine trees spread like dreams upon your outer landscape. I am your inner landscape. I see you stand silent in the forest hearing trees nudge each other. ‘Look,’ they say, “Someone has returned.’

“I love the way you absorb the song of brown body thrush collecting moss for a nest. I am the small brown bird saying hello. I am the sweet throated song you hear without listening. At night two owls sing their distant song and their music fills your ears with mystery and love.

“I am warm spring sun on your face filtered through leaves of time. I am the spider’s web dancing with diamond points of light. I am the rough fragile texture of bark you gently remove before connecting the edge of an axe with wood. You carry me through my forest, your flame creates heat of love. I am the taste of pitch on your lips, the odor of forest in your nostrils, filling your lungs. It is sweet. 

“I am the cold rain and wet snow and hot sun and four seasons. I am the yellow, purple, red, blue, orange flowers out of brown earth. 

“I am an old dialect of Kalapuya tribes. I respect the spirit energies. I hear with my eyes and see with my ears. I understand your love for the spirit power guardian. I am the ancestor speaking 300 languages from our history. Now only 150 dialects remain. Language cannot be separated from who you are and where you live. 

“I say this so you will remember everything in this forest. I took care of this place and now your love has the responsibility.”

A memory travel story

Greetings,

A Cambodian orphan said the NYT was looking for stories from readers about their worst travel experience in 2010. The kid suggested I send them a memory. Here it is.

This year was all about first class travel. While climbing into a volcano in Iceland it blew up.

I was blasted into the stratosphere where, fortunately, my cargo pants offered me ballast. The jet stream meandered over Europe in incredibly clear skies because there were no planes. Then, south of Yemen, the air pressure dropped and I drifted toward the Mediterranean. Using my polarity navigation device I located a highjacked Russian cargo ship loaded with weapons and landed among Somali pirates. They were very cordial.

We sailed the seven seas. Eventually they transferred me to a Turkish boat heading for Israel. We were forced to divert to an unnamed northern port where I hitched a ride with a camel caravan going to China. We visited markets in Bukhara, Samerkand and eventually reached Kashgar on the Silk Road where we traded with local merchants.

Over butter tea and tsampa (a hard rock cheese) Tibetan traders invited me to Lhasa, so we drove yaks to Shigatse, and then Lhasa.

From there I walked to Yunnan before crossing into North Vietnam to help Black H'mong friends in Sapa harvest rice. Laos was next door and the northern rivers connected with the Mekong, so I sailed south into Cambodia where I volunteered at an orphanage.

I told the kids this story and they were amazed to learn about volcanic activity.

Metta.

A jungle story

Greetings,

Once upon a time in the long now there was a continent, a land mass floating on water. It was labelled Asia on dusty maps by white people. Deep inside Asia were vast lands, rivers and mountains.

Overtime, a historical bandit with a reputation for laughter, magic, fear, superstition and an insatiable appetite, people of diverse languages, customs and cultures lived in jungles and forests. Others preferred living on distant and remote mountains. 

Jingle, jangle, jungle. Using natural materials they created musical instruments, simple weapons, homes, fish traps, snares and tools like looms. The women had babies, wove cloth and prepared food while the men fished, planted crops, domesticated animals and the children played and learned life lessons with extended families and from nature. 

One day a boat filled with white men sailed down the river to a village deep in the jungle. They wore shiny clothing, spoke a language the people didn't understand and carried weapons which made a lot of noise and scared the people. They pretended to be friendly by offering gifts. The leader of the village welcomed them and they had a party.

Every day more white people came down the river on boats named Destiny. They were on a quest for gold and slaves. Owning, using and discarding slaves had proven to be an essential part of their historical evolution on other continents. Their mantra was, Cheap labor, Cheap raw material, Cheap goods, many Cheap markets and much Profit.

They said, We are civilized and you are savages. We have religion. It is called Wealth. We are on a mission from the great chief. We control fire. We control time. We control people. We control nature. We have machines. We take what we want. The village gave them hospitality and shelter. The white men were greedy. They took control of the village, the people and part of the jungle. 

Every day the white men marched their slaves deep into the jungle singing, We control Nature. We shall overcome.

They spread diseases. They planted fear. They planted envy and jealousy. They manipulated villages against villages. They divided people against people. Against each other. History had taught them well. They harvested wealth in the form of people, precious stones, rubber and every raw material of value. They were never satisfied. Their appetite grew and grew.

If we want to survive we move to a new jungle forest tomorrow, said the shaman. Far away. This is the story they told the people one night below stars singing with their light.

Metta. 

The house is built by a single male to impress a prospective bride. 

Bubble Life

Greetings from a sleepy little town down south along the mighty Mekong,

After finding a pillow and delicious local cold java swimming in a glass you get a hair cut and your ears cleaned.

It's essential, as we've said previously, from China, Vietnam, Cambodia and now Laos to relax.

Sit back close your eyes hearing the whirling overhead fan rotating like helicopter rotor blades over rapid cobalt rivers inside deep forested green jungles, skimming granite mountains, swooping toward rice valleys allowing a thin man with shiny silver tools to clean, vibrate, scrape, identify, probe, assess, magnify, illustrate and remove old historical debris, leaves, brooms, the click-clack of shuttles, blue and yellow butterflies, children's laughter, language acquisition cycles, tonal frequencies, vibrational shifts and so forth.

A new marveLaos gallery is live.

http://tmleonard.squarespace.com/marvelaos/

It contains clouds, art, design, black & white, wats, paper making, rice threshing, weavers, kids and big serious humans.

The Luang Prabang airport has one simple concrete runway. The control tower needs a coat of paint.

There are two gates. A French tourist is worried because their boarding pass has a big number approaching infinity. "We only have two gates," said the serene and helpful girl behind a desk.

"Oh, my goodness," said the tourist holding a can of white paint and a brown sable hair brush. "I was so worried I wouldn't get home for Christmas. I mean I was feeling so anxious and neurotic and lost and dazed and confused and sullen and tired and suddenly I felt comfortable in a calm way knowing I will realize my vacation dream and paint a control tower at a small airport in Asia." 

"Be a work of art or wear a work of art," said the smiling girl, or, as Picasso asked, "what is color?"

Metta.

Paper is an essential part of Lao life. The art of paper is in the making, using, honoring paper in the community and burning paper to honor ancestors. Artists use white fibers from plant stems to make paper. To soften it they mix it with ash and soak it in wood fired 55 gallon drums. They pound it to a pulp. The woman spreads fibers over a screen. It is dried in the sun and used to create tactile textured paper books, umbrellas, bags, cards, lanterns, envelopes and airport control towers.