new constipation

Namaste,

40 million Nepalese ran into streets, paths, jungles, mountain villages this week.

National Crisis Averted! We're going to get a new constipation!

The 601 elected representatives waited (delayed) until the last minute to agree to extend their deadline on writing a new constipation another three months.

Wow! Hooray! Congratulations! They've had two years and couldn't get the job done. Now they have another ninety days. It's a beautiful mess. Squabble. Cluck-cluck. Quack-quack. 

As a foreign anthropologist said, "They act like teenagers. They waste their opportunities."

As a local teacher said, "They politicize everything here in Nepal. They're good at calling general strikes. They're good at not providing enough water or electricity. They want democracy but not the responsibilities." 

Everyone walks around with a morning radio attached to their ear swallowing the latest cynical political intrigue. A free hand carries a red plastic bucket of water from the community well. Everyone brushes their teeth outside. Hawking and spitting is popular. Accurate. 

Common life is simple. Home. Family, community inside small shops. Food, conversation, peace. 

Fishtail (Machapuchare) the sacred Shiva mountain weeps ice at 22,943 feet. It will never be climbed.

Metta.

Fishtail

Namaste,

Fishtail swims in blue
Alone
Cold steep snow regions
Dances along Annapurna spine
Laughing at human's meager
Attempts to summit

Metta.

Mist

Namaste,

Cloud dance
Mist mountains
Mad woman sings
Her visibility
Vitality
Immediate voice rivers
Yellow eagles play

Metta.

Raw

Nameste,

Below balcony red flowers.
Thick green foliage.
Hindu temple, slate gray roof.
Red clay, steep stone path.
Fertile wide green valley, corn, rice.
Rising green forests.
South-west gray mountain range.
White and gray cumulus.
Sunlight meditates.

Metta.

Myth

Namaste,

As Joseph Campbell wrote in The Hero With A Thousand Faces, the hero's journey is the space within the heart.

AUM. A - a waking consciousness. U - dream consciousness. M - deep sleep. 

The manpower investment training wheels in Nepal is slight to non-existant. Young future immigrants move to rich countries. No manufacturing. Woman manufacture babies for export. Import everything from outside. 

A Nepalese man named Thor below a hill station sits in the hot sun. He picks up a medium size stone. He places the stone on a larger stone. He raises his hammer. He smashes the medium size stone into fragments.

He pushes the fragments into a pile. When I have a big pile, he said, smiling, someone will collect them. They will put them on a truck and sell them in India. This is my life. 

Teams of starlings wing below fast moving clouds above rolling green hills, farms, rice paddies, snow ranges.

An old woman departed a distant valley. She carries a 40-pound bag of sand on her back up steep ragged slippery slate steps. Step by step. The meshed rope blazes into her forehead. This is my life.

A babbling Chinese tourist walks past the man and woman. This is the best day of my life.

Metta.