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Subject to Change Subject to Change
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Entries in quality of life (54)

Monday
Jun012020

Page 95

Thanks to everyone who subscribed to this blog feed. Enjoy the adventure...

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A child painting with smoke on mirrors blasted light, “Hey. That’s what the Greeks believed. Everything was beauty and order.”

“Order, structure, design, form, function, oratory, mathematics, seven musical notes. Beauty originated with them didn’t it?”

“You got it,” said the painter. “Hey, you know what? I think we all need to take the day off and be creative.”

“The present moment is eternal reality,” whispered a child. “We live in the eternity of the instant.”

“It’s about process not product. How we learn not what we learn.”

“Whew, that’s deep!”

“Yeah, we’re all in the shit, it’s only the depth that changes.”

“Yeah, if it’s not one thing it’s something else.”

“Fools speak the truth.”

“Fools are everywhere. We dance or die. If fate doesn’t make you laugh you don’t get the joke. Truth value meaning is in the mystery.”

“Tunkashila is grandfather’s spirit. It’s wisdom and calmness,” said children in a sacred circle. “It is the way of the warrior. We are all warriors.”

Rose listened with her heart-mind. She knew others were not ready to receive the wisdom of children. Their terminal existence validated life memories where wheelchair rubber met the road.

The children were spiritual warriors with distinct vibrations and energy frequencies. The future would be a scary time for generations unaccustomed to their authenticity.

Rose knew it’d be a beautiful decision putting the disability act in their short sweet Ghost Dance - maybe in the rising action leading to an epiphany or in the falling action with heart-breaking catastrophic transformational awareness. Cut. The end. Cue applause.

“How can I know what I think until I see what I say?” said a child with reported speech. Their wheel of life played tag with crazy wisdom.  Mu-shin, their state of “no-mind” blossomed where thought, emotions and expectations did not matter.

Who’s dragging around this bag of bones? Where do I park this empty vehicle? I have poems and stories to finish that I haven’t even started yet.

“To sleep, perchance to dream.”

“A dream is an unfulfilled wish,” said a kid with a Ph.D. in Psychoanalysis from the Jung Institute in Zurich.

“What else did he say?”

“He said, ‘There is no royal road to wisdom. To arrive in the future I must journey to the past. To attain the sanity with the One, I must risk the whirling madness of the possessed. One must confront their shadow or be crushed by it.”

“I like it,” said Rumi. “What else?”

“Well, here’s another cool thing he said. “‘I liken the formation of a character to weaving fabric. You know what happens when you make a mistake? The whole pattern is spoiled. You have a choice. You can finish the garment, however it will always be botched and ugly or you can unravel the weaving back to the mistake and start again. That’s basically what analysis is about. It’s a tedious job. The patient is scared and hostile. The analyst lends patience, honesty and courage.’”

“Excellent,” yelled kids, “here’s to our being patient patients with honesty and courage.”

“Speaking of courage, I’m looking for someone who knows reading and writing,” said Rose.

“I can read and write,” said the children. "We also love drawing, singing and dancing.”

“Reading and writing is power. Dance is life. Perfect. Let’s go together,” said Rose.

Downstairs at Sacred Heart a translucent mother saw her grief reflected in Beauty’s mirror. “This is my worst nightmare,” whispered her heart-mind.

Rose said, “Afraid to face the truth adults run away. They run away carrying their fear like a heavy bag of bricks. They are afraid to see the beauty, strength and dignity of Death and letting go.”

“Why?” said mother.

“They stay away because they are afraid of saying the wrong thing. The child’s spirit is pure energy. They have the strength to let go. Adults find Death a scary thing so they run away.”

“I see,” said a gardener trimming thorns below a tree house. “I know Death’s beauty and wisdom. Metaphors and mortality exist with initial memories. Memories are figments of our imagination. I am a dreamer in nature, bigger than the universe, in never-never-cuckoo land. I am a witness collecting evidence that tells no lies. The deeper you go the deeper the bliss.”

“I live with suffering,” said Rose. “I am a pain sponge.”

The gardener said, “I administer thorn pain. I ask strangers if they desire suffering and awareness. I distribute thorns to the needy greedy. I am very busy. Demand is high. My thorn supply is infinite. I am authorized to administer inoculations in life’s weaving process. Weavers prick themselves in the process of creativity. Their blood is part of the dye.”

“Fascinating,” Rose said. “Your silver tongue doesn’t fool me. You’ve seduced and satisfied more emotionally starved women with your tongue than you can recall. I inhale suffering and exhale love. We are all Death deferred. Be grateful.”

“To know Death one has to live. To live one has to die,” said the gardener. “I meditate on the process of death. I remember the future.”

Rose’s departure created a vacuum.

The trapped mother realized her ice reality. Concise crying crystals reflected clarity. Suffering from fate and free will she danced in flames seeking her SAVE key.

Hearing a child say, “I need help,” she received a blessing.

A child whispered, “The ending is the middle.”

“The middle is the beginning,” said a child. “You can start the story anywhere.”

“We are all orphans sooner or later,” said Rose. “We bury our successes and failures in the same grave.”

Death and the gravedigger agreed. “Everyone comes to us.”

ART Adventure, Risk, Transformation

Wednesday
May272020

Experiment

Create like a god, order like a king, work like a slave

Work like you don’t need the money

Love like your heart’s never been broken

Dance like nobody’s looking

I am a short story

You are a novel

 Her Zen like awareness

Stoic serene

Shamanic wisdom seeks wisdom

Wabi-sabi

Everything I do is an experiment

Create happy little accidents

There are no mistakes in art

Art is what everything else is not

Laughter medicine

Spill letters words phrases sentences

Chinese financed damns block flow

(One damn on the Nam Ou River north of Luang Prabang)

+

Sell electricity to Thailand

Lights are on and nobody's home

Lao suffer land fish loss

Environmental damage, economic stress

Downstream in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam

60 million people struggle to survive

Rapid spray...fresh air skin laughter

After she stopped crying

The lonely woman

Killed herself

Where is my face, said her mask

Eating her face


Waif on her own walks along Mekong

In a flow state

Bare structure angular momentum

Ballet dancer on point

Permanently poised

Dance energy sways hips

Shift down all the days walking a gentle rolling

Wu-Wei

    Live your story

Welcome to Earth

Grow Your Soul

Saturday
Apr182020

Bat Shit

Yeah, I know, said a bat in Human Land.

Over centuries my relatives developed a super efficient immune system against any viruses. I mean SUPER efficient. They passed this DNA through generations and like magic here I am.

The sad unpleasant fact is that Wing Free, one of my relatives shit in the forest. Normal shit. Another animal friend named Pangolini, a species with scales like a reptile ate some delicious berries flavored with the shit.

Pangolini will eat anything. The jungle is a vast repository of succulent treats.

The shit had a virus named C-19.

A hunter - like all of us - trapped Pangolini and sold it to Wet Market Woman in Human Land. She killed it, sliced it up and served it a New Year's Eve party attended by thousands of voracious two-legged animals. 

Their mantra was "Eat Fast or Starve."

They were happy because 1) it was delicious and 2) they were leaving Human Land for a two-week national holiday.

They didn't wash their hands. Their bland joyful faces were masks.

Millions went to the train station, bus station and airport. Bye-bye Human Land. 

They travelled to all parts of a blue spinning rock called Earth. Except cold Antarctia where penguins dance.

They enjoyed their holiday without knowledge or fear. Many became sick and died. Many strangers in remote yet accessible villages, towns, cities, countries and continents got sick and died.

Survivors freaked out. Their lives were turned upside down, inside out and permanently changed.

Forever and a day.

So it goes.

 

 

Wednesday
Apr152020

Profit Before People

A global virus has a long term effect. Humans adjust priorities.

Big busine$$ restructures their operations. Oil, banks, pharmaceuticals, travel industry, automotive, and airlines.

It's a numbers game, said Profit Before People.

Story time...

...He unlocked the door. Five empty freezing rooms.

The kitchen counter displayed empty soda bottles, a black plastic bag of cheap harsh stale tobacco, a box of lavender herbal tea flowers, 1/2 jar of Nescafé, one white coffee cup, one spoon, a sharp knife, a fork in the road and one bright yellow plate.

On a white laminated shelf was a first edition of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, signed by the author.

“Read this,” said Silence, the loudest noise in the world.

Next to it was a black key for a teachers’ cabinet at TEOL.

“Call Trabzon,” the German man informed Ebru. “We have an MIA.”

She rang Sit Down in Trabzon.

“Lucky Foot took a hike,” she said.

“Call out the SWAT team and dogs. Hunt him down. Kill him with extreme prejudicial kindness.”

She called SWAT. The line was busy.

The German returned to TEOL and gave Ebru the key. She approached the cabinet. A rancid smell smashed her nose. “What’s that god-awful stench?”

Gagging, she threw up all over a teachers’ desk littered with empty tea glasses, cell phones and half eaten Simit pretzels. Regaining her composure she approached The Cabinet of Dr. Cagliari (1920).

She heard a ticking sound. Maybe it’s a bomb. I should call the bomb squad.

They arrived. A man in a bombproof origami suit applied a stethoscope to the front panel. Yes, something is ticking.

He drilled a hole and pushed a microscopic eye into darkness. A mirror inside the cabinet reflected a thin piece of pulsating metronomic metal. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.  

“We’ll have to open this with thrilling caution. Get the Die Rector.”

The Die Rector, an economist, knew what to do. “Let’s assume there’s no fucking problem. Give me the key.”

Ebru handed it over. Everyone backed up hard drives.

The Die Rector, 56, who was scheduled for a heart-valve transplant in January, unlocked the door.

Inside was The Language Company by Zeynep, class rosters, green, yellow, orange highlighters, a

magnifying glass, telescope, world globe, hourglass, a bag of hazelnuts, radioactive isotopes, a red rose with

thorns, a dissolving image of a smiling ghost playing with Lone Wolf in a mountain meadow, a mirror, a

dozing Black Mamba, a high voltage Dream Sweeper Machine from Hanoi, a Honer blues harp in the key of C,

a magic carpet, one sugar cube, a glass, spoon, dry tea leaves, an empty bottle of Xanax, a ticking

metronome, a bamboo forest, dusty footprints and rusty Communist loudspeakers squawking:

We are Authority, Power and Control. Surprise!

51 Days in Turkey

The Language Company

 

Study currency with a friend.

How did I grow?

Monday
Apr062020

Ghost in exile

After 364 days an officer pinned red and yellow campaign ribbons on me. I caught a freedom flight from Saigon to Alaska, ran across a frozen tarmac in thin khakis for java and flew to the City by the Bay.

“Anybody want a steak?” said a sergeant processing arrivals.

“Screw the steak. Give me a new dress green uniform. I’m out of here for a flight to Colorado.”

I became a ghost in exile. No one spoke to me. I understood their reticence, fear, guilt and awkwardness seeing me in a military uniform.

Passengers were anesthetized by their life and media propaganda and TV images seeing the dead come home in black body bags. Prime time madness sold soap.

I remembered Samuel at the 265th, “Better than going home to abuse, derision, scorn, apathy and unemployment.”

I’d seen things they would never believe. They averted their eyes with social indifference and I understood. They’d remained static in their work, eat, and sleep routines.

I’d shifted my consciousness with quantum precision. I survived a transforming life experience.

You die twice. Once when you’re born and when you face death.

Surviving a year in a macabre police action zone where an imperialist government tried to impose a Catholic leader on a Buddhist people gave my life new meaning.

It taught me impermanence.

One life - no plan - many adventures sang with clarity and awareness. I create or destroy my freedom.

In my dream I hike past a crude sign hanging from rusty concertina wire at a deserted firebase:

Normal is a cycle on a washing machine.

I locate normal in my portable lexicon.

Normal is someone you don’t know very well. Like yourself.

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

ART