The author uses all the enchantments:
language, rhythm, music and spirit.
Artistic emotion provokes thought
and gives the feeling of beauty.
A work of art is a force that attracts,
absorbs the available forces
of the one who comes close to it.
Year of the Tiger
"I am life. I have lived 10,000 generations.
I have lived millions of years ...
I have possessed many bodies.
All the spirit and mystery and the vital fire & life of me am off and away.
I have not perished and the body is not I."
“I’d rather be a tiger for one day than a sheep for 1,000 years,” chanted a Tibetan monk in a small chapel near the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa.
He sat on a platform swathed in burgundy robes holding the Vajra diamond thunderbolt and bell in his left hand. Ringing the bell he chanted sutras in muted tones.
Pilgrims entered the room through a worn door hanging after spinning copper prayer wheels in a narrow alley and climbing slick stone steps.
Three tall ornate, copper-plated Buddha’s faced them. Past, Present and Future Buddhas contemplated rows of flickering yak butter lamps, fruit offerings, khata scarves, coins and paper money.
Two wooden benches were against a wall. On the floor was a pan of round gray clay balls. Devotees rubbed one on faces and hands before joining others waiting to be blessed. Gathered with bowed heads at the chanting monk’s feet were playful, devout jostling travelers.
He cycled through sutras chanting and touching people on their head with the thunderbolt and pouring holy water on them saying Long Life. They eased away as others moved forward.
He was in a trance state.
An old woman with sky blue turquoise stones woven into her long plaited black hair and wearing a long heavy sheepskin coat sat down next to me. Sharing smiles she mumbled, “Namaste. Blessings to you.”
Whispering ‘Om Mani Padme Hum,’ she fingered prayer beads.
Babbling tongues sang. The bell rang.
Nepal
Awake, I returned to Spanish crypts with my camera. I imaged interments of chiseled names and pueblo connection. Invisible stories dreamed in occupied or empty crypts. They illuminated desire, conflict, ambiguities, metaphors, and silence.
Dreams floated to the listening faithful. They were silent stories of the pious as silent breathing revealed stories inside stories.
“The rest is silence,” said Shakespeare.
The widow observed crouched shadows in rocky fields shifting stones and pruning dead growth from olive trees along the Rio.
Wild yellow and purple flowers blanketed cleared land.
Romans built stone homes and designed baths near the river. They made walled fortifications with defensive mountains behind them. Ten-foot wide dolomite roads twisted from the pueblo down through the valley and beyond for future legions expanding their empire. Soldiers marching west branched north to Seville or south to Cadiz.
Grazalema men loaded cork on tired tractors. Using bedsprings for gates they built pens for sheep, chickens, dogs, goats, and children. Twisted rusting bed coils lay scattered. They used everything trying to tame poor rocky land.
Men assembled fences using blackberry brambles with sharp thorns. They reinforced fences with sticks, recycled old tires, tin cans, metal struts, old cars, and discarded cooking stoves. Chipped bathtubs became watering troughs for livestock. Small stone dams diverted Rio streams to small fields.
Everything was done by hand. Labor worked dawn to dusk, day in day out. Labor cleared erosion’s debris by marking land with tools and footprints.
The widow’s husband slept in the Catholic crypt. Dusty light danced through palm leaves.
She was a full silent moon above his bone white memory. Her spirit danced with spirits.
Spirits treasured clear impermanent memories. Finished sacrificial rituals his cloud vapor danced free from the cemetario to manifest with the full moon above stone fields, yellow flowers and flowing river where men worked their trust.
ART - A Memoir
Adventure, Risk, Transformation
Vietnam
I was grateful to see three full moons in the Sierras. Undulating valleys dreamed of planting, water and harvest.
Mad as hell caged hunting dogs below mountains howled high anxiety.
Grazalema men in sturdy boots carried lifetime labor tools through fields. When Luna was full they didn’t visit fields, river, forests or mountains. Men respected magic and ghosts. Men lived the day. Spirits lived the night.
Chained hounds howled dusk to sunset. Rising orange clouds met a yellow moon.
A heavy bolted brown wooden church door at the small church led to the vestibule of Republican resistance memories. A Virgin Mary crying blood decorated the altar. A widow in black performing her daily penance through action and devotion changed the white lace cloth. She soaked blood out at Roman public baths below the village where water flowed from stoned carved angelic mouths.
A forcestero with a notebook and camera passed her. She recognized his ghost, Yes a spirit visiting friends.
She blessed herself twice with bird wing fingers at the end of a warm winter day. Sun went home. Egyptian vultures pirouetted with the yellow moon evolving white.
She locked the black gate leading to the crypt. She remembered him doing his reconnaissance after yesterday’s funeral.
He worked in the crypt zone. Four long walls held the departed. Engraved stones with names, dates, in memoranda of children and adults back to 1896. He made images under the smoky green eyes of a wild Siamese cat on a red tiled roof.
Crypt construction tools, bricks, cleaning solution, trowels, broken black buckets and rags decorated empty crevices. Rectangles waited for ornate boxes from a casket factory miles and lives away. Caskets with simple bronze handles for six pairs of weathered hands. Brown and black lined caskets with satin pillows. Pillows softer than language welcomed living tears.
Survivor’s hearts beat long personal drum solos.
Every heartbeat contains a universe of possibilities.
Yesterday a casket in a black car garnished with wreaths of floral scents reached a black gate. Men carried it past a palm tree, through a church door, another black gate on rusty hinges and slid it into an empty domain name. Cold gray cement cavities had red brick ceilings. A desolate crypt space was long. It was empty. It was cold. It was a permanent change of address marked Eternity.
Men’s tools scraped hard winter soil. They were above ground.
Black was the night and cold was the ground.
“Any day above ground is a good day,” said an unemployed gravedigger. He looked at his hands. “I know two things.”
Resting outside the church seeing the concave valley and rising cubist pueblo I remembered a sitting meditation in Lhasa, Tibet.
ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir
Mekong Blue, Stung Treng, Cambodia
His pale skin outlined bones. His blue eyes were radiant and clear.
I opened the veil. Snow sky, flying clouds and soaring birds.
“What day is it?” he said.
“Saturday.”
Icicles melted along a roof edge. Drops reflected rainbows. Across the valley a laughing father and son shoveled spring snow off stonewalls.
“May I have more ice please?”
I spooned comfort. Sky eyes rested on my face. I handed him a long piece of Gringsing, a sacred healing cloth from Bali with a story about its creation.
“It’s lovely,” he said, running thin purple vein fingers over fabric.
“I love you,” I said.
I breathed in his suffering and exhaled my love.
Feeling no pain he rested. We talked about roses, seeds, seasons, English gardens and nature. We sat quiet holding hands.
A spoon of ice comforted his dry lips. His manners never ceased, always a “thank you” for simple sweet essential ice.
Our visit was rich in quiet contemplation. His mind was alert. His thoughts flowed quick and easy. He’d pause and stare away when I opened veils. Dawn light. Afternoon light. Twilight. Sky clarity.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, a smile creasing his sallow face.
He was now. Marian and my brother Tom shared their comfort and love.
“Two things start to go when you’re over fifty,” he said. “One is your mind and I can’t remember what the other thing is.”
His warrior spirit moved on with a clear vision. His spirit accepted all. I was content to be present. Grateful to be with him seeing his joyful face, feeling his soft hands, rubbing his facial stubble and massaging worn skin.
I witnessed his joy, reflective spirit and letting go with dignity, authenticity and silence. Sharing green grapes, water and ice he said, “You know, it’s not about death, no,” shrugging thin shoulders.
His swollen left hand passed over his skeleton frame like a shaman. “It’s strange, how fast the energy is leaving me.”
“Yes, death doesn’t bother me. It’s just the energy started leaving quicker than I imagined. Still, I never imagined I would live this long. I thought maybe 72 or 73 years, so I never imagined I would live this long.”
His voice and vision was strong.
“Sweet dreams, dear father,” kissing lips and forehead. I hugged his left arm and shoulder feeling bones. “Thank you for a fine lovely day.”
Bless his heart full of goodness, compassion and light. I read a letter to him about how I appreciated his love, kindness and virtues.
“You always were a dreamer,” he said.
Yes, always to be a dreamer, how in his heart, his truth comforted me.
For three days we cried, laughed, sharing stories knowing in our hearts it was a letting go. Our love was perfect.
I held his hand, rubbing his thin back and legs, tickling his toes, “Oh, no you don’t,” he laughed squirming. I rubbed his cheeks, kissing his forehead.
Our time together was pure. We understood the process of letting go without desire or attachment. Clarity and wisdom blessed us.
I returned to Tacoma. On May 8th I was coaching tennis students. At 9:08 a.m. I stopped. I knew he was gone. I returned to Colorado.
A shift. Family and friends gathered for his passing ceremony. Candles and words illuminated his life light.
“He had a warrior spirit with a diamond mind. His path of light and love was a path of perfection. He demonstrated ethical and moral guidance. He allowed us the freedom to surrender old fears and habits, enabling us to cut through the net of ignorance. He was grounded in luminosity. His warrior spirit was resilient and spiritual. He has crossed the river of time. We discovered the strength to let you go. We remain blessed by your spirit.”
ART Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir
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