Patriot Act

War on terror experts discussed tactics and strategies for a play with many acts. A dramatic play with word swords cut to the chase. Some acts were difficult to follow or comprehend. Reviews would be mixed when it ran off Broadway flagging down a Berber caravan inside an air-conditioned nightmare looking for a Caravansary on Route 66.

“What’s the name of the first act?” asked a playwright.

“Patriot,” said General Consensus.

“How does The Patriot Act sound?” said Sir Scribe, a former loan shark and energy consultant.

“I like it, I really like it,” said a general named Attorney. He was a neo-conservative right wing religious fanatic from the State of Misery. “It has teeth with wide ranging subversive constitutional powers perfectly timed for our agenda. Let’s push it down the legislator’s throats. We rule and Control by fear.”

“Does that mean the gag rule will be in effect?” cracked a comedian on welfare.

“Sure does. Anyone who expresses constitutional concern about this act will be blacklisted, ridiculed, ostracized, and labeled unpatriotic. They will never work again in this great beautiful free country. We will revoke their voting rights, cancel their citizenship and deport them to Cuba. I’ve had it up to here with this liberal democratic crap. Our culture is to kill. Take no prisoners. Abuse the hell out of detainees. Lock up all the immigrant children. Tell the tree huggers to take a hike through old growth forests,” smirked Attorney.

“There is no doubt about our honorable intentions. We are on a holy mission. Our destiny is to install democrazy in the Middle Eats,” said chef Boy R. Dumbed Down Dee, “whether they like it or not. They’ll eat what we give ’em or starve. This is an ala’ carte blanche military menu.”

“Perhaps we should we open diplomatic channels?” queried Plame as day, an agent with a blown cover.

Days, weeks, months, years and centuries after 9/11, English hawks warbled to Blare about taking the campaign into winter. They needed hawk food. As predators they knew the terrain, the sweet sound of droning wings whistling through clouds with laser-guided precision. Their talons were sharpened by inherent power, greed and historical imperative.

They were ready, willing and able to establish and sustain new empires by spilling native blood. They had the experience of controlling colonies using guns and fear to establish The Rule of Law. They’d raped, pillaged and plundered old world civilizations and would not be deterred in their desire for more money, power and influence.

They were experts at economic terrorism and exploiting natural resources using slave labor.

“Yes, open a channel,” said another covert agent disguised as a Spanish cleaning woman with Romani DNA.

Nonofficial cover was their nom de plume in proprietary front companies conducting espionage and money laundering. Fronts were social web networks, airlines, travel agencies, blood banks, world currency exchanges, military and civilian courts, oil and gas companies, construction firms, NGOs, global telecommunications, shipping firms, brothels, juke joints, casinos, tailors, beauty salons, crematoriums, mortuaries and cemeteries.

Everyone in the food chain was expendable.

The downside was being left out in the cold if their cover was exposed to compliant media sheep and the public. Accountability disappeared. A hard rain fell.

A buttoned down butler brought experts a mandate appetizer. They dug into their personal caves of hunger. They had Neolithic tools at their disposal. A laughing axe clogged the garbage disposal. Someone called maintenance.

“Maintenance,” demanded a shrill counter-intuitive defensive individual named Bumsfield with lipstick on his collar from a one-night stand. “Get up here on the triple and bring your torch. Stuff happens.”

“Sorry sir,” said Maintenance. “Stuff happens and my torch is down for maintenance if you get my drift.”

“Drift, draft, fore and aft,” said a divorced right-wing conservative senator up for erection. He washed his hands of the whole affair in dirty water. He threw the baby out with the bath water.

Baby swam into global suffering where 17,000 children died every day from starvation.

4,000 and then send some more American soldiers named Casualty in Iraq and Afghanistan slept their dream of dreams in black body bags.

Agents returned to deep cover operations funneling cash, arms, explosives, uranium-235, and communication gear and cyanide capsules to homeless, nameless volunteers. The number of American veterans committing suicide approached warp speed.

A Spanish black widow with an ear for dialogue mopped stairs and pavement along the narrow Rue Castanets in Cadiz. She dumped water into a gutter. It flowed to the Atlantic evaporated into clouds and rained flowers.

“This is no time to be surrounding ourselves with incompetents. Find someone who knows the lay of the land,” said a junior fellow named Full Bright on a scholarship. He unrolled a parchment for knights to seesaw.

“Now see here,” countered Deli, “what it’ll be gents?”

“Make mine ham on rye,” said El Salvadore reclining on a divan fondling his Dali. She was in no mood for his intentional violation of her writes.

“You know I don’t eat meat,” she said.

“Yes my dearest,” said Salvadore, “I’m well aware of your passion for fruit. You are my passion fruit my darling bed rabbit. Let’s see what’s in the queen’s pantry. Perhaps a nice juicy banana?”

“Yes,” sighed Dali dearest, “peel it down for me. I am your bed rabbit. Skin the bunny honey. Elementary my sweet.”

“Yes, darling, they who want to enjoy a fine fruit must sacrifice its peel. Let’s turn the lights down low and make whoopee.”

Salvadore unrolled a painting. “What do you make of this Pablo?”

“Hmm,” said Pablo, “it’s fairly abstract standing alone. It needs definition, stronger emphasis, a wider range of implicit specific graphic detail.”

“I agree,” said Salvadore, “perhaps broken orange melting time machines. Dashing surrealistic nature enveloping warriors disappearing into exile, fighting real and imaginary foes is needed.”

“Yes, a nice touch, that,” said Pablo. “Many are called few are chosen. We may consider this, my dear colleague, an experiential vision. An extension of a red or blue period.”

“Well put dear friend speaking of the blues. Less is more.”

“Agreed,” said Pablo, “let’s not put in anything extra or take anything extra out.”

“Such a novel concept,” said Don Quixote, an unemployed literary agent sitting on a nag wearing a battered bedpan for a helmet.

“Excellent,” said Salvadore. “My friend Cervantes said the exact words to his companion Pancho. One rode an ass into history. Shall we have a go then?”

“Yes,” said Pablo. “Be my guest. Let’s take a line for a walk with Klee.”

“It’s glee Pablo. Joy. Such a quicksilver tongue you have. Have you thought of a name for your new work my friend?” said Dali.

“Guernica comes to mind,” said Pablo.

“How appropriate,” Dali said combing his exquisite greasy mustache paying lip service. “It will be a classic. It will connect the wild subconscious and rationality. It’ll make you famous, old boy.”

Picasso’s Guernica commemorated the small Basque village of 10,000 in northern Spain. It was market day on Monday, April 27, 1937. In the afternoon waves of Heinkel 51s and Junker 52s from the Condor Legion piloted by Germans blasted Guernica. Survivors found 1,660 corpses and 890 wounded people in the rubble.

“Be that as it may,” said Pablo. “Art historians and critics will have their say hey kid. It will shock supporters of social realism and propaganda art in France and Spain.”

“How did you do it?” said Dali.

“From May 1st to June 4th in 1937 I made forty-five drawings on blue or black paper. I incorporated the bull, the horse, classic bullfighting figures and the lantern from my 1935 Minotauromachy. I used the weeping Dora Maar because she has always been a woman who weeps. Guernica is a bereavement letter saying everything we love is going to die. And that is why everything we love is embodied in something unforgettably beautiful, like the emotion of a final farewell.”

“I still think your vision aspires to greater heights,” said Dali. “Your work contains intuitive fantasies meeting the objective violence of history.”

“You are too kind my dear Dali. People are talking about your work. Your intentional dreams, so strangely manifested, in the way you allowed your subconscious free rein on the canvas. Most amazing, your Persistence of Memory.”

“You are too generous Pablo. I merely reflect the ongoing crisis in society, the surreal absurd nightmare, with shall we say, a twisted rather sordid but truthful elusive creative beast we must acknowledge to allow our perverse authenticity freedom wherever it leads us.”

“So true my friend, for we are only the conduit of the magic,” said Pablo. “We paint with our innermost senses born by authentic visions.”

“We are the mysteries speaking through the mysteries,” said Salvadore.

“We are redrafting the short story called our life,” said Omar.

 ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Yangon, Burma - 2015

Buy Low, Sell High

In the Sahara removed from death, chaos, tears and 3,000 funerals I suggested to Omar maybe it was about economic terrorism, poverty and empathy.

He understood the economics of survival, bartering, trade, exchange value, supply, demand and getting the best price. Not too low and not too high.

“A person cannot drink or eat more than they need. It’s about hospitality,” he said.

Omar’s tribe migrated from Mali, Southern Algeria and Mauritania. Prior to 1956 there were six million Touareg on nine million square kilometers of desert with no government borders controlling movement. Now there were 7-10,000 in the Sahara Occidental.

Berbers controlled the Iberian Peninsula as a colony from Marrakech castles. Fierce warriors, they resisted outside control while maintaining their language and culture during Roman, Vandal and Arabic rule.

“Your enemy is my friend,” said Omar.

His tribes conquered and ruled Spain for centuries.

He’d seen boring television images. He preferred human conversation. Omar knew television and cell phones were the most insane consciousness-stealing inventions of all time. They sold desire and greed designed by advertising companies pitching food, sex, self-esteem and illusions of false happy secure lies.

After the successful 9/11 attacks desperate stories, lies and myths evolved, adapted and adjusted like petri dish cultures.

They created new languages, art, music, attitudes, values, principles, weapons of mass distraction and historical chaos in the long now. They took on new fragmented impartial impervious identities.

“Buy low and sell high,” said Omar as sand shifted below a blue sky.

“Simple as ABC,” I said.

“It’s easy to comprehend at the heart-mind level.” He was a man of few words. We contemplated a vast silent world.

“No language, no culture,” he sang as shooting stars played celestial tag.

I visualized elements of fear, disinformation, misinformation, bias, lies, half-truths and paranoid propaganda bloviated by politicians, popes, prelates, mullahs, and animists in every oral language on a spinning blue marble in space-time. 24/7.

Fear sells. People buy.

Human brains overflowed with data and visual distractions. Incoming! Run for cover.

Free C-19 vaccines were administered to seven billion humanoids.

Survivors crammed mountain caves as orphans sang, “A tisket a tasket we need a casket.”

Peaceful people lived wisdom, empathy, and compassion. Meditation, deep breathing, harmony and forgiveness of Spiriti Sanctus were portals into clear awareness.

Arabic speaking scholars recited poetry by Rumi. They shared stories about rising and falling civilizations. Transmitting oral stories they diagramed hieroglyphics, cave paintings, metaphors and unconscious archetypes.

I envisaged historians, political scientists, talking heads, taxi drivers, unemployed fortunetellers and morticians answering suicide hotline calls. The number of callers increased exponentially.

Governments increased military spending.

They cut education, health care and social programs.

Citizens overwhelmed hospital emergency rooms pleading, “Give us drugs to alleviate our fears and illusions of desire and suffering.”

Fear and Consumption demand outstripped supply.

Scarcity was thrilled.

“What happens when they run out of CONTROL programs and advertising?” a girl asked her mother, the mother of all answers.

“Don’t worry my sweet,” said her mother living her worst nightmare, “They will invent, fabricate and illuminate something new. The manufacturing sector will rebound when shelves are empty. Advertising and propaganda never dies. We’ll always have sugar and we can always go shopping.”

“How long will it take to reduce these feelings of imaginary fear?”

“Healing, empathy and compassion require our individual intention. Many practice a calm way like there’s no tomorrow,” said her mother.

“Healing energies, peace and love sustain us.”

“There is only F.U.D.,” said the mother twisting her daughter’s hair until it caught fire.

“What is F.U.D. mother?”

“Fear, uncertainty and doubt. It’s part of our DNA since we jumped or fell or were pushed from The Tree of Life 60,000 years ago. FUD evolved with a vengeance as hungry unconscious greedy demons.”

“What about adventure and surprise?”

“They are factors in our adaptation as a species. You ask great questions my dear,” fanning her daughter’s flame. “A long now-time. A century is nothing.”

“It’s good to know some things,” said the girl. “We know so much and understand nothing.”

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I’ve already said a lot.”

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Tell me the truth,” mother. “I want to know your truth.”

“It’s a miracle we are here is my truth. It’s a big cosmic joke. Our insecurities are disappearing and our strengths are growing. Consider this. The letters F.E.A.R. can mean face everything and recover, or fuck everything and run away.”

“Life is a magical celebration, mother. We are flukes of the universe. We are miracles. Life is a beautiful short dream. There’s no rhyme or reason. It’s about realizing peace and gratitude in our heart. We connect with family, community and world tribes. Inhale other’s suffering and exhale healing. Cultivate our heart-mind awareness.”

“I love you,” said her mother.

“I will be present and grateful mother. May we go out and play now? May we take the day off and be creative?”

“Yes, let’s invent a game theory my sweet.”

ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

September 1, 2001

I boarded a small plane from Richland to Seattle and sat next to a fat couple. We flew over the Cascades.

“Hi,” they said.

“Hi. Where are you going?” I said.

The man said, “Oh we’re going to Atlanta and then...” his heavy, bejeweled wife interrupted, flashing lidded eyes above pancake makeup and perfect teeth, “and this seating is just terrible. I mean, look at the space on this poor thing. There’s absolutely no room to move. When we get to Atlanta we’re flying first class to London.”

Her white pearl ring would’ve fed half of Bangladesh.

“We own a travel agency in Bend Over,” he continued. “We’re on our way to meet friends in London and then we’re going to sail down the Danube River, drink wine and have the time of our lives. Yes indeed. We’re going first class all the way.”

“Sounds like a relaxing vacation.”

“That’s only the beginning,” he said.

“Say more.”

“After Europe we’re going to an antiterrorist convention in Cuba and then,” his spouse interjected again…spitting her words into an overbooked air tight tin can where syllables floated with half baked ideas meeting angry frustrated voices complaining about time, weather, seat selection, lack of dietary choices, cramped cattle conditions and the high price one paid to be human…

... she shut up and her husband sighed, “then we’re going to China for a tour. We’re going to hit all the sights in ten days: Bee Jing, Shanghai, Xian, see Terracotta warriors trapped in dirt, walk the Great Wall, swim in the Gangster River and prowl open air markets filled with exotic animals like lions, tigers and bears oh my, dying of loneliness and neglect in cages, yes sir ree and you buy them and they’ll cook it right up in front of you. We’ll drink cobra blood. It’s a sexual aphrodisiac.” He rubbed his crotch.

His wife blew more smoke. “Isn’t freedom, democracy and free trade with open markets wonderful? Isn’t it a shame these planes are so small. You’d think the FAA would require carriers to operate planes with more legroom. They treat us like pigs. Some pigs are more equal than others, by George oh well.

"And, if that wasn’t enough, those smelly immigrant security wage slaves made me remove my shoes and underwear before I passed through detectors. I hardly understood a word they muttered and stuttered. Can you imagine? I need another drink and I need it bad.”

“Yes, dear,” said hubby patting her pasty fingers, “this country is going to hell faster than you can say Osama who’s your mama.”

She inhaled a double gin and tonic. “You be careful whom you talk to now dear,” she whispered. “You never know when someone might be listening. There may be bugs planted on this plane. I need another drink.”

“You worry too much,” he said. “It’s been disinfected.” He got her a double G&T.

“It’s a wonderful life,” I said. A couple of fat happy complacent mediocre Yankee doodle dandies.

“What do you do?” said hubby.

“I work for Death Deferred Ink as a mercenary ghost. I freelance as a wordsmith gravedigger designing mysterious plot projects. Busy 24/7. I’m taking a break from my heavy, deep, real responsibilities. Headed to Marrakesh to meet a friend at a Storyteller’s Convention. She’s a blind nomadic weaver in exile from exile. She lives in a cave with cannibals outside Rhonda in Andalucía. When someone passes on we strip the flesh off bones for writing parchment. We grind the bones into sex medicine dust. We sell left over human organs and upright pianos in China. It’s an expanding market with tonal variations on a theme. Diversity and flexibility is key. Always be closing.”

This revelation took care of their first class attitude.

ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A memoir

Transformation

Late one afternoon I helped Omar climb hundreds of stone steps to reach the entrance of Cueva De La Pileta (Cave of the Pool) south of Benaojan near Rhonda. We bowed through a small entrance arch to enter a small cave.

John, the grandson of Jose Bullon who discovered Pileta in 1905 after seeing bats flying from the mountain handed me a hissing yellow gas lamp.

In his mid 30’s, slender with dark hair and eyes, multi-lingual and friendly, John was the last member of his family guiding visitors.

“My brothers moved to Madrid, my sister to Seville and I live with my mother down in the valley.”

His grandfather, needing bat guano to fertilize tobacco fields, dug around the mountain entrance called the abyss of the bats. He roped in and descended. He discovered human remains and numerous red and black Paleolithic paintings.

In 1911 Colonel Willoughby Verner, a British author and ornithologist entered the cave. He published his discovery describing the cave and paintings in the London based Saturday Review.

Henri Breuil, a French archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist joined him for two months to study and draw the cave paintings.

Breuil interpreted the paintings as hunting magic to increase the abundance of prey.

It’s exhilarating and surreal to be here now.

I held Omar’s hand as we entered a gigantic cavern. We slowed on wet slippery passages.

We shifted from external modern civilization into ancient internal worlds. It was a massive dark mysterious space.

The labyrinth of caves extended deep inside the mountain. The path followed slippery rough stone stairs and muddy rocky floors. One huge chamber led to another.

Forests of calcium stalactites and stalagmites loomed in light. John paused near columns of living art formed by dripping water. Natural art creates art.

“Here, listen to this,” he said, cupping his hands and tapping on a carbonated lime spike, 2-3 feet in circumference, rising from the floor into darkness.

Heavy thudding echoes reverberated. My hands played 30,000-year-old intonations. Be the drum. The cave was a magnificent chamber of natural sound echoing through deep dark space.

Lanterns played yellow light/shadows everywhere. Each step returned us to a primal condition.

There is no I, self or ego.

I am a primitive essence.

I have no identity. No past. No future.

I am pure consciousness.

Every cell is alive and firing.

My body vibrates.

I am complete and empty where light and dark meet.

Singularity. Pure sensation.

I am stone and water.

Three humans in flickering light are small.

I burn in an ancient space where knowing and unknowing meet. Wisdom meets wisdom.

Awareness is all.

I am a wild still present.

We explored deeper chambers. John pointed to a rough beige wall. Our golden lights illuminated horses, deer and a fish inside a seal.

Rough, broken black comb-like marks slashed stonewalls. There were fish traps and bison. An archer with a bow and arrow stood silent. The hunter. Prey.

They were stone stories by hunter-gatherers, clans, tribes and families before chiefdoms and city-states, empires and countries.

Stories said I was here. I am.

“They sealed some images using animal fat. If you look close you can see their fingerprints on the pictures,” said John.

Human whorls edged where a finger pressed fat on stone. Magic images danced in the light. I was in a reality/dream of beauty and mystery beyond space and time.

The power and magic is art here now.

Grounded.

Immediate.

Direct experience.

I focused on minute black lines. The outline of a horse had thick black lines on her belly. She looked pregnant. Paired red slashes, perhaps signifying blood, marked her flanks.

Deeper in caves were sixteen more black comb-like drawings. 

“They may represent the passage of time or a number,” said John. Heavy vertical black lines had smaller descending lines slanting and curving at right angles.

In 1911 a group of scientists hypothesized the paintings dated 25,000 years to the Middle Paleolithic. This was confirmed by carbon 14-dating in 1985.

“We know there are human remains below us,” said John, pointing at a dark diversion. “The remains down there are off limits. We don’t know who they are yet. Only trained archeologists from the university are allowed down there with special climbing equipment. They visit twice a year for research.”

 “May I see?” 

“Of course, just be careful near the edge.”

If you’re not living on the edge you’re taking up too much space.

I felt my way over slippery stones and peered down. My lantern was too weak to penetrate infinity. Two rusty supports extended down. It was pitch black, cold, deep.

Dripping water in the caverns formed clear pools. The calcium rich liquid was cold and refreshing. We drank deep.

“It’s delicious,” said Omar.

Ripples from falling drops formed perfect circles on a surface. A single echo pinged infinite space. Plop. Plop. Plop.

Squadrons of bats zoomed over us. They lived in places we would not enter. Invisible wing music diminished toward twilight exits.

I felt the ancient connection with people dancing around fires, playing music, creating art, exploring language, cognitive ability and symbolic thought.

Where shamans retreated deep into caves, entered a trance state and painted images of their vision to draw power from the cave walls.

Where hunter-gatherers lived and died, laughed, cried, painted dream/reality images and told creation stories. Stories of people shared stories in Old Mountain’s story-truth.

We retraced our steps. Below night sky were black rugged mountains and billions of burning stars.

Down in a narrow valley lights glowed in windows.

I was now new and raw with pure senses.

From the cave womb I was reborn with clarity and peaceful mindfulness.

Transformed I danced forever.

 *

“Thinking neither good nor evil, what was your original nature before your parents were born?” - Zen master

ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Cadiz Barber

An old barbershop thrived near Plaza de San Juan de Dios, the neoclassical town hall from 1800.

It had cracked blue-white tiled walls and a yellow-blue mosaic inlaid floor. A well-dressed retired man sat outside smoking a cigar in a shaft of light.

We exchanged pleasantries. “Buenos Dias.”

An old barber in a stained white smock smiled. “Buenos Dias. What’ll it be Senor?”

I pulled a worn bilingual phrase book from a back pocket and thumbed to page 131. A trim please - showing a phrase gesturing over and down my long white beard painting a little.

Living in the Land of Gestures, Smiles and Body Language I spoke every tongue on Earth using fingers and hands. People attached meaning to gestures, facial expressions and guttural tone. Gestures were an international passport. They expressed truth-value meaning to communicate ideas, beauty and mystery. Gestures were sleight-of-hand performances. They sealed deals using people.

The dialect of hands expressed everything.

As a flying finger expert meeting tolerant people I expressed gratitude with real and imaginary sign words. A familiar forcestero, they trusted me in a vague clear way.

The barber looked at the book. He studied quick hands.

“Yes, fine, I understand what you want. Here,” gesturing to a chair, “sit here.”

I tabled my Moleskine journal, camera and glasses, faded filthy S.F. Giants baseball hat, received the cloth and closed eyes.

As the barber prepared tools I contemplated how Cadiz citizens loved balmy weather. People moved in and out of small flats like actors and directors on a set. Natives framed long telephoto shots to establish the big picture. They focused a spotlight lens tight on details and emotional truth in a long story.

See through soft eyes.

Their DNA spilled oral discourse wandering Earth looking for sanctuary. For centuries their ancestors intermarried with Berbers. Now 18% were practicing Catholics compared with 98% fifty years ago. Guilt, sin and liberation from repression ate ethics with cognitive dissonance. C’ la vie.

Scissors and comb danced in the barber’s hands. A finger tilted my head left then right.

A walking stick on tiles shattered sound. Acquaintances paid their respects to Omar. Language music floated.

Omar greeted an old friend. “Ola, we meet again,”

“Welcome back, my friend. You have been away a long time.”

“Yes, forever and a day. We were in the Sahara before, on and after 9/11,” said Omar, pointing to the man being trimmed. “Economic terrorism and fear of poverty is a hell of a never ending story.”

“True,” said his friend, “such devastation, suffering and retribution by angry, scared, poor people. Speaking of Sahara, how goes it...I know it like the back of my old veined hand. Trade caravans are moving north this time of year, carpets, silk, and spices are selling well yes?”

“Yes. Trading is good. You are fortunate my friend,” said Omar.

“Yes. I’ve been blessed with good health.”

“And your family? How are they?” said Omar.

“They are well, thanks be to God. Allah be praised. The most beneficent is shining their love on us. Have you heard from 9/11 survivors?”

“Word travels slower than a camel passing through a needle’s eye,” said Omar. “Tribes formed after nine eleven. Many migrated toward mountains and subterranean caves. Others resumed journeys along the Silk Road toward Constantinople and the Mediterranean.”

“How did they survive?”

“They created safe havens and new artistic opportunities. Eco tourists seeking simplicity, sanctuary and serenity from global tragedies and personal heartbreak supported spiritual retreats to practice meditation and compassion with healers, poets and prophets.”

“Love and the art of living reveals clear truths,” said his friend.

A woman in luminous red fabric floated through their conversation.

“The forcestero and I journey today. We have exploring, gathering and revising to do. He is my amanuensis.”

“Ah, you are fortunate having a well versed scribe. It is a long walk. Such is the life.”

“And your family?” said Omar.

“Allah and God be praised, they are in good health. Fatima Zamora is two-years old now. Learning to walk.”

“Walking is the preferred form of travel to make the road.”

“Have you learned anything useful from the barbarians?” said his friend.

“Very little. They know many words but have forgotten the essential music. In the 12th century Arabic and European languages created new forms based on 1,001 stories. They used imaginative prose, telling stories inside someone else’s story,” said Omar.

“Ah, you mean somebody in a story is telling a story about somebody telling a story about somebody?”

“Absolutely, my friend, like time’s labyrinth with a complete center. Seeing itself from the outside.”

“Fascinating. It appears you know 1,001 Nights?”

“Yes,” said Omar. “We discovered through this literary effort how people reflect art, culture, history, and myth through stories.”

“I’ve heard of this,” said his friend. “How tribes moved from India across Persia into Arabia and beyond. You are a manifestation of Naghali the storyteller meaning the transmitter.”

“Aren’t we all?” said Omar. “Your story is being retold in Arabic with 1,001 permutations.”

“Yes, from Arabic to a Latin form of learning. Scholars say the four languages with the longest tradition are Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese and English. English is the language of the barbarians.”

“Ah, so it is,” said Omar. “Some are gentle and kind. Others behave like spoiled ill-tempered children. Rather crass and despondent types, prone to violence and whining at high decibels with abysmal ignorance. The Chinese stayed home, the English colonized and enslaved people in distant lands. Sanskrit, the most beautiful of all languages for its precise beauty evolved from India. Our Berber-Arabic tongue has been well received.”

“Magicians, shamans, Griots and storytellers have much to learn and share with you.”

“They are descendants of the Jinn,” said Omar.

“We celebrate cultures, shamans and spirit guides.”

“I am a Sha’ir, a feared and respected poet musician in my tribe,” said Omar. “Here’s a verse for you.”

Earth reflects sky

Landscape migrates

Listening wind sings spirit of Raoul

The Drummer of Death

Touareg the Blue Men of the desert

“Beautiful.”

“Poetry began as song,” said Omar. “Music and drama were grief songs for the dead.”

“Your unconscious is a deep river. Art reveals an interconnected universe. Interdependence. Sensations trigger electrical impulses, heartbeats and speech. Poem speaks.”

“My bearded friend here is Li Bai, a Shi sheng, an exiled Chinese poet sage,” said Omar. “He creates San wen, an intersection between prose and poems.”

“I am pleased for you. I wish you, your family and your companion all peace and prosperity.”

“Safe travels. Ensha’llah.” Their hands touched their hearts.

The barber handed me a Neolithic black obsidian mirror from Anatolia created in 6200 BC. My face was invisible.

“Objects in the mirror may appear closer than they are,” said Omar.

I felt lighter. “It’s fine, a good length. Gracias.”

He trimmed eyebrows, brushed off dead cells, removed the sheet, smiled and accepted Euros.

“Gracias. Adios,” I said to the barber.

“Gracias, adios Senor,” said Seville.

ART - A memoir - Adventure, Risk, Transformation

Author Page