Ice Girl in Banlung - 8

In China everyone is safe and happy, Leo said to Ice Girl one torrid day in Banlung, Cambodia.

They sat on an operating table next to a sewing machine and an umbrella.

I cut, you talk, she said. A drop of sweat from her nose landed on a block of ice.

It’s called THE SYSTEM, he said. Brainwashed. You see this in all Asian educational systems. Laconic students shuffle in, remove their brains, soak them in a cleaning solution, which is not the solution for fifty tedious minutes and replace said gray matter at the end of class. It’s endemic.

Big Brother is always watching you.

Save face.

The fear of public humiliation is greater than the fear of death.

Intention is karma.

Tell me about your life in China, said Ice Girl.

After completing five years of a night soil shit job in the Re-Education Through Labor experience for having the courage to question Authority I visited my family graves in Sichuan. I offered prayers and burned incense. I prayed for strength and humility. Then I walked east. Fortune smiled on me.

I worked as a facilitator at a private business university in Fujian. I faced eighty stone-faced freshmen in a long cement tomb. Desks were bolted to the floor in groups of four. It was a required speaking class. They had year zero English skills. I gave two a test. How are you, I asked a boy. I am 18. How old are you, I asked a girl. I’m fine, and you?

I paired eighty off, boy girl, boy girl. They didn’t like this. They got used to it.

Will someone please share a story.

A girl raised her hand.

The less I do, the less likely I am to make mistakes, and the fewer mistakes I make the less I am criticized, then I feel no shame.

It’s easier to do nothing, said one clever robot.

Correct, I said, you’ve both expressed the essence of your cultural and intellectual education.

That’s a long sentence filled with verbs and significant philosophy, Ice Girl sang, waving a Blue Zircon reflecting 10,000 things in an elegant universe. Don’t let school interfere with your education. Say more. 

Mandarin Duck

Omar remembered a daughter in Cadiz. Faith worked at Mandarin Duck selling paper and writing instruments. She practiced a calm stationary way.

“May I help you,” she said one morning greeting a bearded stranger. She knew he was a forcestero.

A stranger from outside.

His eyes linked their loneliness minus words. She averted her eyes. He was looking for quick painless intimacy and ink.

“I’d like a refill for this,” he said, unscrewing a purple cloud-writing instrument with a white peak.

Recognizing the Swiss rollerball writing tool she opened a cabinet and removed a box of thin and medium cartridges.

“One or many?” she said.

“Many. I don’t want to run dry in the middle of a simple true sentence.”

“I agree. There’s nothing more challenging than running empty while taking a line for a walk.”  

“Isn’t that the truth? Why run when you can walk? Are you a writer?”

“Isn’t everyone? I love watercolors, painting, drawing, sketching moistly.”

“Moistly?”

“I wet the paper first. It saturate colors with natural vibrancy.”

“With tears of joy or tears of sadness?”

“Depends on the sensation and the intensity of my feeling. What’s the difference? Tears are tears. The heart is a lonely courageous hunter.”

I twirled a peacock feather. Remembering Omar’s Mont Blanc 149 piston fountain pen, I said, “I also need a bottle of ink.”

“What color? We have black, blue, red. British racing green just came in.”

“Racing green! Cool. Hmm, let’s try it.” Omar would be pleased with this expedient color.

I switched subjects to seduce her with my silver tongue.

“Are you free after work? Perhaps we might share a drink and tapas? Perhaps a little mango tango?”

“I have other plans. I am not sexually repressed. I am liberated. I have a blind secret lover. Here you are,” she said handing me cartridges and inkbottle with a white mountain.

I paid with a handful of tears and a rose thorn. My ink stained fingers touched thin, fine and extra fine points of light. Faith and her extramarital merchandise were thin and beautiful. She was curious.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” she said. “How old are you?”

“Older than yesterday and younger than tomorrow.”

“I see.”

“It was nice meeting you. By the way, have you seen the film, Pan’s Labyrinth, written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro?”

“No, but I’ve heard about it. Something about our Civil War in 1944, repression and a young girl’s fantasy.”

“Yes, that’s right. It’s really a beautiful film on many levels. It reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.”

“Wow,” she said, “I loved that film, especially when Alice meets the Mad Hatter. Poor rabbit, always in a hurry, looking at his watch.”

“Funny you should mention time. A watch plays a small yet significant role in the Pan film.”

“Really? How ironic. I’ll have to see it.”

“Yes, it’ll be good for your spirit.”

I pulled out my Swizz Whizz Army stainless steel, water resistant Victoriabnoxious pocket watch.

“My, look at the time! Tick-tock. Gotta walk. Thanks for the ink. Create with passion.” I disappeared.

Faith sang a lonely echo. “Thanks. Enjoy your word pearls. Safe travels.”

Under a Banyan tree I sat on a park bench in weak sun, fed cartridges into a mirror and clicked off the safety. It was a rock n’ roll manifesto with a touch of razzmatazz jazz featuring Coltrane, Miles, Monk, Mingus and Getz to the verb.

Subject to Change

What did you expect?

I am a cognitive psycho-neurolinguist.

Wandering deep into the Tarim Basin along the Silk Road in Central Asia I discovered the Tokharin language and Afansievo culture dating 4,000 years. It was a proto-Indo European language with Celtic and Indian connections established by trade caravans and explorations. I suspect it is Qarasahr or IA, based on an Iranian dialect.

A change of context changes experience. On the loom of time the three fates weave the word context from Latin.

Con (with or together) and texere (to weave).

A change in context is an essential and active process. Weaving directs thoughts, emotions and actions.

A kairos shuttle passes through openings in the space-time continuum. The loom binds or connects the weaver’s ability and power to speak.

Dancing in dunes away from precious oceans the wise spirit of Hsuan-tsang, a Chinese Buddhist monk recitesThe Diamond Sutra, the world’s oldest printed book dated May 11, 868.

As Gascoigne, the author of The Dynasties and Treasures of China said, “The text is printed from six large blocks, each of them two and a half feet long by almost a foot broad. The scroll is a worthy and complete ancestor of all subsequent books, for it contains not only a superb woodcut as a frontis-piece...”

Hsuan-tsang was a Chinese pilgrim. He traveled to India along the Silk Road seeking out original Indian Buddhist holy books. He discovered 1,000 deserted monasteries destroyed by Hun invasions in the 5th century. He wandered through India for sixteen years visiting Buddhist places. He collected Indian holy books and carried them back to China.

While turning pages between Sanskrit words, mlecchita-vikalpa, the art of secret writing, Hsuan-Tsang tells us existence is formless. The human condition is actually hopeless, humans will never really know the universe and the concept of soul is an illusion.

Suffering is an illusion. Abracadabra!

Curious to see more to know less, I glide on after removing a grain of sand from my shoe. It isn’t the mountain that’s hard to climb it’s the grain in one’s shoe.

Years later in Colorado I met a mountain climber who, after confronting trial, error, doubt and fear reached a rocky mountain summit.

“Well, how did I do?” she asked her instructor.

“Are you still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what did you expect?”

I asked her, “Where do you step from the top of a 100 foot pole?”

Down in the southern province of Suhag in Egypt where King Scorpion lived 5,300 years ago I worked with archeologists discovering clay tablets.

Humans recorded taxes on oil and linen; a material Egyptians considered ritually pure under the protection of the goddess Tayt. The hieroglyphic line drawings of animals, plants and mountains revealed stories of economies and commodities.

In Nevali Cori we found 9,000 year-old shards of ceramics pottery depicting dancers.

“These images,” said a metaphorical digger, “reveal a common ancestor creating to integrate their community.”

A camelhair brush cleaned shards. “Anything else?”

“Well,” one said sifting dust, “we surmise these images established a collective discipline in their community. See how the figures are holding hands? What do you see now?”

“I see a circle of movement. A connected unity, a language in space.”

“It’s more than that. There are five rhythms in dance. You start with a circle. It’s a circular movement from the feminine container. She is earth.”

“Earth?”

“Yes, then you have a line from the hips moving out. This is the masculine action with direction. He is fire.”

“Fire is the driver.”

“Chaos is next, a combination of circle and lines where the male and female energies interact. This is the place of transformation.”

“I see. And then?”

“After chaos is the lyrical, a leap, a release. This is air. The last element of dance is stillness. Out of stillness is born the next movement.”

Language dances in space.

Every fourteen days a living language dies on Earth. The last speaker says good-bye.

6,100 and counting.

Storytellers sing oral traditions. They memorize stories, songs, poems, seasons, celebrations, rites, magic and ceremonies. They create and exchange family, clan, tribal myths and legends. Their children listen, memorize, chant and recite ancestor songs.

An historian’s job is trying to understand what happened through time.

An anthropologist’s job is to understand how people told their creation stories.

Mircea Eliade, a historian of religions, said, “Myths tell only of that which really happened.”

Myths suggest that behind the explanation there is a reality that cannot be seen and examined. A myth is a story of unknown origins. Myths are sacred stories of religion based on belief, containing archetypical universal truths. They are in every place and no particular place. The world is sacred.

Myths, legends, stories.

Neurons fire on all cylinders. Seven trillion human cells dance. The honorable monkey mind trickster sleeps, sensing pure purpose, destination, goals and reflections. If I do not pay complete attention the monkey mind identifies with a mental movie and runs wild splashing green jealous slashes, red anger strokes and blue attachment colors on pure empty canvases. I respect wild monkey mind. Keep a meditative eye on it. Mindfulness.

Magic words grow here.

Old roots expose wired genetic guilt and illusionary fear traps.

Intensity propels ten claws across twenty-six keys. Reed-like digits reflect use and neglect.

Psychology handles the branches. Mindfulness swims with roots.

Evolution flashes flickering beams of incandescent auras and pulsating electro-magnetic fields evolving character, attitude, values, behaviors and intention.

Intention is karma.

Perpetual transformation.

A Century is Nothing

TLC - what is life?

Two Ankara university girls fantasying about sex bought Zippo lighters.

An engraved lighter in a dusty Saigon display case read:

         Once people were born alive and slowly died.

         Now some people are born dead and slowly come to life.

Two high-heeled boys bought flaming gas to impress the girls. “Come next to my fire,” said one. Demurring she said, “I create my own fire. If you come any closer I’ll incinerate you faster than Tarek Bouazizi, a famous fruit and vegetable seller in Tunisia.”

“Amnesia?” said one boy.

“Tunisia, you fucking idiot. Don’t you know anything about the world, geography and Arab Spring dignity, human rights and self-respect? Pay attention shit for brains. Here’s what happened.”

Tarek Bouazizi, 26, sold vegetables on the streets in the small town of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia. The unemployment rate was 30%.

He supported his mother, uncles and five brothers and sisters at home. He loved poetry.

One morning a policewoman demanded free oranges. He said no. She threatened to take everything because he didn’t have a license. He had enough of the endless cycle of poverty, bribery, threats, and corruption and complained at a local government office. They refused to see him. He bought some gasoline. He set himself on fire. He died flaming his life.

Tunisians grabbed their chance for freedom. Their dictator of twenty-three years ran away.

Middle Eastern, North African, Asian despots and autocratic international power hungry madmen went into denial mode.

Oh no, we're next. Needing to maintain power and control, dictators in Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Venezuela, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia among others, gave the military and police free BIG money with strings attached to protect and sustain their intractable insatiable greed.

Contacts = contracts.

They decreased rice prices to appease angry hungry people.

Protect us in our castles and mansions, said dictators. Protect us from educated empowered individuals demanding human rights, social justice, equality, education, jobs, medical care and an end to the charade of our reign of economic terrorism. Protect us from desperate citizens setting themselves on fire. Protect us from the aftermath.

You have to sacrifice the peel to enjoy the fruit, said Arabic Spring. Fear sells.

Hearing this story the boy backed off. Trailing flames the girls departed.

A confidence man, 60, in a worn beige leather jacket entered with his son. A stocky bodyguard with a thick neck, alert steel pupils, and short hair followed them. He was Russian or Tartar sauce. Brown suit, black wing tips. He clasped meaty hands together. He never moved. He watched his boss negotiate with the owner. He glanced at Lucky with meticulous eyes. He swiveled his gaze back to father and son.

The confidence man purchased a lighter and pen. There was a problem with the credit card transaction. He pulled out a cell phone called his bank, slathered words and disconnected. The owner punched in numbers. The sale sailed through.

Taking his purchase he turned to Lucky, “How do you like it here?”

“Everyone is hospitable. Fresh tomatoes are delicious. Anxiety is a national problem. The drug industry is making a fortune.”

“My accountant calculates steady pharmaceutical investment growth in my diversified portfolio. What’s your job?”

“I’m a designer of mysterious linguistic projects. I freelance as a literary prostitute and ephemeral word gravedigger. Alphabets, pictograms and ideograms contain no sound.”

“So I’ve heard. What’s your name?”

“Keyser Soze.”

“Ha. One who talks too much. We have many verbal fools here. Where are you from?”

“I am from the source. We are stardust. I am a stream winner. I don’t belong anywhere.”

“Good luck.”  Clouds opened. The father, son and Holy Ghost disappeared in a flash of blinding light.

“Who do you think he was?”

“Maybe the head of a big organization, maybe a bureaucrat, maybe the Mafia.  Maybe Deep State. Well connected. I never saw him before.”

People entered his shop.

“Goodbye,” said Lucky, “thanks for the tea and hospitality. Suited me to a T. Oh, and one more thing, what is life?”

“Excellent quest-ion. There are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason. Let me guess. A bitch? A miracle? A dream? Paranoid attachment? A meaty meal with black and green olives smothered in red chili powder? Getting laid? Randomized coalescing atoms forming cytoplasmic hysteria? What you make it? How you grow? A beautiful mystery? An experiential game we get to play? Answers seeking/discovering quest-ions validating cosmological and deep philosophical significance? I give up. All I know is that you brought me good luck today. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. It’s my fate. I show up, sit a spell, strangers visit and look around. Some buy some don't. I go. The journey is the destination.”

The Language Company

Omar's Book Club

Omar turned a page and read to his book club.

They were among the lost and looking tribe.

They were figments of someone’s imagination, caricatures of wild inventions in abstract designs spinning webs from the center. They laughed at everything with cosmic perspective.

Through laughter they regained their sense of delight inside the mystery.

Someone somewhere rang a bell. Noon’s mechanical hands said hello. Calibrated craftsmen hands read luminous dials. The facade of a Catholic church on a Spanish hill in a pueblo contained fissures and cracks in its foundation.

Long spider tentacles streamed from the base into dusty shadows where birds rested from flights of fancy along Roman walls covered in soft green moss. The church bells were old hollow iron shells with a broken clapper. Rusting heavy metal shreds in weeds weighed down wet script reading ‘O come all ye faithful’ in Sanskrit next to a book of poems written on Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

Blood flowed down white walls soaking green stems in brown soil feeding roots beneath the surface. Roots had no shadows, below the surface of human awareness.

Their expectations were Southwest desert creation myths.

A young Anasazi girl shared her wind note vision.

My name is Kokopelli the humpbacked flute player. I am 1,000 years old. My image is found on petroglyphs or rock carvings and also on rock paintings or pictographs in kivas, on ceramics and woven baskets. The ancient ones, the Anasazi, regard me as a symbol of fertility, a roving minstrel or trader. People also call me the rainmaker, a hunting magician, trickster and seducer of maidens.

In the Pueblo myths my hump carries seeds, babies and blankets to maidens. I wander along the upper Rio Grande between villages carrying seeds and bags of songs on my back. Because I represent fertility I am welcomed during the corn- planting season and sought by barren women and avoided by maidens. If you listen well, you will hear my flute music echoing through canyons playing traditional songs.

She disappeared along fault lines in long undulating dry washes full of sagebrush playing her flute near rainbow mesas strewn with geological strata.   

Listen, said Little Nino, do you hear the music, clarity, gentle sweetness echoing through space? It’s sublime.

A flute joined the tribal tolling bell. Form whom the bell toiled and told?

Someone had passed on.

Sublime, said a person named Art, an unemployed American realtor. Survivors gathered around him admiring torn muddy glossy brochures of multilevel and split-level green and white pastel clapboard low mortgaged homes financed with borrowed capital surrounded by security walls decorated with barb wire and shards of glittering green glass.

Venomous Diamondback rattlesnakes, cobras, and African pit vipers attacked soft city folks on their trail of tears inside shadows coalescing like shape shifters, said Artsyfartsy. 

Domestic violence erupted inside hearts, homes, cities, villages, towns, and countries between resentful, bitter out-sourced wives, their alcoholic husbands, frustrated lovers, and their catatonic, aggressive video game programed kids. Someone called the feds.

The feds arrived, said everyone in the compound was Waco and leveled the place with heavy tank fire.

Prime time news, baby.

And then O Art?

Down on Mean Street near the Tigris River someone detonated a land mine under a diplomatic silver Suburban, shredding level-5 armor designed to protect it from RPG's, killing three American intelligence agents on the West Bank of heaven. Their cover was blown. Blood rivers flooded streets. An old woman of a displaced tribal nationality with a mop began her clean up operations. Shit happens.

Everyone in the region denied responsibility for the attack. Analysts said it was very sophisticated and similar to attacks against an evil empire in Iraq fueled by sectarian strife, poverty, greed, hatred, animosity, and stupidity fighting for power and control dating back to the Assyrian empire in 689 BC.

Thanks Art. Speaking of empires, how about this tasty morsel of history? Omar said, thumbing a page.

A Century is Nothing