Bushido

Way of the warrior:

justice, courage,

polite, truth,

personal dignity

the world is

a simulation run by aliens

time manipulation

silence

comic commentary

on the tragedy

of forgetting

Boudhanath, Nepal

Warrior Spirit

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 8^th 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

Page 95

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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

Bliss

Greetings,

Nature is what you can be. Culture is what you are.

Two French women arrived at the Blissful Guesthouse in Kampot. Kampot is famous for pepper, old French colonial buildings along a river flowing to the sea and packs of roving wild vicious dogs, mongrels and starving, desperate canines.

One said, "Hello." A traveler in the shade of waving sunsplashed ferns said, "Welcome to paradise."

"Is this paradise?"

"Paradise is wherever you are."

One woman with a cloud of white hair smiled and said, "You give us a great power."

"You already have the power. You are a light warrior."

"We can talk about that later." 

"I am a now, not a later."

They went to reception. There were no rooms available. They wheeled their bags away, through the sand of time discussing life's vagaries in fluent French, laughing at the absurdity of it all with innate existential wisdom.

Metta.