Blog dance

Greetings,

Let's dance. To the sound they're playing on the radio. Under the serious moonlight. Let's blog to the dance of letter-words.

There are 30 million bloggers in the states. Various states of confusion. Let's be various. Young people prefer social networks like Facebook (Fabulously Boring) and Twitter. Faster, shorter and easier. It's so exciting to live fast, short and easy. If I suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder, and everyone suffers from something because existence is suffering, I'd be a bird practicing social twittering. Kiss and type. 

Anxiety meets the tourist. They whisper, "I'm behind in getting my images up on Where Is My Face?" Once upon a space-dance there was a humbling life changing experience. Laughter was life learning dialogue.

I arrived hoping to teach at an isolated rural school 50km from Siem Reap. HOPE, the U.K. based charity organization sponsors the proposed school; My Grandfather's House. They require volunteers to have a criminal background check. As everyone knows, all-knowing, all powerful authorities do not issue this bureaucratic paper to aliens, nomads, misfits, vagabonds, itinerant weird genius teachers or other highly dubious life forms. So it goes.

I exist outside adult time.

Metta.

Buy

Greetings,

Hands of Cambodian children.

"Mister, wanta buy a book? Wanta buy some postcards? Cold water mister? No money for school. Book mister?  Good price. You buy..."

Metta.

Dance hall

Greetings,

The dancing hall at Preah Khan is where dancers don't smile. They dance. They are slave dancers, all the women.

They dance for the king. He is the god-king. He has resurrected his desire and fury creating new customs, new decrees for dancers. They dance for the mighty and powerful. They dance Khmer stories about war, conquest, harvests, seasons, sun, and moon. 

They are submissive dances of life/death. They dance to celebrate life. They dance the celebration of tranquility. They dance or die. They wear tinkling bands of gold around wrists and ankles. They wear diamond diademed crowns and shimmering silk clothing. They do not smile. Their faces are frozen in the trance of dance.

One dances to escape the tyranny. She's danced all her short, sweet life.

The hall of dancers is surrounded by columns, portals and broken jumbled green moss stones. Thick gnarled silk-cotton tree roots crawl toward dancers. They dance through roots, past Shiva and Vishnu. The preserver and destroyer of life. 

Two foreign dancers dance with guide books. Golden leafed pages dance past their eyes. A guide who knows everything watches them. They are blind. He dances alone.

Metta.

Phimeamakas, Preah Pithu, Thommanon, Chau Say Thevoda...

Leica the day

Greetings,

What a pleasant day. I visited four temples - there are perhaps 1,000 - at, around and away from Angkor Wat. An evolving diversion from previous impressions.

Phimeanakas, 10th c., in a large forested enclosure means "flying palace" in Sanscrit. It was topped by a golden spire. I sat near Phimeanakas and then wandered toward ancient walls. In between were painters offering their art. Green and yellow leaves fluttered through broken light. Earth's new blanket. 

The Preah Pithu Group are five Hindu and Buddhist temples from the 15th c. The forest path is crackling. I walk slow, breathing in the fragrance of leaves, trees, fresh air, leaving only footprints.

Over a simple meal of rice and vegetables a group of young Czech men talk. One said, "We have to DO everything in a short time." That sums it ALL up.

Thommanon, 12th c. is in great condition with fine Buddhist art and complements Chau Say Thevoda. Chau is undergoing renovation using Chinese government funds. Dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu.

A cleansing ceremony at Preah Palilay.

Metta.

Phimeamakas, Preah Pithu Group, Thommanon, Chau Say Thevoda galleries...

Carry On

Greetings,

The Australian nurses leave tonight. They fly "home" to family and friends after three weeks on the ground.

Some, certainly not all, pack their Cambodian "humbling life changing experience" in their hand luggage.

One wonders, "how can I get my entire humbling, lfe changing experience into this very small bag?" Her question may trouble her for a second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year or the rest of her short sweet life. It's her experience.  She knows it's impossible to check it all the way through. She has to to carry it. 

She gets it ready. She assembles it on the floor along with fragrant toilet articles, clothing and soft silk scarves. Her experience contains a poor village near Siem Reap. She knows and loves everyone because she lived there. She took care of the people. She cried herself to sleep every night. In the village are thirsty, hungry, exhausted, sick children, women and men. One woman alone takes care of 16 children. 

She puts this one little village and everyone into her bag. To utilize space she discards everything else. 

She saves weight because there is no clean drinking water. She throws in handfuls of cooked rice to give them nourishment during the long flight to Sydney. 

She doesn't know how many will survive. She's finally ready to take her personal humbling, lfe changing experience home.

Metta.