Spin them wheels

Delicious ice coats the streets as drivers spin their anxiety wheels. Trying to get somewhere fast or last.

Pedestrians slow down or fall down.

Speaking of down, it's worth mentioning a recent vision.

You were in a taxi heading to old Roman ruins filled with bones. An army car with flashing lights entered the highway. It was followed by an army truck filled with bright flowers. It was followed by another army truck carrying an olive drab green casket draped with a red flag. The odd yet true thing was that the red color was blood, and, as the truck roared along the highway it left a trail of blood in its wake. It coagulated quickly in the frozen light of dawn as the trail grew longer and longer until it disappeared into the faint glow of a dull faint stain edging into secret stone passages where memories saluted fallen heroes.

This convoy of memories was heading to a cemetery where family, friends and strangers waited on a bitter cold day. They were holding hands and wearing frozen tears. They cried, "Goodbye. We hardly knew you."

Existing and laughing

How did it feel to wander into work after six peaceful days?

A stranger in a strange land. A wild animal trapped in a zoo filled with melancholic humans, desperate to pass...desperate to get a life. How, as a small Zen monk comfortable with the consciousness, shifting into a zone of peace, I was a ghost in the floating world.

How when someone asked me how I was I replied, "I am existing. Here. Now."

How, maybe this awareness, this small utterance connected their reality with an image, a feeling of inner stillness. How, like a bolt of lightning, my voice articulated the reality allowing them to see the futility of grasping.

"Yes," I said, "I find it peculiar to see and hear people still trapped in their own personal fear, anger, manic behaviors, and attitudes. How I dreamed some of them might have, during the recent retreat, used their time to meditate, to slow down, adjust, adapt, and evolve their direction, motivation and intention as a new year, a new beginning allows everyone the freedom to develop deeper meaningful and beautiful relationships.

Tatiana

As you know they killed me yesterday at the S.F. zoo.  It took four heavily armed men.
I finally escaped from hell and, as instinct would have it, I killed one and wounded two. They are lucky to be alive.

As the Tibetans say, "I would rather be a tiger for one day than a sheep for 1,000 years."

Now I am free.

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This was originally posted on 25 December 2006.

My name is Tatiana. I weigh 350 pounds. I warned them not to move me from Denver to San Francisco. I was really happy there. They didn't listen. They were more interested in my breeding instincts, hoping I'd mate with a 14-year old tiger.

Well, I wasn't pleased with this arrangement and practiced polite behavior behind bars for a year. This is easy for me coming from Siberia where you learn the art of stealth and cunning.

Face it folks, I am at the top of the food chain and the fortified horse meat garbage they give us here is worthless.

I don't know who's responsible for my being here and I don't care. All I know is that being in captivity for the pleasure of stupid humans is a fate worse than dying in Siberia. There, at least I have a chance. Here, I'm just another cute animal lying around dreaming of my freedom.

As you may have heard, yesterday I seized, if you'll pardon the pun, my slim chance when the lady who feeds me made a crucial mistake. She opened the metal feeding slot to put the horsemeat into my cage. A kid asked her a question. She hesitated. ZAP! I grabbed her arm.

Her screams were music to my ears. My eyes narrowed.

I heard she may lose it but hey, life is a beautiful struggle for survival. Given more space it would've been the jugular. Quick and silent.

You take what you can get at feeding time. Instinct is beautiful.

Do Amazing Things - Take Amazing Risks

As the skydiver who dreamed of flying said, "If you want to do amazing things you have to take amazing risks."

So it goes in the land of Attitude where flags become snarled on lines of nationalistic winds. Hot air sweeps north from the jungles of snow taxis playing solos. Where women do all the work. Their men alternate between racing oil soaked engines, playing bored board games with small round trees or shuffling paper in historical crypts.

Most stand around with hard hands buried in empty pockets waiting for something to happen.

The majority of people here suffer from anxiety. They take anti-depressants to calm their neurosis. Symptoms of overwhelming sadness dresses them in rose petals between self-pity and thorns.

Peace.

 

Book Jacket Blurb

Here's the jacket blurb.

You need a comfortable jacket when fall and winter dance between seasonal shifts.

As Basho, the Haiku poet said, "Travel is human life-life is a journey."

An experiment in perspective, an epic with multiple players, "A Century Is Nothing" takes the reader on a pilgrimage to the subconscious.

Join Omar, an exiled Tuareg Berber and blind prescient writer from the Moroccan Sahara, on his travels as he and Mr. Point, a Vietnam veteran he meets after 9/11, share dreams, myths, and cogitations. Within the harmonious triad of language, countries, and friends, Omar's journey begins in Morocco; takes him through Ireland, Kuwait, Israel, Bhutan, Japan, Vietnam, the Taos Pueblo, Bali, China, and Tibet; and eventually to 26,000-year-old Paleolithic caves in Spain.

Experiencing joy with a playful childlike sense of delight, the wayfarers explore cultural communities with great passion through healing and meditation. Their stories establish a circle of friendship where authenticity, compassion, kindness, and awareness are highly valued.

A Century Is Nothing explores the journey of life to discover the very essence of the human soul.**__