Writing is a river with many tributaries.
Photography: intuitive, creative impulse, timeless, presence, aura of death, a diary, essence.
The Divine Comedy. A romantic dreamer wanders Earth.
Act. Find the truth. Emotional honesty. Don't be afraid.
Dance is freedom. Movement never lies.
What I want to report is that I've done nothing of value and that is my accomplishment.
What is your myth - the myth in which you live?
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
Now it happened one Sunday in Ankara, when streets were dead, everyone having evaporated to vote for someone special important and wealthy who’d change alter and manipulate the course of the Turkish future with panache, charisma, dedication, fortitude, and cold hard cash ...
After 4,000+ years of invasions, intrigue, bells and whistles, harems, delicate Blue Mosque mosaics, gongs, cymbals and flutes in life’s chess game, survivors said YES we have realized truth and freedom and democracy in digestible form. One size fits all.
I stood on a main artery filled with silent rusty water fountains of youth. Shuttered stores gleamed with expensive watches, clothing and exchange rates. A bundled man in stone cold shadows sold Simit, a common thick round seedy pretzel from his red and white rolling carnival circus wagon.
Five women in shimmering red, green and sea blue silk danced along shiny plate glass windows admiring their reflection. Hello Beauty. They hugged each other exploring visual perceptions. Their dark skin, sharp noses, deep black eyes complemented long hair under bright head scarves. Clothing reflected silver balls and small mirrors. They jabbered in Farsi.
Three posed in front of a clothing store to have their picture taken with a male mannequin. Men talk nonsense, make war, babies and are real dummies. A white frozen dummy wore a dark pin stripped suit.
A tall woman used a point-n-shoot digital camera to trap an image of her laughing friends. One didn’t smile because she was sad, serious and a long way from home thinking ...
How are my brothers and sisters today are they alive trying to find food while the Taliban coerces them into religious ideologies resembling spider webs composed of incessant swarming angry bees beheading and stoning and honor killing innocent women for trivial behaviors in public like walking, turning, gesturing, laughing, weeping, or pausing?
Breathing was a major crime.
Fundamentaliism is the Big H smack, said Louie, a barbarian crusader … look at world’s religions ... Christians have a booze addiction ... Catholics have faith in dope, weed, grass and ganja ... Agnostics have a library card.
Shhh ... said one woman whispering to herself, One should keep quiet, practice self-censorship. Think freedom but don’t say it. A mantra for billions.
Don’t you realize how the dying religious leaders sleep together and will shuffle your deck, rearrange their animosity, hunt you down like a dog and pick their nose in private before blowing your life, wife, strife into their rag?
Do be pious, stupid and poor in mind body and spirit swallowing religious addictions controlling your gravitational awareness with mathematical rational certainty.
Her family, praise Allah, were still alive when she returned and she wasn’t sure about their destiny or hers because life is filled with unexpected complicated and complex random surprises and inconveniences and nature is a cruel beautiful illusionary dream.
At that exact moment bi-lingual Asian orphans played hide n’ seek in secret gardens above landmines far removed from adult stupidity, regrets, indignation, jealousy and revenge-tainted anger.
The photographer finished. I gestured if she wanted me to take a picture of their group. Yes, she said, in impeccable English, Please ask your friends, your sisters to stand there, pointing to a wide area where full trees created a soft background. She sang to her friends. Two shy ones hid behind flowing skirts. They were coaxed out of hiding. Click.
I handed her the camera. Where are you from, We are from Kabul, Why are you here, We are doctors, we have been attending seminars and will return home this week.
Are you all from Kabul, No, gesturing to the women hiding behind their sisters, They are from distant provinces, I see ... How is the medical situation now in Afghanistan, do you have enough medicine … It changes we are fortunate to receive medicine from international aid agencies, our hospitals need more equipment, it’s a struggle at times especially outside the capital …
How are the children doing in your country, are they receiving medical care and enough food, can they go to school ... We are doing our best to take care of the children ... I wish you well in the future, knowing you face large responsibilities, it was nice meeting you, Thank you, she smiled, Good-bye, joining her friends passing shops, talking free.
One whispered to her shy sister, Our friends in Kabul will never believe it when we tell them we walked down a street talking, feeling free, how we had our picture taken by a man who wasn’t an immediate relative.
Her sister laughed, Yes, it’s strange feeling free to be your true self without fear of the religious police following you step by step, day in and day out like snakes ready to bite you, Someone should cut off their head, said another sister dancing her mirrors ...
My dream, said another sister, Is to be a free person in a free country ... Is that too much to ask, Freedom is a life changing experience with responsibilities, said her sister, smelling wild roses, I feel free.
When I related this encounter to a TLC student she asked, Were they open or closed, referring to veils not their liberated emotional being, They were open.
Language creates a false world (but) the only way out of that false world is through language.
Go beyond language through language.
Spirituality & Art. Impulse.
A deeper reality. Visionary.
*
Written by the mendicant monk Dōgen, September 26, 1242.
From the single blossom five leaves uncurled: Upon one single leaf a Tathagata stood alone.
Her vow to harmonize our lives is ocean deep,
As we spin on and on, shouldering our deeds of right and wrong.
*
Dogen's Death Poem
Fifty-four years lighting up the sky.
A quivering leap smashes a billion worlds.
Hah!
Entire body looks for nothing.
Living, I plunge into Yellow Springs.
Dogen (1200-1253)
Night waves crash into foam silence
Ebb tide sings invisible musical interlude
How it feels after Kampot cement, cycles, horns,
Symphonies of process down all the days
Winging free swiftlets sky
The sea churned all day
Blue green
Fragments of gray blue clouds cover a thin horizon line
Near horizon it was purple
Silver ran inland to meet green blue floating waves
Energy flows toward white brown sand rolling energy
Created banks of white waves
Whitecaps roll tumble crash curl wearing atoms and molecules
A gentle mixture of force and calm eases into sand land
A band of sunset pink tongued with purple sails west into high cumulus
Beach town quiet
Growing empty at May’s end
Long mass of gray clouds dances on horizon
Light fades as swimmers run jump dive into waves
Beach walkers stare inland
Their eyes are lost if they see sea
It’s too much to comprehend
Too vast
Too immense beautiful and complete
Clouds gather mass
Rain song
Waves curl dance
Empty beach
Sandcastles
Meditation
In dreams begin responsibility – W.B. Yeats
*
Grow Your Soul - Poems from Laos & Cambodia
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