Bike it

 The first real grip I ever got on things
Was when I learned the art of pedaling
- Seamus Heaney

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man.
Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish.
Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.
- Iris Murdoch

I feel that I am entitled to my share of lightheartedness and there is
nothing wrong with enjoying one’s self simply, like a boy.
- Leo Tolstoy, Responding to criticism for learning to ride a bicycle at age 67

Life is like riding a bicycle.
To keep your balance you must keep moving.
- Albert Einstein

 

Check out Steve McCurry's excellent bike images. Here.

friday the 13th

The village of Sa near Sapa.

Small steps going down. Steep trails, dirt. She identifies wild plants on the hillside used for indigo colors in their clothing.

The wild terrain. Rising rice terraces where people harvest. People cut, thresh, stack of stalks and burn them. Isolated puffs of smoke dot the valley below rising green forests and mountains.

It’s a long simple home with a dirt floor, and bamboo walls. There are some wooden walls but wood is expensive. The home is divided into a kitchen on the left, main room and bedroom. The main room has a TV and DVD machine. Under the roof is a storage area.

Outside is a faucet for water, water buffalo pen, pig pen and writing pen. 

Indigo cloth dyed in a large vat hangs to dry along a wooden wall. Stacks of straw for winter feed wait. Twenty-five kilogram bags of rice in blue, white and orange plastic bags made in Indonesia are piled in a corner.

Sa's father returns with water buffalo. Her mother smiles.

We share a simple lunch prepared by one Sa’s three daughters. She is 19, a mother, a trek leader and speaks excellent English. Rice, tofu, and greens. 

khmer life skills 101

Do you want to understand us, asked a Khmer girl. 

Yes.

Ok. Here's a story every child sees, hears, smells and eats in school. It says everything.

Once upon a time there was a hungry rabbit.

    It saw a woman coming with a basket of bananas on her head.

    The rabbit thought, I will play dead and see what happens.

    The woman stopped when she saw the rabbit.

    She said, “A dead rabbit. Meat. We will eat good tonight.”

    She picked up the rabbit, put it her basket and continued walking.

    The rabbit ate all the bananas and ran away.

     What a clever rabbit.

She gets home. Her family is happy to have food.

"I found a rabbit. We'll eat good tonight."

She put the basket down. "Oh my."

Lesson? Don't put all your bananas in one basket.

dancing weaver

My name is Gratitude. I am a weaver on Lombok. See the mountain hiding in clouds? It's Rinjani.

My village is at the bottom. Walk past the village co-op sellling cloth and sarongs. Turn right and go down the alley. Keep going.

You will pass women working. They wash cotton, hanging it to dry. Others are dying colors.

You will hear the sound of woman singing and looms clacking.  We are a community of women weavers.

We do what we love. You can follow me on FACEHAPPY.

Mercy

"The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void. We need both.

"They are both contained in the traditional three aspects of the Dharma path: wisdom, meditation, and morality. Wisdom is intuitive knowledge of the mind of love and clarity that lies beneath one's ego-driven anxieties and aggressions.

"Meditation is going into the mind to see this for yourself - over and over again, until it becomes the mind you live in. Morality is bringing it back out in the way you live, through personal example and responsible action, ultimately toward the true community of all beings."

- Gary Snyder