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

Dancing Stars

Haiku waves flow music
Winter seas

Sensation dreams
Birds sing
Passage islands horizon clouds moon
Ink sketch free air

Quality life nature laughter
Impermanence sand castles

Language of water sand patterns
Poem play
Primitive art

Waves say hello to dawn light
Easy coast sand castles

Draw dream day

Smiling Zen
At The Green House Effect a Wish Fairy wears a jade green tooth on a golden chain.
Her brown hair curls at nape.
She looks like a pixie however she is a fairy.

After hearing a visiting wizard say, “This is the first time I've seen someone make a latte with foam," she said, “Make a wish it’s your first time.”

So he did and they talked as the orange sun played with cumulus above the blue horizon of sea green. Everything sparkled, sky, sea, clouds and Wish Fairy.
Barefoot ground soft eyes slow pace
Flow

Dancing stars

Grow Your Soul

Feed Love

“Years ago, I broke a bunch of roses

From the top of his wall

A thorn from that is still in my palm

Working deeper.”

- Rumi

“I almost wish it were true,” said my father in our final visit, April 1999. He was 77.

I opened a bedroom curtain so he could see a radiant blue sky and free birds.

Sitting in the garden I burned incense and fed sparrows as green spring blossoms gestured beginning. Calm non-attachment. No desire. Breathing in – out with diamond mind clarity. Love and letting go.

“May I have more ice please?” he said.

I needed to break it up. In his red tool box under the yellow shelf in the kitchen where I was half-beaten to death by a crazy woman in a wheelchair were steel crescent wrenches.

I selected the heaviest one with the widest aperture. It was well oiled and ready. The small wheel turned slow scraping my fingers down to the bone. I rolled destiny’s wheel closing the vise, narrowing space with bleeding fingers. Rolling The Wheel of Time.

Turning the cold steel wheel I remembered ceremonies in Bali: Painters creating on canvas, wood carvers chipping at unexplored rough textures and a wife weaving an intricate basket of reeds into an offering filled with sweet smelling jasmine flowers surrounding a mountain of rice. Lighting incense, she placed her daily ceremonial devotion in family compound corners to thwart demons and appease gods.

I absorbed daily acts of creativity and love in Bali. Everyday was a celebration in magic light. Twilight faded dark blue below pregnant skies. Rain slashed across jungles blasting calm surfaces of rice paddies. Runoff music exploded soil. A farmer stood in the deluge. His misty figure raised a wooden heirloom hoe into the sky. He released human thunder into wet soil. He turned over an exposed part of the planet. Rain slowed.

Shadow figures evolved from jungles chopping off paddy edges, hoeing soil, gathered dry wood and dead brush. Children sang on a dirt path going home from school.

Across a ravine on a mid-level terrace a farmer trailing oxen yanked iron in an arc turning beasts in a slow slog through mud. Flocks of white herons layered sky.

I dumped ice from a plastic tray on a small towel. I folded cotton threads as if folding a love letter, his bone white dress shirt and monogramed handkerchief. I curled fingers around the cold heavy wrench. I smashed crystals of frozen water into diamonds.

Everything collapsed. My daily celebration felt the heaviness. My heart accepted the doing and being. I hammered down, folded cloth, pulverizing cubes. I wiped blood on cloth streaking red. I funneled ice into a blue ceramic bowl. I put the wrench down and selected a small silver spoon.

I fed my father spoonfuls of clear white ice.

I fed him love. 

ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Laos

Twinkle

Dive deeper than subterranean unconscious dreams.

Nail girls protected by large floppy hats seeking cuticles needing a trim canvas sand sun lovers.

String theory bracelet girls traverse grains of the universe. Boys ply sunglasses. The future is brilliant.

A girl balancing a bamboo platter of pineapples, mangoes, bananas, paring knife, plastic bags and sharp sticks prowls sand from dawn to dusk.

People watch people watching people. It's the thing - look without understanding.

A narrow blue and white boat arrives on sand. A boy throws out a rusty anchor.

Backpackers from islands unload kilos of memories, dreams and reflections.

Boatman launches five large empty water bottles toward land grab.

Mid-day sun shimmers above shaded tables as massage clients smothered with oil feel muscled women knead bronze skin tone epidermis as children laugh, run and play in surf near extreme serious a-dolts and retirees wondering how they ended up in paradise removed from frozen Europe hearing dulcimer hammers at a nearby five-story Chinese hotel cement project.

Swimmers plunge into H2O covering 70% of Earth.

Couples embrace cold drinks behind mirrored sunglasses.

Fat white Russians slobber UV 30 on skin drink cold beer discussing nuclear options against NATO.

99.9 % of beach people stare at phones.

Strangers accustomed to cement pavement feel sand. Danger.

Watch your step. Cautious sensation.

Babel languages whisper a Sappho wind oracle singing iambic pentameter odes with save face time.

Spit in the ocean.

Restless orange diamond light crashes into sunset.

Red sun white waves blue sky green islands. Floating world.

Silver waves lap shore

White crescent moon hangs by a thread

Stars sing with their light

I am twinkling

Create your life sandcastle

Rinse and repeat

A brown butterfly dances with green waves singing sand

Grow Your Soul

Girl

The girl and her blind father. Music on the street. We met in 2017 and 2020.

Now he plays laments on a broken street hoping foreign eaters will put money in her orange plastic pail.

She positioned him touching the rear of a parked motorcycle for security and trust where he'd be safe.

We made eye contact, she smiled, radiant, older now, taller in a simple blouse, shorts, flip flops, smiling, Thank you.

She moved from table to table. He played a haunting refrain on his simple long neck three-string instrument.

She returned and took the strap from his waist as he played. She led him past hair salons, a closed bookstore, a high end seafood and pepper restaurant, a bar filled with drunk European males.

Music faded in the night.

Canvassing the old market.