Spilled Ink

After they cut out my tongue I started writing script.

I found a compressed black Chinese ink stick with yellow dragons breathing fire. I added a little water to a grey stone surface and placed the ink in the center. 

Then, using my right hand, as Master Liu in Chengdu showed me, I turned the stick in a clockwise motion. Black ink ebbed into liquid as a drop of water rippled a pond.

After collecting ink I picked up my long heavy brown brush. Pure white hair. After soaking it in water for three minutes to relax it’s inner tension I spread out thin delicate paper.

I placed my right foot at an angle, left foot straight, my left palm flat on the table with fingers spread. I dipped the brush in the recessed part of the stone to absorb ink then slowly dragged it along an edge removing excess. 

I savored the weight and heft. My brush has it own personality and character. There are at least 5,000 characters in my written language. I have much to learn and a long way to travel with this unknowing truth.

in tone a tion

ideogram letter symbol
inside a series of interlocking blades

is a Cambodian

land mine museum displaying geiger counters
radiation blast suits, screwdrivers, shovels, hi-tech sensors

fertile green rice paddies, farms, fields
1,000 Angkor temples built with laterite stones

pachyderms, topographical survey maps
statistical graphic charts
rainbow amputee refugees

relocation centers rehabilitation
co-pay deductible insurance policies
cremation ceremonies

bereaved starving relatives

curious strangers
spilling

desire fear and regret

rappelling through nouns
verbs and ideas with bamboo shacks

submerged mangrove forests
hammocks, charcoal cooking fires
naked children, amputees

short term Australian nurses
laconic teachers
269 orphanages
12,000 orphans

a butterfly farm
a silk worm weaving center
empowering singing women
threading thin and thick yellow

salvia protein based fibers
on spindles and looms
near Son Le Tap lake 

if you go

If you go far enough out

you can see the Universe itself,
all the billion light years summed up time
only as a flash, just as lonely, as distant
as a star on a June night
if you go far enough out.

And still, my friend, if you go far enough out
you are only at the beginning

- of yourself.

-Rolf Jacobsen

vairochana

In Boudanath, Nepal he chanced into the Saturday Cafe. Was it Saturn Day? Perhaps. Decent breakfast. Stupa view. Bookstore.

 

A woman sat at a table with her laptop. Typing. A traveller stood in the doorway. Are you writing a book, he asked. Pasang looked up, smiling.

No, I'm beginning a bi-monthly newsletter. Community. 

He sat down. They talked. He offered to help her. Everyone needs help.

 

They became friends and he'd journey over from Bandipur weekly to suggest all manner of ideas: focus, tone, editing, developing resources and so forth. It's a one-woman show.

 

He gave her a copy of his walking meditation prose poem from Lhasa travels. He revised it. She published it. O joy. In June she prepared to publish the first hard copy issue.

Pasang sent her web site URL. It has a great feel. Here it is. Give it a look-see. Share.

www.vairochana.com

jungle mumble

Namaste,

hominids know so much 
understand so little
pigments paint animals
traps, black time marking combs
seals, bison, ice age melts bones

hunters

bows, arrows, spears, traps
coal, ash, bark, blood, animal fat
50,000 years of experimentation
still creating in the dark

gatherers
animal skins, fishing hooks, bone sewing needles
fingers grasping
finer points
migration
settlements, social laws, rules, order

invent a religion

game theory
follow the leader

Metta.