Celebration

In a Hindu cremation ceremony on Bali in an archipelago surrounded by oceans where every day is a celebration I released Martha Ann. Blessed by her spirit.

Free form, free spirit in a free world,

Where will you finish your journey?

After rubbing you down with holy water, rice flour

turmeric, salt, vinegar, sandalwood

we put shards of mirrored glass on your eyes

pieces of steel on your teeth

a gold ring with a ruby on your mouth

jasmine flowers on your nostrils

iron nails on your four limbs

symbols of your perfect senses

reincarnation will bring you back

stronger, more perfect

wrapped in tight ceremonial fabric

we laid you on a straw mat tied to a bamboo platform         

placed in a tower representing

the underworld, the visible world, the heavens

behind a rattan Black Bull beast

village women

balancing offerings of fruit,

rice, vegetables

led you through the village of Pedang Tagal

carriers laugh, sing, dance, spinning you

in circles to confuse spirit ghosts

crowds throw water on the ancient Bull

they cut the bull open at Monkey Forest

place you inside

Brahmin priest in black cuts

white binding string

pours water from clay pots inside

smashes them on the ground

sprinkles flowers, soil and family items inside

replaces the Black Bull’s back

final fire begins

you float to holy sky united to karmic force!

is it true this maya this illusion

this transformation this celebration

Her spirit dances beyond the great beyond. I spread her floating ashes on the sea.

Accept loss forever.

Grief is the origin of poetry

The Greeks knew the three most dangerous goddesses were the Fates called Moirai.

Homer called them “spinners of the thread of life.”

Clotho the birth goddess spins the thread of life.

Lachesis measures the length allocating the amount of time to each person.

Atropos cuts the thread.

Anyone resisting them faced Nemesis, Goddess of Justice.

Fates spin out our lives fusing art and language.

Fates dance.

Fire spirit welcomes sun, rain, life energies.

WE salute the sun every dawn. 

Book of Amnesia Unabridged

Masks by Omar

Now and future share the same linguistic meaning for storytellers.

Breathe through your mask.

What kind of mask, asked Z, It is hand-carved from tribal forest memories, said Devina.

Yes, said Zeynep, It is a manifestation of archetypal symbols in ancient cultures. It is a shamanic ritual, a dance trance. When you put on the mask you become the thing you fear the most, your deepest darkest shadow. You evolve your essential human nature. You communicate on new levels of prescient awareness. A mask conforms to the context of a social situation, like maintaining physical distance avoiding C-19.

I thought Tran was in charge of symbols and gongs in temples of furious percussion, said Rita.

Yes, said Z, I was only mentioning ideas and Form.

It’s ok, said Tran. Everyone dances with Death wearing masks of formless form.

Does this mean I will evolve my dynamic ability to scheme and deceive, asked Leo. In life’s jungle it is survival instinct all or nothing. 

I trust you will develop infinite compassion with love, said Devina. Transmit this as WE are a highly evolved form of human intelligence.

Do you remember James Joyce, how he went into exile with silence and cunning, said Omar.

Yes. He struggled to put seven little words in order. He was a cunning linguist. Women love a cunning linguist.

Ask Tam, she’ll tell you how her little button in her rose works, how it requires soft attention with a gentle tactile tongue, said Rita.

This ability to scheme and deceive with cunning is instinctual behavior. It separates you from lesser life forms like apes, plankton and sea enemies like anemone fish-eating animals and androgynous androids in your deep unconscious, said Z.

You are a clown fish. Not all the clowns are in the circus, be light about it, said Omar, taking a page out of his book, folding it into an origami crane and releasing it across raked sand to a Zen temple.

Zen - The art of seeing.

Orphan. Amputee. Genius. Artist. Facilitator. Dreamer. Solidified particles hold their space. Storyteller.

Look in your dream mask mirror. Hello Truth & Beauty, said Mirror.

I’m a shark, I never sleep, I will die if I go back. I go forward, said Tran.

Be less write brain. Be your skin drum music. Sincere. 

Book of Amnesia Unabridged

Meditation by Leo

After climbing Qinchengshan where Taoism began 2,000 years ago Leo introduced meditation practice to his Grade 8 students in Utopia.

Mediation is sitting quiet to develop a calm mind, you sit tall with your hands in front of you or on your knees, gently lower your eyes and focus on a single breath, ‘in, out, in, out.’

If your mind becomes distracted by past regrets or future fears you bring it back to your breath, ‘in, out, in out.’ This is your single point of awareness. Be your breath.

You do it for yourself, not your friends, parents or teachers. Meditation allows you feel harmony and balance. You will feel more peaceful and happier than people busy rushing around. Your goal today is to sit for five minutes and sit and practice for five minutes every day before school. You may choose to sit for five, ten or twenty minutes every day, whenever and wherever you like.

He wrote Jing - quiet, stillness, calm and Ding - concentration and focus on the board for the linguistic context.

When you begin to sit in meditation, at first your mind will be very uncooperative. Your ego or emotional mind will fight against its extinction by the higher forces of spiritual awareness.

The ego loves the day-to-day circus of sensory entertainment and emotional turmoil, even though this depletes your energy, degenerates your body and exhausts your spirit. We call the ego the ‘monkey mind.’

They laughed, remembering The Monkey King classic.

When your mind is calm and focused in the present it isn’t reacting to past memories or preoccupied with future plans.                         

These are two major sources of chronic or long-term health problems. People suffer because their monkey mind is busy regretting the past or afraid of the future and it drives them crazy, this little monkey.

Do you want to try it?

Yes.

Ok. Great. No books, papers and pens. If you don’t want to try it, it’s ok. Please sit quietly respecting others sitting in meditation.

See how it feels. Let’s begin. Adjust your posture with your shoulders back. Eyes slightly closed. Relax. Focus on your breath, ‘in, out, in, out.’

He dimmed the lights. After five minutes he rang a small Tibetan bell and they opened their eyes.

How did it feel?

Beautiful, said a girl, I was flying. 

Book of Amnesia Unabridged

Fear Mentality

People in Cambodia love to look back, said Rita, It is a passionate DNA genetic molecule of fear, doubt, healthy uncertainty, adventure and surprise, a childlike innocent curiosity wanting or needing the past tabla rasa. Yes. Focus on needs, not wants.

Needs manifest desire. A desire for something to believe with clarity. We are all passing through. They look back to see if they see a ghost in their vivid reptilian imagination.

Hungry ghosts of family, friends and lost strangers seek identity. They seek clues and meaning at their personal ground zero. Post genocide reality and perpetual fear of the dead. One point seven million (+-) hungry ghosts wander around looking for relatives, homes, fields and imaginary memories.

They’ve arrived from distant galaxies. Human habitation sites were discovered in Khmer jungles 500,000 years ago. Primitive agriculture began 7,000 years A. Go. So it figures, mathematically speaking with evolutionary premise and factual data, their DNA star chart continues its genetic dance today.

We live in talking monkey zones. They pretend to be exactly who they are. They use their faint star energy to look w/o seeing. All the wondering. 

They look without understanding.

Food is cheap here. Medicine and education are expensive.

This has nothing to do with simians, said Devina in Jakarta. It indicates two women sitting in a neighborhood food joint. Plastic chairs face a tall cinderblock wall. Chickens, goats, cats and orphans prowl, peck and forage through garbage dreams.

One woman sits in a deep meditation. Chattering oral storytellers play Bronze Age drums, pounding out 3rd century you tunes.

Heal the people with music.

Males wash their literary typing machines. They study accumulated grime under long yellow curling fingernails. They play chess at knight along roads waiting for passengers. People eat spicy rice mixed with tofu, chicken, veggies and green and red chilies.

Have you eaten yet is what we ask people first in Utopia, said Leo.

Eat your dreams. Masticate. Emasculate. Procreate. Protect. Kill.

One human creates a Brave New World.

See literary outlaws create new futures with existential joy. It’s their assessment on process in a data based star cluster. Dream mask mirrors swim to Cambodia.

We are Visceral Realists, said Devina, Zeynep, Rita, Leo ToldStory, Tran, Omar, a Grave Digger and Laughter, a reliable narrator. 

Book of Amnesia Unabridged

Clean Ears

Every day in Utopia is Clean Your Ears Day, said Leo. It’s a big deal considering ears are small and portable. They go everywhere you go.

The first time my ears were deep cleaned was in Paradise. A woman worked at the open-air opera theatre decorated with gigantic red and black demon masks.

I watched her doing men sitting in bamboo chairs. Her tools and instruments were disinfected. Scaling, probing, curling out the wax. Cotton swabs.

It’s a great feeling. BUZZ. Today was the perfect opportunity to clean out the old ears. Bliss baby. Say what?

Aural chambers sing. The ear cleaning procedure removed debris and clutter as analyzed by auditory forensic experts:

1.         cycle of cycles including life cycles

2.         incessant trajectory of love and passion oratory

3.         hummingbird whispers

4.         laughter

5.         crying, whining, screaming children - many over 25

6.         heartbroken lovers

7.         distraught wandering tourists

8.         dancing fools. you are a fool whether you dance or not, so you may as well dance                      

8a.       crazies I love, fools are sheep

9.         distracted kind idiots yelling at high decibel levels

10.       minstrels

11.       singers, dancers, hustlers

12.       motorcycle cowboys, hookers, massage parlor slaves, rice slaves, rich/poor wage slaves

13.       laughing sheep (volunteered slavery)

14.       lonely philistine Filipino maids in exile from martial law and massacres hanging out in Saigon parks bothering travelers, talking about the weather, breaking their lonely ice lives discussing the value of shoes and jewelry on sale at discount stores

15.       bored frustrated wives, husbands, lovers and mistresses with tresses in distress

16.       unemployed vagrants, misfits, derelicts, amputees, orphans, storytellers

17.       fortune tellers, employed or not, and prototype aliens filled with monetary motivations

18.       nutritional experts and particle collider scientists

19.       visions of a supreme creator laughing at everyone

20.       people who say, I don’t have a listening problem, I have a hearing problem

21.       your choice for $2.77 plus tax

Open your ears, open your heart, open your eyes, said Leo. Taking a risk is not fatal.

Book of Amnesia Unabridged