The Garden #8

I met Omar, a Touareg Berber and ghostwriter in Morocco on 9/11.

We created truth-stories from the future.

Thanks for listening.

Published in: Weaving A Life, Volume 1

Here for the ear.

The Garden #8

Fragrance

Khmer woman 70 in wheelchair

Dances her smile
Extends worn plastic basket

Grateful for .50

Her smile a fragrance

Beauty remembers graciousness
Facial treatment waxes poetic
Edges of bi-lingual tongues express calligraphy

Older now a Khmer woman
Still carries a bathroom weight scale

Around Siem Reap
Step on it
Small money enough for rice

Strangers destined to wait
Confront their deepest fears
At the intersection of Courage & Creativity

The menu is not the meal

Grow Your Soul

The Garden #7

Ah, how sweet it is to explore, laugh, share and love.

Chapter 1 in "The Language Company" is longer than a river.

Here is part of a part of the amazing tale.

Listening for thanks.

The Garden #7

Published in:

The Language Company

Mekong Blue

I visited Mekong Blue, the Stung Treng Women’s Development Center in NE Cambodia.

Fifty women are trained in a six-month silk weaving course. They plant mulberry, harvest, dye and create silk textiles. It is a UNESCO award winner known for superior quality, creativity and originality.

Mulberry leaves everything behind. Worms eat the leaves. Their saliva makes yellow cocoons. Saliva becomes a protein and stronger than steel. They boil silkworm cocoons to extract raw yellow silk. One thread is 300 meters long.

It is separated into soft and fine threads.

Women dye the threads using natural materials:

banana (yellow)

bougainvillea (yellow)

almond leaves (black)

lac insect nests (red and purple)

prohut wood (yellow and green)

lychee wood (black and gray)

indigo (blue) and coconut (brown and pink).

Women also weave Ikat, a technique creating patterns on silk threads prior to dyeing and weaving. It is called HOL with 200 motifs.

The center improves the women’s quality of life. It breaks the cycle of poverty through vocational training and educational programs.

They have a primary school with thirty-five kids and two teachers. Everyone receives lunch. It is the single biggest employer in town after the government.

That’s so cool, said Rita. Need some ice?

Mekong Blue

Published in:

Grow Your Soul

The Garden #6

Before & After, from The Language Company.

John, a Chinese teacher is removed from his class at a middle school in Sichuan.

If his students fail to pass a test it is his fault.

The Garden #6.

Thanks for listening.