Other, Shadow & Weaver

I am afraid, said the Swiss girl, of becoming the Stranger, the Other.

The Other. I am Other said Shadow. Outsider.

I'm afraid of always being the Other, she said.

Why? said Shadow.

It's fear I suppose, it's difficult to articulate. It's a sense of feeling apart, separate from people.

I know it, Shadow said, I'm like that. I live on the edge. I engage. I am vulnerable, open, honest maintaining a sense of detachment.

How is it this sense of outside? she said.

It's objective, he said.

Shadow felt her vision escape toward the weaver at her loom creating her meditation.

I am the shuttle sliding across threads, Weaver said. I am smooth aged wood holding two bobbins. One is golden silk thread, the other purple.

As I slide threads bobbins spin at the speed of light releasing, ah all the releasing, letting go of myself trailing into and between thin black origins - the essence where I rest.

Weaver cautions Shadow with her fingers - purple and golden desires lie tight. She pulls her emptiness toward me, hands and feet.

I feel connected, said Weaver.

I am bound to Others before me.

I wait for Others to join me.

I am part of the whole. Part of the grand design inside her dream.

I pass through. I am not dreaming. I am here and now.

Screaming Lao Man

The screaming Lao man
Thin, late 20's, shorts, flip flops, black hair
Walks away from
Lao Provincial Hospital

Leaving a ward

Leaving someone he loves

Screams [speed of sound]

Broken by silence
Between knowledge and ignorance
 
He screams, closer
Screams...

He stops near hospital entrance

Frozen in midday sun
 
Burning pavement

Burning his heart
Throws out his arms
Drops to his knees

Screaming

Folds his head into his arms
Faces ground sobbing

Silent solitude grief
Loss heartbreak

A blind Khmer musician and his daughter.

Fabulous Fables

The world is a myth. We live in a fable.

I used to be someone else but I traded him in.

Traveling isn't supposed to be fun, said an American father to his whining son sitting on a cafe balcony in Istanbul overlooking the Bosporus, it's an adventure.

I don't find. I discover.

Mai's hearing evaluation.

Anthony from NZ came, met, talked, promised, took her out, tried to seduce her, failed, left. Mai is resigned to her former life, massage and laundry scrubbing under the paternal gaze of her older sister who sits in perpetual admiration of her mirrored reflection.

How does her awareness and disappointment register in her POTENTIAL for unrealized dreams?

How does her silent resignation and understanding comprehend lost chance, all the complexity w/o expectations?

In the false dream of star rain they moved a wooden toy pawn,
the salad bar in silence welcomed cool air from a brown river,
children pressed noses to a rolling window, laughing.

An archeologist skips through star puddles into Angkor Wat excavations.

Freedom sings stones,
selling a Blue Pumpkin to a Cambodian land mine amputee w/o a left leg
selling DVDs to fat tourists talking with their mouths full.

An Enfield spinning the Wheel of Time, rejoicing in small miracles rumbles in Pokhara, Nepal.

Sit in meditation.  

We do laundry by machine, said Language Animal.

3.8 billion years ago a black hole captured a star the size of our sun. It sucked the star into its empty mass. The star exploded the black hole. The escaping energy created streams of light we see today.

At that moment 20 raindrops trusted intuition.

To travel is to feel.

Indonesia asked you to return. You said thank you, farewell. Hello Hanoi.

Orchids remember you. The apple tree you planted at Gardenia is growing. Roots buried deep below blossoms lie fragrant with memory.

In and out dialogue.

Discover what speaks to you.

Literary Outlaws

Music is the fuel.

Welcome to Planet Insane Asylum. You are released on your own recognizance.

Create a new world. Ride a bike. Explore. Life is the destination. Warrior attitude.

Understanding by design. UBD.

Your story emerges from nothing. Discover a point of departure a direction.

Only the mad ones sing with the fools.

Events, characters, setting, impressions. Energies and frequencies.

Remember Coco speaking in Fujian, China watching 15,000 university students walk past old village people. "They are all peasants."

Years later the rich Chinese man in Laos served you fresh green Fujian tea at the Luang Prabang guesthouse. "Children are tools," he said. He had two. They arrived in a Raging Rover using GPS.

Discernment with sensitivity.

Engaged by a stimulus. Disengaged from a stimulus.

Truth-Force.

Signal-Noise

High season in Vientiane. Perfect for drawing twilight as scooters mumble putt putt exhausted fear based laughter succumbing to circumstance.

Yoke said a verb is a condition.

Her insight was victorious. Word got back that all but three 8th grade students were caught cheating on their Lao exams. No surprise there. Delight in their sly cunning attitude. Oh, to be human.

Determination chopped ice, shifting passive years, gears and fears into a zonal transparency of blank eyes. Is-land tourists became localized stimuli wandering blank.

It's a meaningful coincidence.

We are literary outlaws.

Explanation is a well dressed mistake.

We connect the dots forward. Play an infinite game of chess.

Checkmate, said Death. I always make the correct move.

Existence precedes essence. Flame your life.