laughing children

maintain their honest true
emotional awareness
in the moment
before artificial social conditioning 
destroys their fragile innocence

humor and curiosity

crimes against humanity

fear is a killer

mai's hearing evaluation -
anthony from NZ came, met, talked,

promised the world, took her out, tried to seduce her, failed, he left
mai has a black belt in karate
she's killed more men with silence than you can imagine
she is resigned to her 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 register POTENTIAL for unrealized dreams
how does her silent resignation
understanding comprehend one single lost chance,

all the complexity w/o expectations

in the false dream of star rain

they moved a wooden toy pawn,
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 8th Century 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 rumbles in Pokhara
spinning the Wheel of Time
rejoicing in miracles, small ones
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
sucked the star into its empty mass the star exploded the black hole
escaping energy created, released streams of light we see today

at that moment 20 raindrops trusted your intuition
to travel is to feel

indonesia asked you to return
two years ago you said thank you to orchids
goodbye to gardens

orchids remember you
the apple tree

you planted at Gardenia

grows strong
roots buried deep below blossoms
fragrant with memory

Street meat in Quanzhou, China

Healing

“Is that why there is pain and delight in human  relationships?” a woman asked.

 “Yes,” the teacher said. “The collective unconscious is too big to live out our personality so we create outer figures, projections saying, Bear my anima for me. This creates the pain and suffering. When there is individuation there is a strong ego personality.”

“Please give us an example?” 

“Well, war is like a falling in love experience. The shadow, the dark side, exists with the bright side and is misunderstood. The shadow is projected in dreams. In war. Veterans carry images of losing, darkness, violence, destruction and evil inside them.”

“What is the healing tendency?”

“One must find meaning. It requires self honesty. They  respect dreams and the unconscious. They play. Fantasy is good, dynamic play. It is about symbolic levels. The collective unconscious is manifested in all cultures. This is why Jung was attracted to Asian symbols. He believed they existed near the bottom of their unconscious in an instinctual life.”

“People in the western cultures are afraid of death? Why?”

“Old age is a value feeling. Unfortunately, in some cultures it is perceived as insulting. It is the archetype of the old fool. It is fuller than the wise man. We create meaning. The imagination is the reality of the psyche combined with pure play. We listen to the wisdom of the dream. Everything we do comes from the heart.”

Daffy Gladhafi

Omar the clown was getting a close shave with a bloody sword by his naked Ukrainian nurse in his underwater bunker.

Son #1 came in, O big Daddy of the 41 year glorious dictatorship, we have a small problem.

Tempered steel caressed his neck, What pray tell have the savages wrought? 

They are marching toward the capital. We've lost the East.

1.5 million destitute workers from China, Turkey, Italy, Mali, Bali and inner Mongolia ran away. 

So what. We have 2% of the world's oil under burning sand castles. Oil for guns. Thanks to our Italian and British friends we possess trillions of dollars in high tech weapons and killing machines. We have seeing eye dogs of war.

He turned a blind eye to his son. Ok, here's what I command you to do. Give everyone $400 and a free apartment. Give them a car. Give them empty promises filled with hypocrisy. Give them anti-aircraft guns, nuclear and biological weapons, isotopes, radiation microscopes, saline solution, sunglasses, my Green Book and swords. I will destroy Earth.

Son, historical unpleasant genocide facts and cemeteries will remember me. My idiotic legacy is complete. 

Blood will flow faster than an Austrian named Adolf wheeling his luggage filled with orphans down an endless dirt road in Cambodia. Hunt down the greasy dogs. Kill all the cockroaches. I am the greatest.

"A Little Fable"

"Alas," said the mouse, "the world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into."

"You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up. - Kafka

 

Publish it

Greetings,

A new article link and ideas about the world. The world of self-publishing. You write for an audience of one. You write with passion, authenticity and humor. You write with a light heart. You are hopeful. You expect the worst.

You play the publishing game. Every fall you buy a copy of Writer's Market, the bible. You research markets. You craft a query letter and synopsis. You send the query letter, synopsis and first five pages to a literary agent. You wait. You write. 

The agent reads your synopsis. They thumb through the five pages. Their first thought is, "Can I make 15% on this?" If the answer is no, you get rejection letter wallpaper to decorate your room. If you take the rejections personally and bang your head against the wall all the letters become wild word birds and fly away.

Or, you consider self-publishing. This is what I did in 2007 while finishing a teaching job in China. I researched options and purchased a publishing package with iuniverse. It was a good choice. A viable option considering my work was experimental, non-linear and filled with nomadic storytellers and their adventures.

You have many self-publishing options now. Look around. See what meets your needs.

A Century Is Nothing...

Few have read it. Fewer have understood it.

read more...

Metta.