And the Various Journeys Continue . . .

Stuck In Colombo

Yup, as the refrain from an old CCR song echoes dimly in my head. Hey, there are lots of worse places I could be stuck. Had part of a root canal done this afternoon, and I have to stay to finish it tomorrow instead of going back on the late bus tonight as I had planned. Hey I don't really mind getting a good night's sleep instead of being on the noisy, bumpy, not so gently rocking bus barreling through the Sri Lankan night to deposit me at 5:00 a.m. in Trinco where I have to sit/lay around for three hours fighting off the mosquitoes until the ferry can take me to Mutur. I can chill here tonight in the NP Office, getting up in the morning to leisurely read how bad my Gints (after last week's mediocre showing to lose soundly to Detroit) show up against the Vikings in the Dome. And maybe I can do some broadbanding in Odel's.

So, here is the next Mystery Painting . . .

Terror Boy

So filled with terror, so alone, so frightened. Terror Boy floats aimlessly in a wide green sky. Is he a Halloween jack-o-lantern? He is pumpkin-colored. Maybe an abandoned head, rolling around the Iraqi desert. Or, is it just poor little ole me, deep within, lost again in the illusion of separation and isolation. Is that a pedestal, or his arm, a pile of rocks, he’s resting on? What a silly goat-wisp of a Papasan beard. Can’t see, much less smell, the lotus blossom his eyes reflect, so mesmerized he is by the bright mote in his eye. Just rolling along bursting with the plea, stifled by his thin-clenched lips, “Love me. Love me. Love me. Love me. Love me. Please. Somebody, anyone. Love me.”

Hey, Terror Boy, let me give you a clue.
Learn to love first Thyself.

The First Mystery Painting

Welp, here it is the first Mystery Painting, done, complete, fini, a picture taken of it to include two of the incessantly herding flies that gift us with the challenge of acceptance, especially now that the rainy season is upon us in Mutur:

Submission

Sir Death,
green with raging envy
demonic, villainous, vile
not accepting his imminent demise
surrenders spewing bile
to the ineffable supremacy
of the always Feminine Divine
within whose magnificent mystery
he himself shall soon be rebirthed
in glorious angelic evocation

October 24, 2004
Mutur, Sri Lanka

It is an amazing process from beginning with a blank sheet of canvas and a brush with black paint to the end of a painting in color that is more evoked from within your sacred center than consciously created. After I do a few more, I'll be more comfortable in sharing here about this process. Those impatient and curious can find out more about Mystery Painting here.

I am quite pleased with this effort, not so much because I believe it has any aesthetic value, but because despite at times being mightily tempted, I did not give up on it or myself in manifesting it.

Bummed

Really, really bummed.

Last Monday in Colombo on my way to Mystery Paint, I was robbed again for the third time; I lost about $40, the silver money clip that Bonnie and I bought in Ediburgh -- that really hurt. What was the real psychic killer, however, was that I lost my iPod. The Kosmos giveth and the Kosmos taketh away. I now have a poor man's iPod, ear plugs, to deaden what to me is the fingernails on blackboard screechings of Bollywood Tamil music, which is played at 6000 million decibles on the long busrides between Trinco and Colombo, that to my alien ears makes MTV and eminem sound like a chamber quartet.

I was mugged three times when I lived in Manhattan, but it took seven years, not the little more than one year I've been in Sri Lanka, for those three aberrant incidents to occur. Oh well. Somewhat back in a centered space now.

The peace work in Sri Lanka has really stepped up, and I feel good about an initiative NP is working on to mitigate and lessen violence in the remote villages. It's meant that I am on the road a lot visiting villages and people in the remotest, most undeveloped parts of the East. Have had to do a lot of humping in the bush because many of the roads are impassable, especially now during the rainy season, even with four-wheel drive vehicles, which at present we don't have.  

Bonnie and I are hoping that maybe she can join me here in Sri Lanka as a member of NP. If not, I will be returning to the states the end of the summer. Mystery painting has been good, but haven't been able to do as much as I would like due to being on the road/mudways.  

Lots of lessons in self and all else acceptance, choosing to make lemonade when confronted with what I judge to be only lemons . . .  

Life, nevertheless, is always full of incredible surprises, such as this one captured in a haiku the other morning on a beautiful small launch ride across Trincomalee bay:  

relief  

distant skein of white
migrating seabirds in flight
perfect Now this Here  

                        October 22, 2004
                         Trincomale Bay, Sri Lanka

Maybe later this afternoon, if we have power and connectivity, I'll come back and upload a pic or two from England . . .  

Are You Ready for Some Pics

I had grandiose plans of creating a couple of different photo albums of the trip to England Bonnie and I so wonderously shared together in August, one of London, one of the sacred sites we visited and a miscellaneous one of the English, Scottish, Irish, Walish (that's not right) countrysides, as well as one probably of Edinburgh and Brighton. Not to be. Been Wi-Fi thwarted the past several visits to Colombo, to include the most recent today. The system at Odel's is mightily snafued. Oh well. And no way can I upload via dial-up many of the over 350 pictures Bonnie and I took during the deloverly three weeks tourning the grand lands of the British Isles.

Not to be totally deterred, however. Herein follows a few of the pictures of yours truly at some of the many various sights.

I was absolutely mesmerized by Stonehenge, and I wasn't expecting to be. Good thing I didn't pay too much attention to the Lonely Planet, which really discouraged people from going there because of the traffice and the crowds and the interference of a couple of major highways nearby including one you have to walk under via a tunnel. As it turned out, because we had gotten lost -- long story due to detours in the British countryside for road construction with no signs except the first one taking you off the main road into criss-crossed country lanes -- we crested a hill and WOW there is was spread out before us on the Salisbury Plain. Absolutely magnificent.

Tor, which is Gaelic for wedge-shaped, like a hunk of Stilton Cheese cut from a wheel, was another wonderful place that we climbed scarily up the back side because again we got lost. The view, as indicated in my post yesterday with the beautiful picture of beautiful Bonnie, was outstanding, especially at the end of the day, my favorite time, with the shadows lengthening in changing patterns across the Cotswolds countryside. We had a nice chat with a couple from San Diego at the top of the hill.

This is me on our last glorious day at Windsor Castle. I really love the role of being a tourist, especially with a traveling companion as fun and easy and good as Bonnie is. Hope she is able to join me here in Sri Lanka -- it would make my angst with the realities of the 3rd World ever so nicer.

Gonna cease for now because it is the waning time of the day and since it is my favorite time, I am going to take a nice long run along the Indian Ocean to wear myself out before I have a good Pakastani meal at one of my favorite Colombo restaurants.

No Wi-Fi Again

Oh well, there just is no escaping the reality that here in Sri Lanka I am thwarted again from first world luxuries. It's a sign of the times I'm experiencing of late. Hard. Fingernails on the blackboard of my soul. Having to do extra duty prayer and breath-consciousness to accept the realities I have no control over, like no broadband, nor of late, increasingly, power or telephone connectivity. I did, however, as a direct result of my efforts, I chose to believe, just had a lovely moment of respite, just being connected Here Now with my life as it is, and wrote this poem:

Just this . . .

Swirl of waving palm fronds in gentle breeze
Patches of sunlight mottled in green of wet lawn
One white butterfly chasing itself in spiraling circles
Plaintive call of bird hidden in shadows of banyan tree
Page of calendar with beautiful smiling Sri Lankan child
Sharp smell of incense from neighbors evening devotions
Bead of sweat chilling as it slowly courses down my cheek
Sweet taste of coffee with four large teaspoons of brown sugar

Just me
Breathing moments
Of this passing life
Not gone in future
Nor lost in past
Now content
Even here

October 17, 2004
Colombo, Sri Lanka

So, okay, gonna post this, and come back and post a few of the many, many pictures from the England trip now two months slithered away in the inexorable past, despite being on 45K dial-up. At least, it being a Sunday, the time it takes to upload the pics will be at the cheapest rate of Sri Lankan Telephone. If you can't beat 'em, work around 'em.

What Can I Say

Life goes on. October over half-way done. Used to be one of my favorite months with the cool crispness of Fall displaying itself in myriad multi-color tones of foliage shifting seasons from Summer's glory into Winter's quietness. Life bursting forth in a plethora of color before hybernating for next year's time of Spring renewal. Mid-October used to a most cherished time with Sara's and my anniversary on October 12th and my sobriety anniversary on October 13th. This year would have been our 25th, but we ended the relationship over almost four years ago now. Wednesday was my 32nd anniversary of sobriety -- I completely forgot about it until this morning while reading an article in the AA Grapevine, so different has my life become for me here in Sri Lanka. Welp, for certain I am most grateful and indeed most blessed for my continued day at a time through grace daily reprieve.

The rainy season is upon us in Trincomalee District in Sri Lanka East. We have had huge thunderstorms that have exacerbated the technical difficulties I have encountered with the Wi-Fi in Colombo being snafued the last several times I visited. Yesterday and last night we had both a major power outage and no phone until about noon today. Bummer. Welp, I'm grateful I have power and connectivity this moment.

So let me quickly load up a picture of Bonnie taken almost two months ago at the top of Tor in Glastonbury. The pristine English countryside is breath-takingly beautiful, as is Bonnie:

I am most grateful to have her in my life, and we have over the past several weeks mutually committed to evolve a relationship. I am most pleased about that. I am built to be in relationship, and the three years of grieving the passing of Sara's and my relationship was long enough. We are exploring the possibility of her joining me here in Sri Lanka, either working with NP or with another organization. It is evolving as it should.

I'll be in Colombo again this weekend and will maybe be able to upload some other pics, if the Wi-Fi is working at Odel's. If not, I do intend nevertheless to at least post something in this recently fallow space at least once a week.

The killing goes on South of us in Batticaloa District, but the cease fire between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government, though tenuous, still holds. No indication when the peace talks will resume. Sri Lanka is not at war, but it is not at peace neither. Like so much else somewhere in the middle in between.

And so it as well as all goes.