take a naked stand

A light breakfast at 7, a calm morning, a child below somewhere screams for justice.  The Himalayas mix it up with puffy clouds, a nice view, perhaps a visit to the top before they are hidden again. 

Ram and Baba cut buffalo grass below but there isn’t much since the parking lot was established.   It’s hot early so I predict an afternoon rain earlier than yesterday’s dusk deluge.  Why do you guess weather patterns?  Because it’s unpredictable? 

Suraksha wants to toast marshmallows on Saturday and I agree but warn her I’m beginning to eat them. 

Fog moves in.  It not yet ten in the morning.  I realize when I leave here I will probably not think too much about discovering the solution for Israelis and Palestinians.  Ok, when did this all start?  All the way back, leaders never discuss Sara and Hajar or Cain and Abel.   Because any discussion about the two is the same argument used for how long?  The land granted to Israel by Yahweh was a hellava lot bigger than it is today.  Israel conceded that a long time ago. The Palestinians, reviled by all the neighboring Arab countries.  In part because they don’t have their own country.  You didn’t have a country in  1948, no one recognized you, why didn’t you seek recognition when Israel was doing it? 

Stand half naked in the windy fog and breathe in pure organics.  

4.47pm

If it rains it’ll be the same time as yesterday.  Similar clouds in the Kathmandu valley are moving north.  I finished cleaning the blue and green sections of the restaurant ceiling today, good exercise for the left arm mostly and it was a shower and a nap and that is that.

I did walk for almost an hour before the mid-morning main breakfast, visiting the paraglider jump spots, up Moti’s Way, over to the round houses and up the mountain with the stone road.  The soreness from the Pokhara to and from walk is about gone. 

I am disappointed my computer has no sound.  I’m ok with the silence here but sometimes I’d like to listen to anything.  Any decision on the rest of your holiday?  No, but I feel I should do something, if I’m headed to the states, within six days.  We will see.

Another wall of rain the entire length of the city moves steadily toward the lake.  Will it then hit the mountain, shoot up and kabow the village?  The ugly dark gray wall is moving north west and may not come this way, and it looks relatively small from here but that is how it looked yesterday.  The suspense is killing me.  And no one else on the mountain, I tell you truly, gives a rat’s ass. 

A rainbow appears out of the storm’s right flank,  the wind is nil right now.  The storm, I regret to note, is moving west over the mountains.  Sarangkot remains dry for now.

Any thoughts on your save the Middle East exercise today?  Not really, politics, settlements, tribes battle for everything.  The majority of Arab countries are more than willing to shake hands with their cousins, let’s settle, in’sha’allah, drink tea make money.  The Palestine boy.  Millions displaced, probably doing better off because of it.  Why not recognize Israel’s existence?  The stubborn refusal will always be a lose lose and they know this and yet they die, one generation after another.  There is nothing patriotic about death, shabob.  
A double rainbow follows up the rain that stayed west.  The stronger one remained strong and then behind me Lamjung and Annapurna consider coming out.  It’s a monsoon break.  The two eldest of Prem Maya’s girls drive up the private road on a scooter and park in the garage.  There were no tourists yesterday and none, it appears today.  The steady business lasted ten days.  

A symphony of clouds from a panorama spectacular.  I have been cloud goofy of late for sure, I should learn these graceful movers names.  No rain of course results in more mosquitos and they are hungry,  dirty #@$. 

9.49pm

No rain came to the mountain.  A new pattern.  Yawn.  Who cares about the weather?  Because it can be so dramatic.  There were no resolutions made tonight.  Two mustang coffees were nice after a meal of chicken yogurt with rice.  Ram is the welfare spotlight tonight.  An orphan, lived with an uncle here and there, wound up in Pokhara with boys similar in his age who are quite skilled for their age, and the boys referred him to Laxman and Maya, who are not only providing him tasks that challenge and develop the kind of skills one needs to work in any tourism business, but not only that,  they’re giving the boy some structure and advice on life.  If he can stick it out until he has saved enough to…what, no education, no English, perhaps he can become independent, which is what every culture wants, with ties to the family never forgotten or ignored.  And if he has no family?  Stay in one place, offer a skill, learn a trade, become a member of the community.  Respected, appreciated, they will take in the orphan. 

Stand naked in the cool dark and stretch, breathe deep organically glacial restoratives into your lungs and hold it and om. 

The man who couldn't cough

A splendiferous morning, worth the walk to the top and to the helicopter pad.  The Fishtail shows off for everyone fortunate to see her.  Even the chatty and bad singing Indonesians should have gotten something from it. 

In approximately one month I’ll be back in my host country’s armpit.  Flying back to the states, staying here, a trip to Tibet, a trip to Dubai.  I could still do Sri Lanka.  Hmm, with a stop in Muscat.  Hmmm…I have no problem staying here, but a restlessness simmers and I’m not sure why. 

Ram cleans the rooms next door.  He taught me a Nepalese phrase that isn’t used on this mountain but in his village 400km away.  Ke-Bonza (soft z)  What is this he speaks?  And I’m told it’s used when a serious discussion is in progress.  Still I like it and I’m sure I’ll find use for it when we’re concerned about something even though I still don’t know what the concerned discussion is about.  

A very poor night of sleep and the sun is quite strong now so it’s a nap before going to Baba’s house to pick up corn, squash, bo-day, I don’t know what that is, and corn.  I think I’ll be taking a basket.   Maybe I should take the car!

Maybe we’ll go tomorrow.  Good idea.  Almost sunset, clouds quietly drifting north.  Clouds look much larger at this height.  Straight ahead floating nonchalantly north is a dark bluish gray arrow shaped cloud that is the head of a long trail coming from the East.  So many ominous clouds and the threat only comes with the mother ships, a cloud that covers an area of Pokhara which has about 300,000 folks, it’s a big cloud and when you can’t see either end, it’s time to pay homage.

This morning I watched wispy white vapor rise from a pinch in the valley, collect, and become a cloud.  A new cloud.  That was a highlight.  For the past three days the pattern has been a threat of rain at the end of the day and then rain and definitely overnight.

9:43pm

A calm evening, anticipating rain but you never know.  It might not come tonite, it might wait until six in the morning.  With cold wind and rain and fog and you wish for that moment only, you were on the beach.  What to say, a pattern is being broken.  And there’s no idea when it’ll rain again.

Surakasha and I and a diminutive Prisma walked towards the homestead farm for vegetables.  Across from Suraksha’s grandparent’s home is a house, formerly an elementary school.  Sixteen workers from the big hotel under construction have taken residence, where the residents went I don’t know, but Ama has been feeding these fellas now for almost a year, and that comes out to 60 meals a day.  “Busy” she said when we left and headed back to the Superview. 

I have the door and the window open, it is hot in here but cool out there.  Why doesn’t that cool air come in.  Prisma’s little brother is an adorable kid, hands down.  As an infant I sat with him while he lay in the cold winter sun on seat cushions and blankets.  A cute kid then, especially when he’d lock unblinking eyes on you.  When he sees me now he starts laughing in a mocking kind of funny way.   

7.30.2014

Dry toast and masala tea and Tibetan incantations are the right morning order after a fitful night of sleep.  Maya sits at a table next to me, cleaning beans and wondering what to do with the potatoes that look a little too small to peel.   We’re gonna peel them.  Everyone’s corn is twice the height from last year’s paltry crop.  The right amount of sun and rain and humidity and maybe not a reason but the mice aren’t around. 

Taking the Bible, opening it to the beginning of the rift how do you read it, how do you interpret it?  A question arises, does God care how it is interpreted?  Sure, and not literally.  It must be accepted in the time it is read.  The word of God is divinely malleable and we must look at its meaning in light of change. 

The exercise today, if permitted, is to take the sacred text of the Jews and Christians and read, meditate, pray, and in a state of raised consciousness find what eludes everyone.  Peace.

Of course it would be helpful if I were fluent in Hebrew and Greek this would be an easier task. 

Suraksha has a dozen books in her bag and will carry water, an umbrella, maybe a snack, the bag is about 8kg, a considerable weight walking up and down a mountain.  The sun breaks free of the myriad of clouds strewn about in all directions.  The school has a bus or two but they’re for those who live horizontally far.  But really the secondary roads that you find wrapping around the mountain’s waist are rough and inclined to tipping things over.  Walking, what to do. 

What do you think your chances are of discovering something?  Slim to nil, it seems my thoughts go into overdrive when I am physically engaged.  Of course if I really want to get to where I need to be to whatever, interact with spirits, hallucinate, completely open to what is transpiring and discern, well that is not in my hands.  Sure it’s a hellava trip, with risks, but really, it’s for peace.  And having a lot of time on my hands. 

We are relieved the sore back wasn’t from a tear though I knew that was unlikely.  I think I’d see discoloration.  But I am able to cough again though the pain remains it’s not as bad.  It is good to cough.  Imagine a life of someone who couldn’t cough. 

What makes you so sure being in another dimension you’ll be able to know the right from the wrong.  Mischievous spirits I was told, are all around you.  I can’t deny there were a few mean misleading spirits uninvited, and this is understood in five years of hindsight,  but I guess the other way to look at that is maybe I was the uninvited?  Whose dimension did I crash into and through unintentionally? 

I thoroughly enjoyed this morning’s bird songs.  Sad, forlorn, sweet, wispy highnotes flick into air.  The snow capped peak of Lamjung peeks above the cotton thick clouds going nowhere.  Ram spot cleans the room, wipes up the mud from my shoes and I give him a piece of gum which may have been a highlight of some kind.  I had to show him not to eat the paper.

Maybe another hot afternoon.  Sigh. I am in favor of a nice afternoon thunderstorm. 

5:43pm

Dark clouds move north and coming from the east 800 story high post thunderstorm clouds spawning curtain showers.  Why do these clouds above all clouds feel the most demanding aside from their size.  No rain today despite the eminent threat.  For exercise I scrubbed clean sections of the eating area’s ceiling.  I needed an eight inch lift to remove an amazing amount of dirt in a year. 

Ok, really, isn’t what you would like to solve better done in a monastery somewhere else?  Let’s go to Jerusalem.  Not right now.  How about Union Theological Seminary? Ha ha.  Seriously again, you’re over your head, dude, you don’t know what to think.  I know.  I read the Cain and Abel account, sure protecting Cain introduced retribution-resolution conflict; "the Lord answered, if any one kills you, seven lives will be taken in revenge."  That was mighty kind of you Lord.  Can we understand that proclamations forever determining a person’s life would include their bloodline for, what 7,000 years?  How many generations is that? 

And I’m staying away from tangents here.  A solution is simple if you keep it simple. 

A shower curtain about 15km long falls on the east side of Pokhara.  The dark grays flying north over us have an end 50km in the east.  Ram closes the rooms and hums an animal song. Night is almost here.  Ram leans over to see what I am typing.  Oh I can type without looking.  That makes him laugh.  Oh he sees my hookah.  We know that word.  And the gray curtain over Pokhara is moving fast right toward us I tell the man boy as winds blow cooler. 

What is it about proclamations from God? If they are given to individuals do they, should they be considered for us now?

Wow, this black mother cloud is coming right at us and fast and bringing that heavy rain.  Ha.  And hitting the mountain they become one and we’re in a slashing rain white out close the door and the window.  The clouds remain, resting perhaps from their origins in the Bay of Bengal.  Birds bathe in the cornstalks. 

I don’t make it a habit of reading the Bible after a session with a hookah.  It’s a bit intense, there’s a lot to say hey what is this all about so the simple yet profound story of the two brothers was enough. 

The rain lightened up the clouds are moving and I thought, foolishly, that was it, but here comes another wall of water coming straight up with a vengeance. 

9.25pm

A light rain and fog make for the most peaceful moments on the mountain.  All goes quiet, any last thoughts before you pass out in exhaustion?  And it’s only 9.30? Them's monastery hours.

He waits in his wings

A very warm day, the sun is out, big billowing clouds shroud the mountains, a nice day in fact to paraglide?  Five years coming and I haven’t yet soared with the buzzards and hawks. 

At seven this morning I arrived at the grandparent’s homestead for fresh curd and chia with buffalo milk.  Baba and Ama are leasing their two rooms and courtyard to a group working on the colossal hotel.  The kitchen they now use has room for two chairs and a table.  It is small. Beem churned curd to make ghee the old fashioned way and I tell him he can sell a liter of ghee to the new hotel and triple the price.

 I take a chair out and sit in the road to smoke a cigarette. 

Seven male Japanese twenty something tourists arrive and take four rooms. They hang their wet clothes on the balcony.  What are they going to do today, checking in before noon?  Well, with seven Japanese men comes seven smartphones and tablets and what internet connection existed thirty minutes ago is gone.  Not that it really matters, right? 

Do you really think the answer to stop the fighting lay in another dimension?  Do spirits have the solution that cannot be found by man?

The leg muscles are sore, the abrasions are there.  For a second I considered a visit to a clinic in Pokhara after my feet first slide into the bush, a sore back made worse, I considered then how a local would handle such a scenario, is it a hmmmm kind of problem or is it a ka-toi kind, mostly a hmmm, bistarly bistarly it is said, take ‘er easy, slowly. 

An afternoon nap was necessary, woken by chatty Japanese boys who’ve congregated outside room four.  They’ve come all this way to bond on a balcony, giggling like they’re out of their parent’s home for the first time.  Should I peek outside, make my presence known, redirect their internal enthusiasm for the wilds? 

Maya washed my clothes yesterday and they are dry now on the roof.  The Japanese have firmly planted themselves on the balcony with chairs and clothes racks and I will make myself known.  Konichiwa!  Maybe they’re not Japanese, perhaps they are…Burmese.  No they sound Japanese.  They could be Hong Kongers, Cantonese sounds nothing at all to Mandarin. 

I’ve put my sandals in front of the entrance, a reminder to the boys, maintain space and respect.

Indonesia.  I wasn’t even close.  But a trend appears:  the Chinese diaspora.  It’s 4.39pm and 

they’re all sleeping.  I hope this doesn’t mean 11pm chatterings fellas.  Sumatra was my highlight.  And the Komodo dragons.  And north Bali with the black sand beaches.  I can’t forget the birds of Ubud and the fresh volcanos and the citizens of Maumere, who ten years earlier lost a quarter million in a tsunami.  I’d never seen bodies with no souls before. 

6:50pm

Rain from the north arrives and the day closes at the same time.  Samyog, coincidence.  Two non-related events coming together for absolutely no reason unless you can prove a third party.  I can and there is no other reason.  I’ve learned in five years not all coincidences have any meaning at all and ought to be forgotten.  Mine happen because someone can see two seconds ahead of me and thinks he knows best simply because of this skill.  Spirits and humans.  Intuition is a skill, foreknowledge a gift, instincts, from the belly of the beast.  Or you can say all of these come from one, perhaps unfortunately more than that, spirit.  Alive and well, active in my case sometimes too much because I pay attention to everything that happens to me and some things are not explainable unless I understand the spirit.  My spirit.

Perhaps the longest question running in my head these days is the case of the missing spirit. I know this comes up sometimes in writing but it hasn’t been resolved nor forgotten.  Nyima told me through his medium my spirit left and left an opening for this present one.  I didn’t ask then, and I should have, where did my spirit go?  When did my spirit go?  And of course are the tangents; were there other spirits inside me?  No sign of the spirit of Jesus?  Strange, I was never angry with Jesus, go further up the chain.  I have a number of dates in mind though I cannot prove any correlation with them and the time my spirit left.  That is so strange.  Does this happen often to people though they never know it?

The day I woke up in my parent’s basement after an episode of sleepwalking.  I was afraid but I was also angry and intended to never let that happen again and it never happened again.  I was around 12 or 13.  And I’d say my life wasn’t exactly any different after that moment that would indicate I was soulless, surely there was Jesus he just didn’t talk to me very much.  He waits in his own wings I reckon. 

During the days after the divorce I kept a journal, thanks to Harry Truman, and poured out the most angry vile attack against God in black and blue and sometimes red.  In 2009 I destroyed the journals.  Maybe my spirit left me in the summer of 1998.  I certainly didn’t have much faith in much then of anything but I can say today I do believe.  Just not all of it. 

These are the most likely moments when a spirit of any kind might have left.  The first date has nothing to do with God, it has to do with who must have been a restless spirit who couldn’t synchronize with me and I told him or whatever to leave and it did.  One proof of that is I rarely dream, and haven’t much since I stopped sleepwalking.  I wish I did dream more asleep than awake.

 9pm

The Indonesians come in from the rain and eating supper elsewhere on the mountain, the rain sweeps the trees to the left and to the right.  Suraksha and I enjoyed  frozen reese’s chocolate bars, pieces of apple and Ram and the driver finished off two pieces of Starbucks bean cake I thought disappeared on the second day I arrived.  There are two men and one woman in room six.  Locals.  The woman is on hire.  Their voices rise.  All is calm outside.  My door is open, the bathroom light is on.  When I turn the overhead light on with the door open, hundreds of insects arrive.  I hear more than three voices now.  Boy was I wrong.  It’s the Indonesians I hear all gathered outside.  The woman and her client are alone.  I took a good nap, someone turned the light on outside my window and the rain comes down hard.  Just a little harder and they’ll be inside, thank you.  Am I an old crank?  The cough still hurts the side, a slow healing we’ve got here.  I just prefer listening to the rain and not those who don’t listen to the rain. 

Two Indonesian boys go inside, some come outside.  The woman for hire plays Nepalese music on her smartphone.  It’s still relatively early I reckon to say anything, like you will not.  I do have to go outside when they do shut their doors and turn out that balcony light.  Meanwhile…the woman sings to Anju Pant.  The man tries to join but trails off when his mobile rings and he talks, and she talks to someone and there are the chatty islanders.  And here’s a big rain, nothing new to those on the balcony, but where’s the wind?  The locals sing through it.