The Wild Path: An Oceanic Reunion of Musical Discovery

New Government Road, Lillooet, B. C. by William George Richardson Hind

"I get privy to an area that most people have not seen and will not see, and that's just amazing, and I get to see it at this point in time before any of these projects go through whether they do or not - maybe they don't get approved by the NEB [National Energy Board] or maybe they do - but if they do and these pipelines happen, the places that I visit this summer or next summer or the summer past, they won't be the same as they were when I saw them.

It'll have gone through an irreversible alteration and not for the better. For the betterment of some human notion of bettering the Canadian economy, wealth, or prosperity but not for any betterment of the land." Ian MacNairn, Working North: Calgary Worker Speaks on Labour Conditions in Northern Alberta and BC

In two years, I hadn't seen the ocean. The epic grasslands of Alberta prairie filled my pupils with daily life, lived fully and for the present. Answering to no one except Father Sky, Trickster Napi and the Bow River, I moved humbly through the auspicious momentums of friendship, solace, distance, rootedness, and foresight. The elegant plans of my life incinerated like a vintage map under a breaking candle. In the bitter hours, I wore my bone to nothing but pure face. And the ocean called. At summer's end, as the leaves slowly dying with bursts of peace said in the silent flesh of wood, I broke past the unanswered din of prairie sky mind. The expanses narrowed with focus of sight, and the road stretched on through mysteries immemorial: a land of hidden truth and naked passion. The Earth spun on a gamble, and the sea rose. 

In two years, I hadn't seen the ocean. Firstly, through goggles of tires and binoculars of steel, I then moved through mountain fog to sail toward the island shore. Orcas lifted above the snowy crests, as solar rays burned through the misty sky raining a refreshing, and most rejuvenating, beautiful life. Water flushed my spirits in a spiralling lust, unafraid to lick the clouds and skim atop the brightening ocean. In the rain, I sang and wept oceans of longing fulfilled. The inner world lost its axis and at a loss for balance whirled in ecstatic harmony with the chaotic ring of Beginning. As the sky opened, arriving closer and closer to the island shore, my mind lunged with feline prowess over the horizon, to feel my own heart stretch across this watery earth in a divine embrace of superhuman love, of imagination and unity. 

In two years, I hadn't seen the ocean. The cedar hat and drum vibrated with untouchable grace, as I remembered the northernmost step I had taken arm-in-arm with the coastal peoples of the Canadian west. How their drum sang with opulent harmonies only so sweet as when filling the cold air above the tear-blending Pacific. Under the first sun, my friend, a luthier of fine wooden drums (harvested locally) led me to meet the Black Bear, wise fool of the gentle, lazy, clumsy earth. We found sacred fungi and cooked and smoked and bore down with rhythmic intonation over the self-built family home. The forest spoke with a voice to shelter our lives with the hard woods of a door and staircase, of walls and rooms of birth, childhood, adolescence and maturity to the soft woods of art, passion and a work to spell freedom from the burdensome street of poverty, class, race, addiction and anger. 

In two years, I hadn't seen the ocean. The night sky breathed light, streams raged in the subtle beyond as death called us inward to sleep under the reign of the green dragon tincture, a home concoction of herbal divinity. Sea lions surfaced to the call of the drum skins reverberating madly over ocean stones. Overlooking the snowcapped island range, we viewed the lush orchestral arrangement of oak, cedar and pine as nearby eruptions solidified into earth-bound communities, moved by the crafting of local life as it etches its place on currents of stone and seed. And so I left, speechless from the first mountaintop days ago as the journey from Alberta started, and from where it ended. To see the ocean, and to sing with the opening sky. To drum along the banks of the island range, seeing snowcapped mountains stare into the distance, over local life as it thrives and nests behind the silencing waves. 

____________

at home in the woods

from where the rain begins

full speed behind

horizontal moments

the daily unground

the first time we sang

the reason we left

to openness we come

the way of the blue unnamed

afterwork time

_____________

She came

She saw

She conquered

Video Description: So far the only 36 stringed zheng, Taiwanese made long zither in the world. Great innovation it was about time this was invented(?), innovated at least, because this is my first time improvising on one this grand of a size! Grateful to the luthier and to Sonia Liu of Vancouver's "Crystal Gu-zheng Centre" for allowing me this great honour to share.

The Diamond Truths of New American Colonization

Detail of the Frontispiece, Diamond Sutra from Cave 17, Dunhuang, ink on paper (the oldest, dated printed book, 868 CE), universal distribution made possible by Wang Jie

"If a good man or good woman develops the mind of a bodhisattva and maintains this sūtra, even with as little as a four-line gāthā, and accepts, maintains, studies, recites, and explains it to others, then the merits of this surpass the others...

All conditioned dharmas
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, or shadows;
Like drops of dew, or flashes of lightning;
Thusly should they be contemplated."

- Vajracchedika (The Daimond Sutra), 32

________

Only a few days prior I had only passed by the reserve, Tsuu T’ina. The dilapidated rodeo stadium seemed dwarfed beside the traditional tipi stands, piercing through the pine forest canopy. Though, their well-worn canvas was visible in the instant of passing. And on down the highway, the billion dollar estates of cookie-cutter middle class residential colonies staggeringly featured on hillsides and valleys with the shallow, crooked smiles of worldwide settler ignorance.

Invited on reserve, what was I to expect. It became all too real and just so warming when in the presence of two young women, sitting on felled trees in a forest glade. They were humble, kind and open. They told me about the human experience, the incomprehensible ways and wherefores of corruption and the weary distillation of progress with or without wealth, on or off reserve. The original crime is at hand, though, truly, the unforgiving hand of an all-deceiving colonial contemporary oppresses us all.

This was my realization, though she didn’t have to say it as such, just kept flashing her warm smile and welcoming presence. A tea offered with such candor on a land infused with such bitter rumors, emptying on your heart with the depth of tragic realization, as viscerally near, as your own heartbeat struggling to course blood through your veins before the awe of an expectant spiritual confrontation. And here we were, sitting in the quiet peaceable forest. Three youth, peering out through the sun-cast opening towards a picturesque vale of mythic proportion. The warning sky cleared, as with ethereal empathy just for us at that moment. The sunrays cracked through the forest shade, enlightening the smoky dust. Looking at such wide-open beauty, I drank in the wild vocation of rapture at the mere sight of ecological wisdom in its simplicity. Yet, to the north horizon, as we looked west, a mountain had been reddened, as an eviscerated body, heaving the dim breath of laborious, earthly pain. I shrugged in careless abandon, questioning the lady to my right. She told me, briefly, of the catastrophe; a mistaken excavation, fruitless for all, rendering the mountainside clean of life.

Walking back through the town, I was led to meet others.

________

Interpretation: In Our Colors and Dreams We Are All Daughters of the Sun 

________

names tearing at the throat from the machete claw
breaking apart the vocal chord forests
dreamt in saw-cleared eyes
during the infamous winter of English settlement
from the prized mouth and stomach of burnt corn and lacrosse 

pages, ruffling in the French-Canadian afternoon

who remembers with sterling grace
and an ease unbeknownst in the blank wilderness of Western memory,
the oral grave of intergenerational strife
digging itself extra corpses to save face in the final rain of time

- excerpts from "New America, Go Forth!" 

The Transformative Poverty of Confucian Wisdom

“According to the story, Confucius’ mother went outside to the wilderness and in her dream she saw a figure called the Black Emperor, it appeared to her being a god figure and in the dream they had union and after that she woke up and found herself pregnant.” – Julia Ching, Professor of Religious Studies at University of Toronto (from "Confucius: Words of Wisdom")

“Ancient chronicles say that while he governed Lu, the streets were safe. Crime virtually disappeared. Merchants no longer cheated their customers. It is said that during this extraordinary time, Confucius’ face shone with joy his dream of saving China was becoming a reality.” – Narrator from "Confucius: Words of Wisdom"

“Twenty-five hundred years after his death, Confucius influences more people than he had ever dreamed possible. In today’s booming Asia, his teachings have brought on unparalleled prosperity to millions, who believe as he did, in hard work, education and the capacity of every human being to succeed. And to this day, the spirit of Confucius still inspires courageous reformers who fight for an end to bloodshed and tyranny in China.” – Narrator from "Confucius: Words of Wisdom"

__________

Border states, a pristine “Stalker” environ, with wispy fog steam curdling through spotlight manufactured by the windless machinery. A gated threshold opens to allow me inside. Unseen eyes blink, careless behind the tinted glass incarceration, joyless dutiful souls expert following.

The narrow skylight pierces indirectly through overhanging metal and high-rise density. Wet air seethes with living smog, a sunless damp hole of raw, entrenched artificial glow. Soon, I take my place on the street, sitting with an opened, near-empty bag of mushrooms, and two other miscellaneous items for beggary exchange. I am met with scowls and glares, violent and piercing, awfully threatening.

“Is that the moon?” I’ve forgotten, nearly blinded by a pointed spotlight. “A plain-clothes guard? Or just an asshole?” he kicks and harasses my desolate state. A passerby throws a bag of chips at me, after which the harassment continues from the mysterious formidable presence, hovering above, silhouetted in the lifeless black and white smoke and steam, dirt writhes with my flattened body on the dismal street, a wasteful sight.

I am beaten mercilessly. My beggary is reduced to scraps of plastic wrap and bleeding bruises. Penniless, I wander to find shelter. Where is my Love? Hallucinating, I tell her my story, she is asleep, unaware, and soon I realize, I am too. Not another word is said outside of my own spit, falling from a mouth too dry to release any more. 

_________

Poverty

"Most spiritual paths respect or require material poverty so that spiritual wealth may be acquired...In medieval times they called it a 'perfect poverty,' where the individual would give up material wealth and seek spiritual development. In Islam, this quest for spiritual development through material poverty is called 'faqr.' If in real life you are not poor, dreaming that you live in poverty or experiencing great poverty in your dreams may be considered a dream of the contrary or a compensatory dream. 

Gypsies by Raja Ravi Varma (1893)

Superstition based dream interpretation would say that if you are poor in your dream you will gain material luck in the near future...This is simply a way by which you obtain psychic balance...To dream of poverty, or that you are poor, means you may be taking on too many responsibilities and working too hard, and not taking the time to cater to your need for pampering and self-care." (iDream)

_________

sick in a sick society: new thought

immersed in a temptation for new thought and identity

and no more pool
wherein the drunkard washes clean human emotion
drinking his own fluid

the fluid turns to sludge and foam
flooding him with thirst

March 10, 2011

Return to the High and Mighty Imbalance of Mind and Body, Chinatown Calgary

Spiritual Murder of the Mythopoetic Role

Fuxi and Nuwa by Anonymous

"Mythopoeisis is the act of shaping a myth into a new form, of making it anew; now I believe each of us does this poetic act daily, only we are not conscious of it, but myths, if alive, are always being renegotiated; we cosign them once more each day we wake up and go about our lives; but the action is unconscious. Poetry makes these processes conscious."

"...the individual psyche cannot, much as often it would like to, to be separated from the collective. Understanding the archetypal nature of our waking life and of our dream life would go a long way to revealing this truth."

- Dennis P. Slattery, from an Interview with Archetype in Action

________

“I have never traveled through West Africa! I have only seen East Africa.” I shout to the unconcerned on a bus through mud flats on the outskirts of town in Ghana. “It’s more industrialized here.” Suburban homes, colorful and well-roofed lie interspersed atop the unstable ground. Nothing grows here.

The plains shake off their sanded winds out onto a horizon as flat and majestic as any under a dim gorge of sky above. We approach an underprivileged village. The beams of their homes show with skeletal fright, a ghost of a shelter buries the inhabitants under a schema of incongruous monetary divisiveness. I am let out here with a group of excitable travelers. After a few bitter hours gazing into the masked poverty, the rest saunter off, straight into the shale-thin horizon, across the plain desert, leaving me behind to my shameful enjoyment.

The first unusual occurrence I notice is an old man, an elder, conducting witchcraft rites from a burlap, animal hid covered hut, half-emerging from a height of wires in the modern town center. He presses his hand up against a carved, convex piece of bone and wood overhead, pressed into the ceiling of his dusty keep. With that, the town comes alive. Animate devotion is surpassed unto grandiose might through communal dance, a powerful music enticing all to couple and find happiness in group intercommunication through a thankful greeting of sprites.

Then, chaos breaks loose from the fire. I disentangle the group of its emotional stability. I use a dull knife, a metal shard from their central structure. Cutting off hands and brazenly ambushing in an intoxicated insanity, bloodthirsty, I drive the community from their healthy nest. Only a few bodies remain, hanging onto life with the remaining ligaments and tendons still connecting their pulse, vibrating with accepted fate, a spiritual murder.

I flee. Following what I had learned in the village, I begin to collect seeds in the wilderness, these are jujus of flight. I need a new identity. I received wind of another African meeting, in the next town. Before I can get there, the Red Cross identifies me, soon to be incarcerated, deadened with madness I swallow the seeds. My flesh speaks of me, it says, “I am guilty.”

________

Murder

"If you commit murder, it signifies that you are engaging in some dishonourable adventure, which will leave a stigma upon your name...If you have a dream of murdering another, this is a warning that you must keep in control of your temper and emotions at all times and not get enraged to the point of murderous intent...You may also have some repressed anger at yourself or at others." (iDream)

________

clockwork porridge

clockwork porridge
spread over an island tongue
marauding, blasphemous
across seven oceans

timely
with education's pandemic drug:
the book

compromising home speech
on the First People's sand-quipped names
harboring love in their own unique hearts
with a history untold,
forgotten and enslaved to foreign grammar
to safekeep continued histories
of colonial struggle
in the vault of young minds
playing sound asleep
in the therapeutic mud
of their own beautiful creation.

March 7, 2011

Chinatown Calgary

Grandmaster's Fight Against Colonization, Fulfilled.

Source

"In 1967, Grandmaster Ip Man started the Wing Chun Athletic Association to foster the spirit of Wing Chun with a group of like-minded enthusiasts, fulfilling the most cherished dream of his later years. Until now, Wing Chun has become a world renowned branch of Chinese martial arts. The lineage of Grandmaster Ip Man's disciples has exceeded 2 million people...including the most illustrious action star of all, Bruce Lee." - from "Ip Man" the film  

_______

A full-scale invasion! Be-feathered helmets and Spaniard tempests swing wildly in the bloody aftermath breeze. The mountain jungle air is chokingly humid. The brayed skin and shattered metal splits and shaves with hairless, painted flesh meeting the clunky spillage of wounded Europe, thirsting to murder unearthed prophecy. Silent, I escape. There is no victor, only the great veil of death and havoc, a clean-swept tide foreboding a colony and its inimitable dry heave of personality into the vile mix of disease and one-sided freedoms.

A vented rise of wood and shale offers solace. I meditate with spirited concentration, removed entirely from the bells swinging into their clapper of my inevitably gruesome end. I’ve escaped this history into another world entirely.

My first visit to East Asia! I ride wealthily and untethered down futuristic main streets in South Korea, eyeing Monasteries doubling as military halls. Tokyo films play in the pavement signage. I hear Cantonese and Vietnamese swimming in my head. No, this is Korea! We dance carelessly over the sweet dell of masterful urbanism. There are people to meet, and eagerly we find our way, personified by withdrawn shelter in the sun world east. By midday, I am alone, a vagrant wanderer looking for likelihood in the exotic sky.    

________

Asia

"To dream of visiting Asia is assurance of change, but no material benefits from fortune will follow." (iDream)

________

not leading, trying, attempting,
nor bluntly giving, allowing or assuming,
yet to leave an ear, as offering, sacrificial listening,
to give an ear, affixing a host
who lets their body down to the cured mammal's coat,
whose friendship bore a spiritual communion

- excerpt from "shaped by more hands"