October, 2023
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Malaysia
Musings from my meanderings in the midst of Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur and beyond
January 29, 2014
Malaysia seemed quite complex to me and there are obviously many many things about it I don’t get. Add to which I was traveling there with Munyra, a thirty one year old Malaysian Muslim woman I’d met at a yoga ashram in India two years earlier (who I also didn’t “get”), and that I don’t have experience backpacking in Asia with another person – except for that one trip four years ago that I shared a few weeks with Joy in Myanmar, a few weeks in Thailand and Laos with my son Sam, and a few weeks in Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar with Joy’s son Loren – and maybe my confusion adds up. Plus Malaysia is far and away the absolutely hottest, muggiest place I have ever traveled … and there is something about the equatorial heat that requires an adjustment. So here then are just some random impressions.
It’s a jungle out there, my friends – a green, verdant, florid, blooming jungle! Trees love it. It’s hot. It’s wet. When it rains you’ve never seen the skies open up like this. The soil is good. Ferns larger than the Empire State Building compete with one another for sunlight … and all seem to be winning. There are coconut and palm oil plantations larger than Manhattan. There is a diversity of people and ethnicities here I’m not used to seeing anywhere other than New York City and London, but no one group appears to predominate. There are seemingly equally large numbers of Chinese, Malays, and Indians. The lingua franca is English. I saw no cows, horses, oxen, pigs, or even dogs (I think they eat them). Monkeys share their homeland reluctantly … and their aggression is notable. (I saw one macaque grab a baby’s plastic milk bottle from a woman, retreat to a safe location, rip off the nipple, drink and dribble down its chin a solid six ounces of milk, and when finished literally throw the empty plastic bottle back at the woman, who’d dared to be yelling and pointing at the monkey.) There are super highways, toll roads, resorts, skyscrapers, subways, luxury buses, a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur that is larger and more upscale than any I have ever seen, a mall – I don’t exaggerate – with over a two dozen fine coffee shops, over one hundred restaurants, an art gallery, and 100% occupancy.
I spent two days and three nights on the island of Penang, which is a treasure, in the old city of Georgetown a UNESCO world heritage site, its streets teeming with people and food stands everywhere – Indian food, Chinese food, southeast Asian food. Good food. Inexpensive food. People were friendly. Public transportation was good. The streets were clean. Some of the women were stunning to look at. And although all of Malaysia that I’ve seen is quite “modern,” it doesn’t seem or feel “western” at all. So I liked it, although it didn’t excite me.
And Kuala Lumpur, the nation’s capital, is no slouch of a city. You can absolutely feel the wealth here, the dozens of skyscrapers emblazoned with the names of international banks, the hoards of tourists, the malls sparking and thriving. I’d bet on this place as long as oil is king. Plus I had my favorite street vendor food experience of all time at the Fat Brothers stand in KL, where skewers of fresh bok choy, Chinese broccoli, okra, veggie balls, fish balls, and shoo mai rested on display on ice! and at the very center of each outdoor table was a propane fueled vat of boiling water that customers dropped their food into and cooked themselves. We’re talking sterile, folks. And with a tray of a half dozen tangy sauces to choose from – all for less than a dollar a skewer – well it’s where I ate every chance I could, complemented by my favorite fresh roti stand just down the street, hot rotis off the grill for a dime each.
Not to mention the amazing
Or the 10 inch wide single file canopy walk through the tree tops in the Malaysia National Park in Penang that was spectacular.
Or riding across the gorgeous13.5 kilometer long bridge connecting Penang to Butterworth on the mainland.
Or the brilliant free art installation where a renowned German photographer put his photographs of fifty Nobel Prize winners in medicine and science on display, each person standing with a simple line drawing the photographer asked them to provide to describe their discoveries … and brief taped conversation excerpts … and charming commentary.
And Melaka, where I also went … it too a UNESCO designated city with acres and acres of food stands, and tourists from Japan and China, and more great art.
But in the end, as amazing as Malaysia was, as well developed as its infrastructure is, as dependable its planes and trains and buses, there was something about it that just didn’t grab or compel me as a travel experience. But all that changed – dramatically and quickly – in Sumatra.
MALAYSIA
TRAVEL DIARIES
Listen to my lessons learned in Laos
Loren and I flew out of Vientiane, as fast as we could from my perspective, there being very little of interest to me there except an authentic Italian restaurant, Aria, with white linen tablecloths and imported cheese (a welcome relief after 4 weeks of noodle soup), and landed in Pakse, Laos, where we found a good internet connection, checked in with the world outside of Laos, read about the demonstrations in Egypt and Yemen, found a hotel, rented motorcycles (I’d never driven a motorcycle before in my life), and headed out of the city.
We stopped and separated at Ban Muang, about 40 km south of Pakse, where the ferries cross the Mekong to Champasak and the road to the holy site of Vat Phu. Loren headed another 100 km further south to the 4,000 Islands, Muang Khong, and the Cambodian border and I crossed the Mekong to the relatively small and unique strip of land on the west bank of the Mekong that belongs to Laos, all the rest of the territory west of the Mekong belonging to Thailand and the Mekong itself generally marking the Laos Thailand border.
“Ferry” it definitely is, but not necessarily like any ferry I’ve seen before. What these ferries are is two metal hulls bound to a plank deck that is approximately three van lengths long and three van lengths wide, with wooden car and truck ramps that are lifted and lowered no more than eight inches controlled by hand operated chain pulleys attached to the far corners of the ramps and tall posts secured to the decking. The ferry is moved slowly through the water by an eight cylinder automobile engine with one gear and a modified drive shaft that powers a small propeller.
On the other side of the Mekong are a series of lovely peasant farming villages in the Mekong Valley where the living conditions seemed cleaner than elsewhere in Laos, although the poverty was still quite apparent. At the end of the road is Vat Phu, a spectacular temple complex actively being excavated and restored by Laos in cooperation with Italy, whose interest in monument and archeological preservation is renowned. The city in which the site is located has been dated back to the first century, although the bulk of the buildings connected with the temple complex were built by Khmer kingdoms of the sixth to thirteenth centuries (as I understand it) and have Hindu origins and some Hindu iconography, although at its peak the temple was, and still is, a Buddhist center. The reverence in which the Lao people (and government) hold the site is very obvious and immense attention has been paid to cleanliness, minimization of signage, keeping out autos and motorcycles, and archeological integrity.
As one of the few non-Asian tourists at the site I drew a fair amount of attention, all of it friendly and warm, including lots of kids calling out greetings to me, a Chinese family that insisted on having their picture taken with me, and Lao women who enjoyed putting small “blessed” woven bracelets on my wrists. I was actually quite moved by the site, and by my overall experience of the day, filled as it was with awe, wonder, newness, adventure, and, at the risk of seeming a bit too impressionable, reverence.
At the exit from the Vat Phu site the Lao Ministry of Information and Culture Heritage has created a wooden archway on which it is written, “The Preservation of Antiquities is the Duty of All People.” I like that instruction, repeated it to myself like a mantra I was trying to memorize as I motored back toward the Mekong and Pakse, and intend to apply it very personally.
The ride from LPB to Vang Vieng is as notable a small journey as I have ever been on. The so called VIP bus I’m on holds 50 or 60 people, only five of whom are tourists, the rest of the passengers being Laotians and their babies, some of whom sleep on the floor and some of whom sleep in the cargo area. The second hint of what we’re in for is when the bus assistant passes out plastic vomit bags. It is not long before they are in use. The bus’ brakes squeal. The driveshaft whines. For the first hour or so all of the interior lights of the bus are on and loud contemporary Laotian music – which sounds a lot like American country music being sung by a woman with a strong soprano whine – is blasting out over a dozen loudspeakers while passengers on the bus are simultaneously trying to quiet their crying babies and talk on their cell phones over the music. We make about eleven local stops that first hour and hardly travel as far as Sam and I biked two days earlier. In the front of the bus a very large digital clock is displayed with glowing green numerals. I try to keep my eyes closed and to do meditative breathing to see if the time will move from 6:56 to 7:00. When I open my eyes after what to me appears to have been more than ample time it is 6:57. It remains 6:57 for at least the next 10 minutes, or so it seems, before the time changes to 6:58. It’s going to be a long ride.
The main road from LPB to the capital is barely two lanes wide, and the bus must slow down, brakes squealing, whenever a large vehicle passes it in the opposite direction. Most of the trip is up and down significant and closely placed mountains so that the road must curve and zigzag at least a half dozen times each minute, my head rocking from left and right on the rough fabric material that covers the seats until my forehead and temples are rubbed raw and my neck is sore. There are no empty seats and I can’t figure our where to put my legs. There are no bridges or tunnels to shorten the ride. The boy across from me uses his vomit bag in a well-practiced manner two or three times. I try not to look, but I can’t turn off my nose. The bus stops after another hour at the side of the road for a bathroom and cigarette break, men standing and women squatting next to the bus relieving themselves in the open night air. The bus is moving again in less than five minutes. It makes three or four of these side of the road piss stops over the next six hours. It also stops at an actual restaurant about three-quarters of the way to Vang Vieng where the proprietress and her staff are ready for the onslaught, bowls set out with veggies already in them, a huge pot boiling, beef sliced and ready to be thrown into the broth, noodles ready for dunking, hot bowls of fresh noodle soup being served for less than two dollars each at Laotian roadside restaurant speed. I permit myself a bowl of soup, having hardly eaten all day and it being almost midnight. Dozens and dozens of bowls of steaming soup are served and consumed in less than ten minutes and everyone is back on the bus, sneezing, coughing, throwing up, and sleeping on the floor. The minutes of the big digital clock refuse to turn. Sometime around 2:00 A.M. four of the foreigners are dropped off in a field at the side of the road and the bus continues on to Vientiane. On the other side of the field lights are on and like moths we walk towards them. What we find is a main street filled with dozens of drunk and rowdy European and American men and women in their twenties and some guesthouses, where I get a single room with a double bed, a bathroom, and no top sheet for eight dollars. The Internet isn’t working but the room is clean, and mostly quiet at 3:00 A.M and for better or worse I am in Vang Vieng, only god knows why, reasonably comfortable, and ready for sleep.
I wake up ridiculously happy. The sky is gray. The electricity is out in the whole town. The streets are already noisy. The sound of motorcycle traffic is relentless. I hear the tap tap hammering that seems to be everywhere in Laos and feel as though I have landed at an international gathering of college students on eternal spring break. Still, I’m happy. Birds are chirping. I’ve slept in a comfortable room alone for the first time in weeks. I’ve dreamt about a bus navigating very steep cliffs over a very beautiful but precipitous rocky ocean coast where millennia of wave action have carved sculptural human figures into the stone. I dream about Sam shooting a basketball from far beyond the three-point stripe with great ease of motion, and although it at first appears that each shot will fall far short on its trajectory, in fact the shots are swishing through the net. I tell someone in a joking manner, “I taught him everything he knows.”
I finally manage to get out of my room and into town by 2P after spending the morning reading, writing, and doing yoga. The natural setting is fabulous, I mean fabulous, I mean stunning beyond spectacular, with verdant green jagged mountains, swiftly flowing rivers, numerous bamboo bridges over the rivers, and the sweetest bungalows on stilts lining them. On the streets, however, bars, restaurants, and travel agents are lined up side by side, block after dusty block and quite a few of the bars are filled with what to me seem to be young white kids, some of them very scantily clad, indoors and drinking at 2P. Still, I rent a bicycle for a dollar for the day and manage to get in a good explore on both sides of the river. I eat a bowl of noodle soup at a restaurant where I am the only customer and thereby can “oversee” the throwing in of all ingredients into the big pot and the length of time they boil. I also gladly book my bus ticket out of town for tomorrow.
In Laos
A couple’s massage with Loren
January 30, 2011
It was our second to last night together in Laos. After grabbing a quick bite at the night market, Loren and I pondered what to do this evening. After little debate we decided we would get traditional Lao massages. We heard a lot of positive feedback from tourists about these massages (and how relaxing they are!!!!) and felt it would be a nice way to start off our evening (even though the night life in Laos is super lame). We walked around the area surrounding our guesthouse looking for a suitable, professional place to get our massages. We were not two tourists looking for happy endings massages or massages from super skimpy dressed Lao women, we wanted the real deal, professional, relaxing massage, although we did joke about what we would do if such a circumstance arose.
We eventually settled upon the Hoxieng Lao Traditional Massage and Spa, which looked like the most serious/professional joint in our area. We walked inside and were greeted at the desk by an older Lao woman. She handed us “menus” with the different types of massages we could go with. These ranged from traditional Lao body massages (much like Thai massages from my understanding – a lot of deep pressure and limb stretching) to Lao massages with herbs or oils, to aromatherapy and foot reflexology massages. We decided to each get the 1-hour Lao massage with herbs (not really knowing what that meant) for about 14 dollars US.
At the point at which we ordered, there was only one visible female masseuse, and we were unsure if she was the only one on duty and we’d have to share a masseuse (which we did not want). She motioned us to come back into the massage area and we followed her. She led us to a small foot bathing area where she asked us to take off our shoes. We eagerly took off our shoes and socks and put our feet in the warm tub of water. I was ready for this cute little Lao women to wash my feet when from behind the curtain to the massage area came a tiny, skinny, and very smiley Lao man! He was wearing the same outfit as the other woman and I started to question if someone was going to be getting a massage from a dude. Let me say this now, there’s nothing wrong with getting a massage from a guy, but when I imagined this experience in my head, I certainly did not picture a guy was going to be giving me my massage so I was a little concerned that my fantasy was not going to match the reality of this situation. Before I could think otherwise, the male masseuse hopped down on one knee and began to wash my feet. This was one of the stranger experiences I’ve had on my trip. I was not expecting a man was going to be part of this experience so the whole thing kind of started on the wrong foot (no pun intended J). I had my feet washed before during my Thai foot massages, but having a man wash my feet was super uncomfortable. I tried my best not to laugh at the whole situation, but combined with my nervousness about this little man scrubbing my feet, I was as giggly as a schoolgirl and could not stop laughing throughout his foot wash.
Loren, who clearly is more mature than me, was able to get his feet washed with little problem. We were then directed to the individual massage areas that featured long, soft mats, towels on the mats, and even a massage outfit that we were told to put on. Yet again we were shocked to find that they had set up Loren and my massage mats next to each other. Again, contradictory to our expectation, I think we both had hoped we would be in separate areas or rooms for each of our massages. I don’t think we imagined we would be side by side for this experience. It was also become clearer that one of us was going to be getting massaged by a man. Something I don’t think either us expected or desired.
After we changed into our massage gear, we sat on our mats and had a quick laugh about what was going on. We briefly discussed what we would do if one of our masseuses were indeed the little man. I told Loren I would ask for someone else, but in my mind I knew it would be hard to do so and not offended this happy little massager. Luckily as our masseuses entered the massage area, the woman came and sat down by my mat; Loren, however, did not receive such good fate, as the little Lao man trotted in an sat down next to Loren’s mat. Again, I could not hold back the laughs as he told Loren to turn over onto his back. My mind was completely in the gutter at this point, and I was certainly not helping the calm or relaxation of this experience as I literally giggled every couple minutes at what was going on.
Loren was a true sport about this whole thing. He showed no problem with the situation, which I’m sure the masseuse appreciated. However, a couple things kept me in a very silly state. One, the massage was kind of ticklish. My masseuse was pushing on my hamstrings in a way that made me laugh out loud. Then every couple of minutes I would hear Loren moan from whatever his masseuse was doing to him and I could not hold back the laughs. Finally, I was trying to keep my eyes closed, but every so often I would look over and see this little Lao man pounding away at Loren’s body and I would crack up. It reminded me of one of those scenes in a movie where two guys go to get massages and one guy get a super hot woman (not to say my masseuse was super attractive), and the other guy gets a super strong ugly women or some muscular man (even though this guy looked anything but strong). I could not help but laugh, or giggle rather as a result of these thoughts. You know that time when you were in grade school and you couldn’t stop laughing about some stupid inside joke you had with your friend in class and the teacher made you leave the room? It was like that for me, except I’m 24 years old…slightly embarrassing. I can’t image what the masseuses were thinking either; either they thought we were laughing at them (which I did feel bad about) or maybe the situation, I don’t know, but it was a little awkward at some points, however, I was ultimately able to settle myself down and actually enjoy the massage. That being said, I did have one more laugh thinking about how the scene would play out if Loren’s masseuse asked him if he wanted a happy ending.
After about 10-15 minutes of stupid laughs and mild awkwardness I calmed down and really got into the massage. Some of the moves this woman was doing really felt great. She used her entire body to stretch my arm and legs in positions that really loosened me up. The part I enjoyed the most was lying on my stomach while she chopped away at my back and put pressure on different areas of my back. The herbs were a nice touch too. After each section of massage we received, our masseuses would get a bag (for lack of a better word) of herbs that had been sitting in boiling water. They would then press the bags onto the areas of our body they had just massaged. If the physical massage had loosened these areas up, the herb treatment then melted any remaining tension away. I almost fell asleep at some point I was so relaxed. Towards the end we were prompted to sit up and we were treated to an awesome head, neck, and back massage (I really enjoyed the hair pulling part…weird?). To top it all off, the male masseuse switched with my female masseuse at the very end (which I was completely comfortable with at this point) and gave me the best back crack of my life!!!!
We were served hot tea and bananas to end our massages (which was a nice finishing touch). In the end the massage felt great and were incredibly relaxing regardless of the comedic circumstances. That being said, we vowed that if we ever went back we would stagger our arrivals at least 10 minutes apart to avoid another side by side massage.
-Sam
LAOS
TRAVEL DIARIES
Highlights from Jakarta
One of the major highlights of my time in Jakarta is a culinary excursion to Bandung that I am taken on by my friend and former cabin mate Roi, who I met at the Yogapoint Ashram in Nasik, where we spent a month together two years ago, and by his friend/ex-girlfriend Melia. Roi wants to be a Buddhist monk. He also feels an obligation to care and provide for his aging parents. Roi is such a sweet man. I can’t guess what will happen for him next.
And that my friends is the long and the short of my Jakarta experience, five days trying to get somewhere I end up not wanting to be, in a fantastically crowded metropolis, with block after block of massive skyscraper apartment buildings looking for all the world like Coop City in the East Bronx, another place it is hard to get anywhere from and that no one really wants to be.
JAKARTA
TRAVEL DIARIES
Jakarta
Jumping-offs from Jakarta
Smoggy Skies
February 4, 2014
I am born of the city. THE City we would say. New York City. And before I arrive in Jakarta from Sumatra I have imagined it to be New York-like, far more say than artificial financial processing urban entities such as Hong Kong and Singapore. And although I’ve mostly been drawn to rural areas and village/indigenous people on my travels, Jakarta seemed to have enough about it from my pre-trip research that I chose to make it my base for five full days. Sometimes even I can be soooo wrong …
Jakarta, it turns out, is just an impossible city – tied with Dar es Salaam for least bearable city I have ever visited. To get anywhere more than a short walk in Jakarta is a major challenge. Many streets and intersections are flooded. It rain daily while I was there. Nothing but terribly crowded superhighways – with occasionally free high-speed bus lanes – connect the city. In places the highways are five lanes in each direction, with curiously close non-automated toll plazas where the travel lanes are constricted and narrowed for tedious hand-to-hand cash transactions and change making. The airport is 20 minutes away from downtown without traffic. At most times you must plan on it being a two hour trip.
My guesthouse in Jakarta is itself perfectly lovely, more or less centrally located at the end of an alley off a street with numerous street vendors, shops, and restaurants none of which I ever partake of, down the block from a very noisy mosque, along a fast flowing canal which fills with afternoon and evening rains. The neighborhood is near one of Jakarta’s major hospitals. During my stay three separate men show me the scars on their arms where veins were harvested before their open-heart vein-graft bypass surgeries. One such man is continuously smoking. I wonder how the operations are paid for and who makes the decision as to how the medical resources are allocated.
Aside from it being exceedingly difficult to get around in Jakarta the main attraction of the city appears to be shopping malls, each more depressing than the other. There is also a decent smattering of Kentucky Fried Chickens, Burger Kings, Starbucks, and Dunkin Donuts, all selling their products at U.S. prices.
The skies are smoggy all day.
There is a halfway decent national museum.
The highlight of my time in Jakarta is a culinary excursion to Bandung that I am taken on by my friend and former cabin mate Roi, who I met at the Yogapoint Ashram in Nasik, where we spent a month together two years ago, and by his friend/ex-girlfriend Melia. Roi wants to be a Buddhist monk. He also feels an obligation to care and provide for his aging parents. Roi is such a sweet man. I can’t guess what will happen for him next.
And that my friends is the long and the short of my Jakarta experience, five days trying to get somewhere I end up not wanting to be, in a fantastically crowded metropolis, with block after block of massive skyscraper apartment buildings looking for all the world like Coop City in the East Bronx, another place it is hard to get anywhere from and that no one really wants to be.
JAKARTA
TRAVEL DIARIES
Cambodia
Recollections from Cambodia
Floating Villages
Anghor, Cambodia
February 8, 2011
The city of Siem Reap is awash in tourists and everything is priced in American dollars not Cambodian rials, all of this commerce seemingly fueled by the draw of the Anghor Wat temples. That said, Anghor Wat is truly amazing and its scale incredible. The details, the carvings, the kilometer after kilometer of bas-relief drawings of historical and mythological stories, the absence of the use of any mortar on big stone sculptures and arches, the immense faces (at least 8×8) put together like matching adjoining blocks or puzzle pieces at the Bayon temple, over 200 huge Buddha faces, four on each spire or chimney, each facing in one of the four ordinal directions, each one different, eyes up, eyes down, eyes closed in meditation, smiling. Our tuk tuk driver took us around to more than half a dozen temples, waited for us, had lunch with us, mediated with begging children on occasion for us, from 8A to 3P, for all of $10.
At one point in Angkor I closed my eyes and saw the bas-relief drawings etched on my inner eyelids, and then opening them encountered a laughing orange robed monk from Phnom Phen who I instantly hit it off with, joking, and laughing together, taking one another’s pictures, and hugging one another. He told me in very broken English that his name was Green Hawk, something I cannot understand how he came by, other than saying the guides were speaking, and to mean and believe that quite literally.
I also had a series of very charming engagements with young children, notwithstanding the fact that the encounters were mediated by the children’s seeking of money. Over lunch, for example, I bought four little brass statues (that I’m sure were made in India) from one little girl who knew the capitol cities of all fifty states, flawlessly, and in another such event, at a quite different unreconstructed temple, more than a dozen boys followed/led me around, showed me their English homework, got me to correct some of it, and hit me up for a contribution to their school, or whatever it was I actually contributed to, but most of all were genuinely and immensely charming.
I have also encountered at least a dozen bands playing classic Khmer music that advertize themselves as being comprised of land mine victims, and indeed all of the musicians have limbs missing, leg prostheses in evidence, holding bows with the stubs of arms, or are blind. Although not widely reported internationally, there is even today a “small” border skirmish going on between Cambodia and Thailand that is the lead story in the local newspapers, and as a result of which casualties are being brought in to the local hospital.
CAMBODIA
TRAVEL DIARIES
Day One
My passage into this world was quite lengthy and strange. I remember thinking the fluid in which I floated was running out and that I was at risk. I became quite woozy, which I’ve never liked. My head was squeezed. I felt tremendous pressure. I was expelled into a world I had never imagined. I was slapped and twisted. I drew something cold inside my chest, not unpleasant, but rather cool. I hadn’t even known there were outsides and insides. It was chilly outside my form. The brightness bothered my eyes.
Everything was blurred and indistinct. My arms were pinned down. It was extremely loud. Temperature regulation was a hassle. I was cold. I was hot. The soft thick fluid was gone. Fish on a beach I thought. I wish I’d stayed inside I thought. I was very frightened. I wanted things to be as they had been.
Having said that, it was also tremendously interesting and different, enlivening. I had an awareness of other forms, which I’d never had before, a sense of my separateness, my empty aloneness, and my hungry vulnerability. All of my movements were jerky and unsmooth. I hardly knew myself and was in control of nothing. Trust was a big issue then … and would ever since. Life is such an improbable challenge. I wondered where I was before, before I was inside. I have absolutely no memory of that time, then or now, other than the blood, which makes me feel kind of lonely.
I felt lost. Not in pain, but vaguely uncomfortable, physically and emotionally. There were long periods of unconsciousness that were so familiar. It was the awareness that startled me. I waited. I waited a lot. There wasn’t much I could do about anything anyway. I had concerns and gripes, but was clearly where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing. At least I thought so then.
JOURNAL ENTRIES
The Jews are chasing me
The Jews are chasing me. And the Hebrews own me. The Jews send forth their messianic minions in earthly form, because that’s about all that’s left after the millennia, the holocaust, the pogroms, the Pale … some writings, some values, some proud history, some false pretenses. They won’t let go, these Jews. They’re like fundamentalists everywhere. They demand I recognize and accept the electromagnetic energetics I’m so familiar with as realities … and I do, only for me they are tribal, the DNA is tribal, the historic memories embedded in the inherited codes are tribal. The Jews also want land back. They demand I at least acknowledge being Jew-ish. And I do. And we cannot deny our wish that our sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters are Jew-ish and when they marry Jewesses, they can say their children are Jewish. Bottom line is, go back enough generations and all of our ancestors are all African. I like that.
MISCELLANEOUS
Three revolutionary white male US political leaders gone b4 their usefulness was exhausted
I cannot understand what I am still doing here when three of my heroes and models – all better, younger, braver and more useful men have perished. Please meet Tim Carpenter, Alan Berkman, and Steven Brion-Miesel.
POLITICAL
04 – Aaryn Lavole
After delivering the wampum shells to the museum/library/cultural center at Akwesasne, and having had a very nice conversation with a woman who works there, vacations once a year on the Cape, and is very involved in a language immersion school and the Mohawk powwow on Cornwall Island, I intentionally took a “wrong” turn away from the border to smoke the last of my Vermont grown marijuana and not cross the border with any cannabis.
I then turned the car around onto the side of a very remote road to face downhill, and got out of the car to do the pipe ceremony, when coming down the road was a woman in a wheelchair.
“Not something you see everyday,” I said, and thereupon met Aaryn. Aaryn pronounces Akwesasne completely differently than I do and laughs when I say it. After about an hour together I consider her one of my closest friends and this magnificent human being is but what cold my attention to her was that she was in a wheelchair and was rolling down the hill in her wheelchair. In the middle of fucking nowhere. I’ll tell you the rest of the story later Uh Oh.
SOUL’S JOURNEY 2023
Soul’s Journey 2023
Grandmother’s Sendoff
“The first night I was ever completely alone in the forest I was already a grandmother. Later that night the heavens opened and the earth and the rooted ones drank the waters and I stepped out of my tent into the rain and mud barefooted and did my spinning jiggle dance. May that which I felt in those moments be with you in mind and in spirit on your travels among the living and the dead. May you be as one on your way with our blessing. Walk in beauty.” Author unknown.
SOUL’S JOURNEY 2023
TRAVEL