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Fire Within Water

The flames have died down.
In the January stillness I tend their embers,
sifting through char
for comprehension.

Acknowledging the weight of ash upon feather,
from inertia follows understanding
that all flights reunite with scorched earth
in the end.

Shaking off the grit of reflection
momentum overcomes
and charting a new circular course,
I fly upward.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Present Perfect Presence

The masses of potentials unevoked
weigh like isotopes of helium
- and what is one atom of difference,
unless piled into millions? -
borne upon shoulders too small,
and shrugged off with the realization
of the shimmering solidity of all that is.

Inside every second, half second,
splinter-shard-fragment of time
a future path branches out
- tempting with the call of birds
obscured by future distance undergrowth -
root back in now and find the path lost,
grown over by the cover of yesterday’s was.

Drifting, tossed within the current
spiraling through the body of each moment
- the dance of Vishnu, interpreted by Shiva’s wink -
though the pauses inevitably link
this present day’s flesh is yet un-united
with the freedom of tomorrow’s sea…
still yourself, and hear its glisten.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Compass/ion

On the steppes of my mental landscape
no one cries out to me.
I feel certain there must be others
but in this moment there is only the hard-packed
pulse of earth, evenly stretching out into infinite.

The wind roars about, a gale of obstacles
I would prefer not to face,
bullying my eyes with particulate matters until
a passing storm cloud disperses, washing it all away…
my vision is cleared of all but the crowd of memory.

In the lull that follows I wonder, is it better
to continue walking, hoping
to stumble upon a path or to freeze, waiting for a signal?
And if it should tell me less of where I am,
than of the distances I have to gain?

Amidst my indecision the the wind resumes,
and in her banshee wails
I hear an undercurrent – the quiet sobbing of a little girl.
Without yet knowing what to do with myself
I wish to swoop her up with my arms, to comfort her.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A Red Herring within a False Dichotomy

Yang straining within Yin
pulls it into qi, form activated;
breathing together
they digest one another.

An equilibrium of dissonance,
these opposing poles, attracting;
a hummingbird floating in
the circumstance of time with
ceramic wings.

Here in this frame I was
never anything other than trapped;
when here we could never be
anything other than free.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Controlling Cycle

The metallic taste of “shouldn’t” enfolds,
pressuring me into submission.

I am grown tall enough that pruning
will give pleasure, the act of chopping
a repurposement of form into function.

the infinite sweet of such wonder
opens the assault on a second-front:
I am subdued while subduing

until through these explorations
outside of my own simple element
there becomes nothing left of myself:

I am only me via transforming.
How is it we are free to want,
when what we covet obliterates?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Picking over the fragments of yesterday’s interaction
I choose the brightest, smoothest shards
to assemble together in an idealized collage of self,

swapping out the less precious bits for a newer, fresher palate
the borders of my life canvas begin to expanded out as they may,
with the substance of my life motif ever-rearranged

I wonder if the older images of what was myself live on
somewhere, uneasily cohabitating in the gallery of my dreams
visiting my present tense with a glimpse of alternate reality.

To say that we are all dying is a myth.
Go tell it to those ghost spaces in which all of us continue to live.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

we have so much time
when we center
ourselves beyond
the sway of emotions
and follow the contentment
of cellular being
the body swaying before
touch,
gratified
by the full attention
of another’s. resonating. cells.
harmonizing
with our pulse rhythm
in ever expanding
contracting
ever connected
disjunction.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

off with this illusion of divided
flesh – take it off
and toss it in the river.

it will wash you
into remembering the use
of your expanded vision,

it will wash you
up upon its salty shores
in good company.

I came to Seoul because a) it was insanely cheap to fly here from China, b) it was easy to setup some traditional medical clinic observations here (fuck you very much Beijing Chinese Language School, you stupid jerkoff CBs; allow me to dis-recommend them to any TCM student wishing to log some clinic time in da motherland), and c) my friend Jocelyn of ecovillage food-coop legend lives here half-time and was muy excited about finally having one of her Angelino friends visit. I also expected to do touristy things ala communing with one of the many local mountain spirits on a hike, but everyone knows what they say about the best laid plans, let alone my last-minute scramble-ball-z plans during what happens to be monsoon season. Weather aside, it’s been a good side trip. Yesterday I was able to observe the most amazing traditional medical clinic my imagination could have dreamed up: huge patient volume, serving up 200+ formulas/day, all of which are boiled in specialized CNC decoction machines. Seriously, computer mechanization applied to streamlining the process of formula making without compromising quality/traditional standards: love. at. first. sight. Not to mention the chem lab on the floor above, allowing the herbalists to actually quality-test all herbs as they arrive for heavy metals and contaminants: tai niubi le! (that *figuratively* translates to "totally fucking awesome" but I highly recommend you google for the direct translation if you don’t already know, hilarious!)

In addition to touring the Choonwondang clinic facilities and Oriental Medical museum (many thanks to the Yoon family and DULA’s President Kim for hooking that up) I went to visit Namsan Village on Namsan mountain, which is half a dozen traditional Korean houses arranged into a small model of what an old-time village looked like. I was also given a driving tour of the Blue House, South Korea’s White House, and many cute districts that basically looked like old-town Pasadena except with signs in Hangul, a curved tile roof here or there and 200% more rain. For dinner I headed back into Insadong with Jocelyn and Kwanwu, stopping for a whirlwind tour of the Museum of Korean Culture and finally getting to take some pictures once the rain slowed to an intermittent drizzle at sunset. Most of Korea closes on Sundays (40% of the country is evangelical, go figure) but Jocelyn is going to take me to a migrant worker health clinic this afternoon (whoot-whoot) before hitting up a lala bar tonight: she has stated great anticipation of the spectacle of all the local girls "swarming me"… not believing this could possibly happen, I’m game to at least check it out. Tomorrow I squeeze in a full day of observation at the Dongguk University clinic in Ilsan, likely stuffing myself with another large Korean meal at the end of the day (mmmmm, kimchi here is so good even the cabbage kind is tasty, and I finally got to try the fermented soybean soup, YUM!). All in all, Korea is a friendly place: more westernized than I was expecting, so it was a total culture shock coming from China, but the food is good so it’s all fine by me…

the thickness of the air sits heavy in your lungs. the traffic speeds by. physically every time i step out the door of jingmai’s hutong, i feel the disparity between the still, greasy yin air and frenetic yang movement of dirty feet: walking, restrainedly working bicycle pedals, whipping past on motorcycles splitting between paused cars. suspended inside these two extremes some of my deeper senses become forced to quicken and activate: quite simply, whatever the degree of the extremes currently composing me, i remain qi.

^_^

on sunday we went to the 798 (qijiuba) art space which is basically an artist colony/gentrified shopping space in a former industrial quarter. lots of old warehouses, pipes running overhead, etc for about over 8 square blocks – very easy to compose interesting shots of something other than hundreds of tourists running around by careful cropping ;-) after that to cool off we headed to the public swimming pool with haitao’s spanish ex-pat friend alma, who rocks, for the record. haitao insisted on paying the insanely more fare to get into the "beach-like" pool, which is apparently how you do things in china if you’re not so much into hobnobbing with the masses. good move as the locker rooms and pool for that facility was fairly surprisingly peopled, especially given the time of day and added cost.

another hot morning in China… although I think the first few days I was here were extra nice: clear sky, decent visibility, not too humid, and now I’ll be getting to see the typical weather patterns: very foggy, ahem, so the sky is overcast/thick (super surreal at night) and humidity is enough to keep you sweating even at night (no, it’s NOT yin deficiency night sweating, i’m sure of it).

yesterday I solo trekked to several of the biggest/closest in proximity tourist attractions (faugh, tourist spots, so stupid here, you pay admission to everything and then wait in line if you want the actual tour, which seems hysterically awful, so i’ve contented myself with paying the half cost "entrance only, not through fee" and just taking photos on the grounds. Photos of everything – colors, contrasts in textures, vistas with this amazingly shifting, amorphous light… the most amazing thing imho about China so far is the light – no where else does it shift so rapidly and seem to have so many subtle variations depending on where you are, making the green spaces idyllic – despite the fact that they are also filled with chinese tourists, and often right next to urban expanses of grey backed by grey sky the only color being present in giant signs and people. omg the people, i’ve started calling china "the country of photobombers" because it’s so difficult to get a shot unobstructed by people. i’ve started rolling with it and waiting for the person in my foreground to do something interesting so i can say, instead of coming home with "tourist snapshot of temple of heaven" come home with "photograph of man picking nose with temple of heaven in background" – funnier that way. somehow i don’t feel it would be an authentic representation if i photoshop-ed them out.. there have been some awesome ppl-free shots i’ve taken and i feel so proud when i pull that off, like i’m on a photographic adventure and half the prize is doing it all with the handicap of photobombers abounding.

okay, so what else. i hit up temple of heaven pretty late yesterday (before sunset for the light) after going to two marketplaces :pangjiayuan and hongqiao. the first specializes in antiques and "chinese curiosities". you can buy jade and beads and books and little statues and whatnot. kinda overpriced, or at least difficult to stick with offering only 1/10 of their initial asking price and dealing with all the vendors harassing you to look at/buy their wares. pushy pushy pushy. bought two full color herbal guide books (pics of chinese herb as it grows as well as processed, with chemical info. very helpful to future plans i have in the mix, can’t wait to start translating from it), and a few souvenirs, nothing much. was strangely attracted to a musical instrument shop (they had all sorts of funky things there) but figured i didn’t need to encourage my theoretical self by buying something i can’t play that takes up a lot of room in a suitcase. even if those chinese harp thingys are kick ass creepy. hongqiao market was a lot more like chinatown offerings (well, nicer than that really) packed into a big mall-type of building that sits directly across the street from the temple of heaven.also bartering city, but with tons and tons of little hawker stalls and the workers there almost all speak english ’cause so many stupid laowai tourists go there (unlike pangjiayuan, where all my bartering was in chinese, whoo-hoo!). good place to find a deal and/or be MASSIVELY ripped off. ahem, i myself fell for the magic beans, through a purchase of a supposedly 240gb flash drive for only $6. quick internet search at home told me i can’t even use the thing cause it’ll crash/delete anything written on the prolly 512mb stick… argh. i know the smaller capacity flash drives should be fine, so i’m thinking of going back and forcing them to at least exchange it for an 8gb stick… or else i’ll scare away the tourists from their stall for an hour… or just eat the lost money, whatever. at least i caught the mistake early on and will be less trusting in my future purchases.

beijing is and isn’t what i was expecting – in a good way. i’ve had no trouble so far eating food/not getting msg sick *yay* and the food is deliiiiicccious, zomg. the city is also very, very clean – i’m told making the capital a "model city" was a priority and that’s why everything is so nice – it’s like taking chinatown and bourgeoising it out while expanding it to cover an entire, quite large, city. there are many parks/lakes in various spots giving it a surprisingly green feel. the subways seem to go everywhere for the modest cost of 2cny (35 cents or so) you can ride as many lines/connections as you like, tho haitao (jingmai’s bf) has been giving me the locals tour by motorbike, which has been a great way to get a quick feel for what the landscape looks like.

yesterday we went walking in the gardens at the summer palace – there’s a large artificial lake and walking paths lined with willow trees all around it. cicadas live in the willows, and make these amazingly loud noises – it’s a surreal experience, walking down a manicured path that’s like something out of a jane austen novel, but with chinese people everywhere and a crazy insect-provided electronica soundtrack constantly humming in the background.

So…. no coherent thoughts so far. it’s all confusing and amazing and a little bit scary but i’m focusing on keeping my wits about me and rolling with it. slight sensory overload, but loving it and taking pics!

Beautiful are the trees in autumn, the emerald pines
Dark among the light-red leaves of the maple and the dark-red
Leaves of the white oak and the indigo long
Leaves of the white ash.
But why do you stand so, staring with stern face of ecstasy at the autumn leaves,
At the boughs hung with banners along the road as if a procession were about to pass?

~~~
No earthly enterprise
Will cloud this vision; so beware,
You whom I love, when you are weak, of seeking comfort stair by stair
Up here: which leads nowhere…

- Edna St. Vincent Millay