world.

[from alicia bock's bloom, grow, love]

from the solid comfort of earth,
fragrant brown strands,
then lured into the static of the living,
of us and you and them,
and they, and me,
but then back out again,
into the roaring infinite,
of blue, and blue.

...interesting how, if we can look away from the world of people, we see nature (we see the world).

how different. ?.

its space knows no boundaries
and imposes none on you.
there in it:
i may regain my own breath, allow
my self again.

lashed.

[by sebastian faena. found on foto_decadent]

many ways we've formed relations with a bigger-than-us, an above-us-all,
but in them all, through most times,
if not usually,
we seek to rever and uphold,
to share a private communion,
for its fever to sweep away our ill-understandings,
to bleed and surrender our selves to its greater will, knowing it is Good.

..obviously, mixing spiritual religion and hard nudeness like this will invite both the Artsy Applause and the Sacred Disapprovals.. take it as a physical manifestation of our complex spiritual, sometimes emotion-drenched, yearnings

hunger
desperation
ego
fear
love
primality

and you'll find yourself, perhaps, actually painted in a prettier version in the pictures above.

Love and Truth, show me your way.

[ .found in back in skinnyjeans]

are they necessarily in different directions?

.. excuse me while i stand at the crossroads of answering that.

search.

with these:

+ a newfound respect for temple architecture
+ intense fascination with the beliefs these buildings were funded on
+ immense wonder at (usually a temple's) time-drenched history
+ quiet, tremulous awe, and a kind of infatuation, for the people living what seems to be a truly alternative existence
+ a single recommendation to visit a temple poetically named "field of flowers", by sombut (whose own name means something along the lines of 'quiet mind')

even if without these:

+ enough baht to go spending on transport to-ing and fro-ing
+ a local friend who could show me the inner works, of belief, of thai culture, of a monument's past
+ the bit of map to show me the way
+ assurance that i would find what i was urgently hoping, praying to see and have

plus sunblock, the crazed certainty wrought by the former was enough for me to brave these:

+ 2hour (time to get lost) walk west of the old city in the sun (a 330pm sun in thailand is like a noonburn, baby, burn)
+ 1.5hour walk back in a drizzle
+ half a map (the wrong half)
+ lingering around the compounds of this 14thC temple, wanting to see, hear, feel, more

[wat suan dok. chiangmai]
gates.
closer.. until my entire world is a simple, undistracted focus, framed by you.



the main stupa. a brilliant contrast against the white and grey sky.
it commanded, invited, silently.




[wat suan dok. "city of the dead"]

endless white all around drew me;
there is this eagerness to join with it,
an elevated purity, away and clear at last.

eyes never leaving it,
i climbed over the fence, and entered through the side.
found myself in a white land of past kings and queens,
dead, quiet, and not here.

an average plot seemed a daunting portal.
i looked around at the different sameness,
mind scratching at the other language,
an uncomprehending fool wanting to join
with-







on the outside, i'd waited, for the sun to relent a lil, to recall/refine a purpose. and on the outside, another monk'd paused, and took me through a rather psychedelic ride through yearnings and past pains, humourous musings and, inside. he took me within.

and we sat unfolding our thoughts to each other, a million monkey minds.

a cambodian monk, living and studying in the north of thailand, chattered about the many turns of a life, and hassled with me over the workings of how we (are used to) thinking. formal language faltered, but his hands, glittering eyes, and a face smiling, thinking, musing, made me do all three along with him. i think you would make a good president, chenda, a one-of-a-kind.

the remnants of a past sojourn through thailand exist in embedded memories, photos, scraps of paper, etchy words, and an email:

... but you can think about Mind with me.

Your friend,
Chenda

[all pictures at wat suan dok.
thailand. chiangmai]

looking at fashion.

[berlin. from stilinberlin.blogspot.com]

nature gives all the ways
to be right,
the laws behind being.
it grows, moves, lives,
according to principles laid before time,
perfected and refined through time.

and man, in being occasionally wrong,
in his missteps and
miscalculations,
tiny tragedies and loud disasters,
reveals how it may be a delightful right,
how there may be a saving kernel,
and that some rules aren't too bad broken.
especially when they were made by men.