Monday, November 07, 2005

birth, death, and the breath in between

dear blue cheesers,

this morning i tried to use wheatgrass as dental floss. it doesn't work, in case you're wondering. so now i'm just chewing it to soggy shreds. i'm not sure what i was thinking when i threw the wheat berries in the soil, i was curious to see what would happen, i guess i just thought that with my green-defying two left thumbs it wouldn't grow. or maybe i expected it to come up with the special fancy wheatgrass juicer attached to it. They should warn you about that. Wheatgrass, Brought to you to by Life, Now available in balcony gardens near you, Juicer not included. anyway, its nice. i like this juice subtely mixing with my saliva, gently detoxifying and invigorating my system, going down with undigestable cellulose and all. and apparently i'm not the only one. ¡viva la comida vivienda!

a few days ago i caught up on emailing out birthday wishes piled up from two months ago. last year i sent out a mass email saying, yo, tell me when you were born so i can remind you how cool that is every solar turn. i made a promise that would be my last mass email, but i would always send personal emails to those who responded with their birthdates (i'm still going yahoo gregorian, i'm finding it damn hard to shift, and i dont even really know what to shift too). obviously i'm not keeping the first part of the promise, but the second seems kind of too important to not keep, even if its kept late. so if you're not getting the news that i'm happy you're born, at least once a year, send in the date already. this offer doesn't expire til i die, and maybe not even then.

ten years ago i did my arangetram, one's first full solo performance, a graduation of sorts, after several years of learning bharatanatyam, a south indian classical dance form. last year on vidyarambam day i went to my dance teacher's house to offer respects to my gurus, to begin/continue/generally celebrate learning. in my mind i dedicated the following year, from that vidyarambam day to the next, to dainika nritta, daily dance, or the dance that is all life. a few weeks ago on vidyarambam day i went to my dance teacher's house to offer respects to my gurus, to begin/continue/generally celebrate learning. two weeks ago i began a nine-day run of Navashwaasam, o nuevas respiraciones, or new breaths, a totally homegrown (including the costume making and the date-deseeding) dance-poetry-theatre project that was perhaps a second graduation of sorts. the first day was on the ten-year anniversary of my arangetram, and the last day was the last day of Ramadan fasting. perhaps i'll say more on this experience in time but for now it simply sits and bubbles as one of the most mind-bending trips to happen to me ever. last week i couldnt breathe properly. it happened a week and a half before too. it was like a stronger version of the allergic reaction i get with cats. something in my lungs closes up and i get this weird puffy itchy sensation on my skin, especially my face. it lasted a couple days, during which i was dog tired. or should i say cat tired. the phlegmity remains but now i am back to breathing normally and life is bright and shiny and new once more. i was miserable at the time, but now i'm thinking, what a fantastic reminder. funny though, that the nine days in my life that i was most aware of my breathing were sandwiched between days of not being able breathe. maybe i have to examine how i do my work.

a few days ago, i found out that rama died. no, not the yellow-bellied snot-nose prince for whom most non-malayali hindus light deeyas for every year. i mean, Tio Rama, of Epuyen.
ank was in town and bore the message. he died in his sleep. i've been thinking how best to celebrate his memory. perhaps by finding ways to do what he tried to do with his life. this old man came from india to drink wine and walk in the bosoms of Pa Pirque and Ma Epuyen and write about Ricardo Guiraldes in Epuyen, a tiny Argentina mountain lake town that has so far been invaded by not one (rama), not two (ank) but three (me) indians. this tiny old man became a bridge between india and south (and central) america, two land masses each with their own powerful forces of people and land that still remain, for the large part, unconnected, but once joined, might lead the world in a revolution of revolutions. now i read of the fires in the south and part of me wishes i were back there, or at least that i had included venezuela in my B-trip (b corta, casi lo mismo, ¿puede ser, no?). the same part that asks why revolutionaries abound in latin america while asia, i'm thinking specifically of south asia, sits squashed and rigid, unembracing of the thought that Another World is Possible. the rest of me knows that's just dumb. knows that this is the time to arc back the other way, be part of the completion of the cycle of connection that Tio Rama lived for, to join the globularity that awakes now and here on this living planet.

que viva la gaia

i've been told my writing is confusing. i've been told that i'm never clear about where i am, geographically.
the first, i simply acknowledge. i pledge allegiance to the State of Confusion. to visit me you need only throw away your visas and your resumes and your dollars and your sense.
the second, i also acknowledge, but perhaps even apologize for. so:
i have been in singapore since august, after months of travel. i leave for india in december on a one-way ticket, after which i hope to avoid using jet fuel.

once again, i'm glad you were born. into this dimension of consciousness anyway.

love, shreaking washing machines and soaking urad beans,
me

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