When worlds collide

All day and night, music,
a quiet, bright
reedsong. If it
fades, we fade.
~Rumi

Truth tell, anywhere is a life, once there is love...

Is this the universe, lying across the knees of one who mourns? Things dying...things new-born. There will be a story of a world held in a walnut shell, cracked open by love's finger and thumb. There will be a story of a planet small as a ball, and a child threw it, or a dog ran away with it, and dropped it on the floor of the Universe, where it swelled into a world.


How we think about our world... not just this one but the many worlds that live within us. What we love, we keep alive or else we die not knowing what we've lost. Everything has a lifespan... If only we could see the beginning and the end, we would treasure the time in-between even more. And at the designated time, we walk away and there would be no need to turn back. The flowers on my lime plant bloomed and fell away, each leaving behind a tiny green dot which, with a little blessing will grow into a whole new world. There are kittens playing on the roof, kittens being themselves wholeheartedly, in the present moment, open to whatever happens. And there is a woman who happens to comes by in the night to feed them. A new world opens...

A quantum universe - neither random or determined.
A universe of potentialities, waiting for an intervention
to affect the outcome. Love is an intervention.
Why do we not choose it?

~Jeanette Winterson
;)

Momentary lapse of reason

" I made him walk on a lead and he jumped for joy, the way creatures do, and children do and adults don't do, and spent their lives wondering where the leap went...

He had the kind of legs that go round in circles. He orbited me. He was a universe of play. Why did I walk so purposefully in a straight line? Where would it take me? He went round and round and we got there all the same...

The light had the quality of water. I was moving through a conscious element. Time is a player. Time is part of today, not simply a measure of its passing. The dimensionality of time is not usually apparent. I felt it today in the light like water. I knew I was moving through something that had substance...

Something serious. Here was the dog, me, the sun, the sky, in a pattern, in a dance, and time was dancing with us, in the motes of light. The day was in the form of us and we were in the form of the day. Time would return it, as memory and as futurity; I looked at him, trusting, vulnerable, love without caution. He was a new beginning and every new beginning returns the world. In him, the rain forests were pristine and the sea had not been blunted. He was a map of clear outlines and unnamed hope. He was time before or time after. Time now had not spoilt him. In the space between chaos and shape, there was another chance."

Some snippets from the short story by Jeanette Winterson, the 24-hour dog. I really love the way she writes and you must wonder about the soul of the person - the things she sees and feels. I think if you can see real beauty in the world, you can see real darkness as well . They're both sides of the same coin. The closer you are to one, the closer you will be to the other. (Maybe that's why so many artists, poets and the like suffer for their art) Beauty is born and will pass away. Time is a great reversal of things. It's like everything you ever think, feel, and do are all there, like dust particles floating in time, a trail that you leave behind for your future.

To get really close to something is to realize the darkness when that something is no longer there, that everything is transient, momentary. Maybe that's why most people prefer to be in the middle, to be swept away by the superficiality of everything. It has become that easy to get lost with all that our consumer society can offer and promise us. Of course, they're empty promises. Maybe that's why we always need one more thing that we think will really make us happy.

True wisdom is to "go above and beyond cause and effect, to go above birth and beyond death - to go above happiness and beyond suffering". But we're "modern" people living in a "modern world" where there are always more important things... haha only life and the mess it brings can teach us...

;)
Catmasutra V
coming your way this December...

Bird-wings

"...Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
and expanding...

...the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings."

"... Some nights stay up till dawn,
as the moon sometimes does for the sun.
be a full bucket pulled up the dark way
of a well, then lifted out into light..."

"...You knock at the door of reality,
shake your thought-wings, loosen
your shoulders,
and open."

~Rumi

The cycles never stop turning, do they?
But stop, and they stop.

;)

Unfinished stories... Masks

Found some stuff that was from long ago, unfinished stories that i wrote. It's sometimes strange to read your own work. Sometimes it feels so foreign, like you have left yourself for another self, unwittingly letting time come in between...

m a s k s
________________

Now, here -
we have known eternity
through scented air
and the feel of your lips
on the nape of my neck,
whisper in my ears,
our worlds be buried
to release its splendour.

This is a city surrounded by concrete blocks and clean streets. There are signs that reassure you, equip you with the tools of navigation. Miss your way, which is easy to do, and you may find yourself living the same life over and over again in exactly the same way as you begin it. Find your way, and you may meet a familiar stranger at your doorway. She will tell you your fortune if you choose to hear. But this is a city of predictability, finding is often mistaken for losing and losing for winning.

What does it feel like to be travelling through space, if space is not ‘empty’ but a semi-solid celluloid dream? Riding a bike is like this, it is beautiful. You concentrate on the road as you need to, yet somebody else is projecting images in your head. It flashes in front of you - a different skyline, a different sun, different shadows, different faces, different emotions - as you move through something more than empty space. Without faith in this city of predictability, all things loses its clarity.

The dark is like space, never empty, but full of shadows, ghosts. You can touch the darkness, hold it in your hands. You can breathe it in and let it sink into you till it squeezes a tear or hardens into stone. It’ll touch you, blind you, drown you, and take you if you let it. And there is no darkness like space trapped within closed doors - doors that are closed but always open. And the dark is like that - you can open it like a door.


Maybe love is like a modern day ‘Holy Grail’. We grow up hearing about it, we watch it happen to others, we watch it on TV, we think it exists. We hope, we pray it comes to us and if it doesn’t- ? We pretend, turning the same page over and over again, hoping that the word will come alive but it stays in exactly the same way as we begin it. We are a lukewarm people, we are so starved for love that we will pretend for love. Maybe. Maybe not.

When you meet your familiar stranger, she will tell you your fortune. She removes her mask. An angel’s face. A devil’s smile. A broken shadow falls across her face. Is it possible? Is it possible that she’s the one? The one you make up in your mind, the one who will conspire with your mind to deceive your heart…the stranger who is as familiar to you as the one you see in the mirror? And she draws the card from the pack I use to cheat. She kisses me on my lips and offers me her hand. Am I to take it? Am I looking for love? Maybe, but I don’t know much about love, only that she draws the wild card from a pack that has no Jokers.

Is love the same as death? I used to think that death is the absence of self. That death is nothing more than losing one’s self completely and eternally. That the feeling is passing but pervasive like the last heartbeat. One breath, one thought, one beat and the air stops. The mind stops. The heart stops. Nothing means anything anymore. Just this merging with the darkness, - this complete formlessness.

Is love like that?
How would you want to die?
If I were to die, I would do it watching the sky.
I love the sky. It’s different every time you look at it.

It’s vast, massive, limitless, all encompassing, and it’s concave. It makes my heart spin; it makes me get up and dance, it changes but it always stays the same. From one corner of the earth to another, it’s the same sky. I need the sky. I need the sky to know that everything is still brand new and the same. I need the sky to carry me away.

;)

samurai

Extracts from one of my short stories - Samurai (accompanied by random images from the world wide web!)

Samurai me : Pat Lee

Autumn. Red leaves fell.
Winds of dawn cut across her face with a pain that cut even deeper, but she remained impassive, untouchable behind the mask. Still she watched the fallen leaves float on the shimmering lake against the rays of morning light; still the serene bliss of autumn’s dawn mocked her, that this tranquillity would never be hers…

A cool breeze cut a rectangle in the air as her enemies braced themselves for the confrontation. She hardened her heart, curbed her own emotions and her longing to be away from this place. She remembered a famous haiku poet and the words she must not forget –

Shi-zu-ka-sa ya
I-wani-shi-mi-I-ru
Se-mi-no-ko-e

Such stillness -
The cries of the cicadas
Sink into the rocks

Silence before the taste of blood was for the young warrior a physical presence, a black velvet blanket flowing deep into her consciousness. In its darkness, she closed her eyes. She could hear her own breathing, and in a moment felt the depth and rhythm of her adversaries, their tension coming out in waves. She imagined them to be samurais, all seven of them with their traditional hakama, the esteemed divided skirt of the archer and warrior. Only the samurais were allowed to use sword and bow and arrow and yet they were afraid - afraid of her…

Arrows.

Arrows pulled and notched against the curves of long bows. Their heads were made of barbless mild steel, honed to a needlepoint for precise penetration. Released by a kyujutsu master, the arrow would pierce right through an adult human being, from breast to backbone. The long bows arched as the samurais stretched the bowstring back to touch their lips. They sighted the masked warrior along the shafts, and one after the other in rapid succession, the arrows flew from their bows.

Spawn - the Samurai Wars

She heard the sharp buzzing, the sound of a quickening within her own heart, and the terrifying rapidity of arrows shredding through the velvet blanket of her consciousness. Against her own volition, she felt nothing but the pattern of red autumn leaves falling and drifting on the quiet lake. Without will, her body gave in to the spirit of the katana, the long sword bestowed upon her by her legacy. Without will, her body moved down, her blade flashed out of its sheath and slashed against the thrust of the invading arrows. The blade, smooth like an extension of her, glinted with anticipation the taste of blood that was forthcoming.

Cool art from CG girls

Red autumn leaves drifted and the beauty of nature remained unaffected, unlike her. She stood up in her warrior’s stance, her armour of gold and red wanting battle just as her blade did the taste of blood. Only her mask hid something, something remotely human. The sounds of swords released from her enemies’ sheaths only served to fuel the tumultuous emotions that were already raging inside her. She reminded herself once more of her own hatred and in so doing, felt their fear rather than their courage. “Bushido,” she thought, “the way of the samurai, the way of the honourable… the way of the mask!” and she paused, a tear dislodged itself behind the ghastly mask...

“YAAAAHHHH…” The first one came charging, his reflection appeared in the corner of her eye. She stood motionless, her sight fixed on the face of her enemy. He charged with his sword riding the autumn’s wind, his face a contorted expression of strained ferocity. This was pathetic, she thought for she saw fear in his eyes, and fear she would not tolerate from a samurai. Her katana speared deeply into the right chest, slid across smoothly to the other side, and into the belly of another behind her. She could taste the corrupting sensation of power as her blade entered and withdrew from living flesh, now dead at her hands. “[Gerrshi, krushi…]” she made the sound as she walked towards the other five, “[this … is the sound when my blade enters your flesh. Ikershiii…]”

The Ancient Sword Arts of the Samurai

The leader of the Kamashita clan, humiliated by her taunts, lashed out in retaliation. “Pride of the great samurai?” She taunted again as she raised her katana to fend off his first blow and sidestepping his opponent, pierced the shorter blade, her wakizashi, into the fleshy part of his sword hand. She saw the samurai’s face screwed up in agony; his teeth drew back from his lips in a terrible grimace and his long sword cluttered uselessly at her feet. The samurai found himself on his knees, his head jerked up, and the wakizashi touched his neck. “Without will, my body gives in to the spirit of the blade,” and the shorter blade inched into his flesh and slid across mercilessly.

Samurai Spirit 5 - Slasher by *Artgerm

The remaining four watched with stupefaction as their leader dropped without his head. She felt their hearts pounding and their legs struggling to move away from her – away from this demon of death. “Enough!” the face behind the mask screamed in silence. She knelt down and her blades returned swiftly to her side. She had become tired, and she no longer wished to kill or live like this any more. “Red autumn leaves – you fall and you leave,” she cried out, “Red autumn leaves – take me with you, away from this accursed playground.”

“Let it end,” she pushed the seppuku sword deep into the left side of her abdomen and methodically pulled it across to her right side. I saw the water in the lake broke as her memories flashed outwards, like ripples made by a stone thrown into the still lake. And like ripples fading and merging into the lake, I saw her eyes fluttered and closed, her body bending over. And through the faint light from the hibachi, I saw red leaves fall on the shimmering lake but this time I saw red and white koi carrying Auntie Mari with them.

* * *

I was squatting beside the pond and watching the koi again when Auntie Mari appeared with my clothes, now dry and clean, and a Tupperware container of homemade sushi. It was still drizzling but I was in a hurry to feed her Kohaku. Auntie Mari knelt down in front of me, hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks. I returned her affection.

“Auntie, why did you pretend with the seppuku sword?”
“It’s time to let go of the past.”
“Why?”
“Because you are here. You make me see things differently with your eyes.”
“Then my name is Jiro Kiyoshi, and you are my sister.”
“Yes Jiro, you are my samurai and my brother.”
“Will you tell me more warrior stories?”
“Yes, but now take this sushi to your mama before the rain starts again.”
“Can I come again tomorrow?”
“If your mama allows…”

Sleep

The very first painting that was sold!
Sleep by paul koh (2003)


s l e e p

Am I asleep
deep inside?
So still I can feel
my thoughts
lingering, outside.
Am I looking in,
my body captured,
like photographs,
like still frames.

Am I still asleep,
I need to know
will I wake, and
why should I wake
when sleep’s so bliss,
so quiet.

Have I been missing sleep,
these restless days
when my heart skips
that little beat
in between.