on the rocks

“I have a thing for rocks and stones, I really appreciate them”.

“You’re in the right place”.

The people in my life are like rocks. Some of them are dumb. Some serve for stability, some are rolling stones. I could stack them in piles according to rules of agreement. Some of them, I’d like to lick or throw in the water, others I’d like to carry in my pocket. Some rocks look good, and some keep things back, down, or up. There is a rock in my bathroom that serves as a holder for a bar of Dial soap. That’s not necessarily one I’d like to lick. Some are fun to play with.


Yesterday, I walked a pleasant afternoon with a sweet friend. All over the neighborhood, I was barefoot. Crossing busy streets, getting dirty feet. Most sidewalks around here have built-in bike paths that are rubbery & soft.

Grounded, connected, natural, and free. At a park we delighted in the foot-massaging path, consisting of rocks of various colors that gradually decrease or increase in size, depending on which way you’re walking.

Diagrams posted near the path show how different areas of the feet are supposedly connected and affected by various areas of the body. Brilliant.

Today, while riding the bus, I noticed large rocks beyond the sidewalk. Among the rocks, green plants grow. They’re succulent-like. I love seeing plants growing near rocks. These, in particular, reminded me of Monterey. Later this day, I walked through the neighborhood, hand-in-hand with that same sweet friend, a lovely being that I’m grateful to be acquainting myself with. While walking, I noticed several rocks, way beyond the sidewalk, up a hill. They were arranged upright, upon long ends, in what appeared to be a garden. The garden was divided by stonewalls and contained more rocks, stacked into beautiful piles. I’m sure there’s a name for those piles, but to me a pile of stones is just something that someone focused on for a while. This photo is not of a pile of rocks from the garden, but it’s a close representation:  [in yet another moment of 'cleaning things out' i removed several photos from my flick'r site... being mindless of the fact that the images would, then, also be removed from this blog... oops]...

Breathing the mixture of air today was a fresh, renewing experience. Something about it kept my awareness in the moments as they occurred. The breezes were delightful. It’s been yet another fine day of perfect life. More than three weeks will pass before I begin this job. I have been getting paid for a month now; it’s been the best accidental paid vacation ever.

Making instrumentals instrumental

I’m becoming addicted to NPR’s music webpage again. In the States, I had the variety of friends, work, and local venues for the music fix. In Korea, what we hear out on the street seems to be a mix of the same 8 pop songs. In stores, storefronts, and in taxis, we can almost sing along to the Korean syllables. Yesterday, I gratefully listened to a yet-to-be-released album by the Flaming Lips, [Embryonic]. Yes, an entire album, available for our listening pleasure on NPR’s music page: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113403123

All afternoon, I was thinking about music and, of course, appreciating the fact that I have plenty of time to do so.

Out for a walk, I was listening to Sufjan Stevens’ “Greetings From Michigan- The Great Lake State” (2003, but a recent, satisfying acquisition for me). Traversing the park, I came upon a solo accordion player. He was a middle-aged man with bushy eyebrows. Seated on a bench before a line of trees, with something appearing to be sheet music spread out to his right, and a bag & random belongings to his left. Headphones off, I sat on a nearby bench to rest and listen. It wasn’t a grandiose melodic execution, by any means, but the guy’s heart was in it. The song just kept going and going and going and going and going and going. As I soaked in the continuing, sometimes dissonant, folding & unfolding of the accordion, my mind and thoughts wandered. I just let them go, freely. Abstract colors and shapes, flowing and changing with the passing breeze of song. At its conclusion, I gently walked away. The moment prompted thoughts about the imagery that music suggests. Vocals in music tend to steer us in certain directions. Greetings From Michigan… brought many visions: a grandmother smoking in a hospital room, an individual in prayer, the daily routine of working class America, and yes, a Great Lake. Music without vocals is still quite suggestive but, for me, the power of its suggestion is obviously much broader. The music to which I refer is known as “instrumental”. (Though, in a university Humanities course, I was taught that the voice is the oldest “instrument”, which leads me to question the term). The imagery prompted by instrumental pieces draws on greater influence of environmental factors such as: time of day, inside/outside, cloud cover or absence thereof, temperature, urban/natural setting, absence or presence of other people, season, lighting, listener’s mood, et cetera.

So what about it? For me, it’s an experiment. Three days of instrumental music only. No divine chants or mantras to accompany my yoga practice, no Damian Marley or Shawn Q for my jogging. No Sufjan Stevens in the park. A new, big world of endless possibilities. The first thing I did this morning was dance… to Vijay Iyer’s jazzy new album "Historicity": http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113472412&ps=bb4

As I write this, I learn where Night on Disco Mountain (David Shire, Saturday Night Fever soundtrack) came from... it’s a Classical Party: A Summer Night to Remember:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111595310

Thank you, NPR.

Two more days

[I accidentally removed several photos from these blogs... oops].  


This past Friday: Stacey, Donae & I visited Yakcheon-sa, the largest Buddhist temple in Asia. Quite ornate, amazing colors. Noticed great acoustics as the monks chanted and periodically made rhythmic tappings with a stick. At one point, from the third story windows, we could see a man outside heaving a large wooden log into a bell. The paintings on the wall were... different. There was one depiction of a meditating man being decapitated. From his neck, spewed a tall reaching fountain of water, upon which his head floated. Stacey and I are quite curious about this, and would like to look into its possible meaning. I mostly enjoyed sitting in a tiny temple situated on a shady hill nearby. The gentle fragrance of incense brought calmness to our beings, and we three sat in silence before the altar for a few moments. Here's the main temple:

After the temple visit, we took a taxi to the nearby Jungmun Beach, where the waves were high & lovely, the sunshine intense, the water clear & blue, and swimming temperature ideal. The sounds of air-raid-like sirens alarmed swimmers, followed by an announcement suggesting that swimmers get out of the water- as the waves were too strong. How annoying. What ever happened to quiet signs which read "Dangerous Currents, SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK"?

This past Saturday: David invited us to join him to Mosulpo, where he teaches students twice a week. The drive down was hilly & scenic... and included Mysterious Road, the optical illusion of a gravity road. We had the car in neutral and it appeared to be rolling uphill! Kind of like the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, CA. I've googled the phenomena, which occurs in various parts all over the world. Apparently these areas are all optical illusions, rather than areas of "strange gravitational/ magnetic pulls". Worth checking out. We continued on, picked up 5 of David's students, and proceeded to the Glass Castle museum/theme park of glassworks & mirrors... brilliant! It's mostly a sculpture park of amazing glass pieces/installments. In the center, there's a cafe where we stopped for ice cream. The entire back wall is domed glass, and water runs down the outside making it seem like a rainy day. But the sun was out... giving it a gorgeous sun-shower effect. This is one outdoor piece, made of several glass panes, lined up:

After dropping the students off, we went to the Chocolate Museum... but it was closed. We drove on, stopping at a very interesting store/house to buy some drinks. The entire front wall was made of recycled drink cans. Very neat.

The drive home was lovely, as David so thoughtfully drove the coastal road, heading up the West coast at sunset. Amazing views... sun setting over the water... very huge windmills on the edges of the land. Beautiful places... great company... thank you. life is good.

Home on the Range

... Home on the Range was one of my choices for karaoke the other night. Don't ask me why. Sometimes, with certain people, a night of karaoke seems to evolve into "I can pick a cheesier, funnier, more dramatic song than you..." There were a few moments when my laughter prevented me from being able to sing.

09.17.09

Jogging will get me hot & sweaty… ideal conditions for showering if the only option is a cold one. It reminds me of being at DLI (Navy, language school) on P.T. (early morning exercise) days: if one didn’t manage to catch the first wave of showering, one’s shower would surely be cold. But here, there won't be the slightest possibility of getting a warm shower, until they get the water heater hooked up. My last hot shower was in NY, September 4th. Trying to stay positive… at least the days are still sunny & warm. We’ve gotten plenty of beach time- I think I’ve swum in the ocean half a dozen times since my arrival. It’s a 25-minute, less than a dollar, bus ride to the very beautiful Hamdeok Beach.

All these beach opportunities… how? I have yet to start teaching. The private school I’ll be working in (and also live in) isn’t even completed yet. They’re still doing construction. Very poor, very poor planning. School’s tentative start time will be the first week of October. Apparently, we’ll be paid from September 15th- which is when it should have opened (the recruiter who hired us was 150% certain of this LOL). Normally, teachers are put to work immediately upon arrival. When I arrived in Bucheon two years ago for a job… it was about 1 a.m. and I was required to attend a meeting that morning around 8 or 9, obviously feeling a bit useless and extremely disoriented. This time around, we have weeks of free time before actually teaching. So here I am, with the company of two fun females- Stacey from Nova Scotia, Canada and Donae from Washington State. We’ve had the luxury of relaxation on this gorgeous island.

There are a couple of Koreans who have been showing us the ways of our area. "David", our school’s director (principal) has taken us to restaurants, the beach, markets, his friend’s horse farm, a live music club, and of course, a ‘norae bong’ for karaoke (singing several tunes to include John Denver & Richard Marx). "Jennifer", an assistant who’ll be living a few doors down on our hallway, has taken us to cafes & shopping, given us useful information and has been a great, fun new friend.

I predict it’ll be a great year ahead, though slightly bumpy for the school until they get everything into proper order. I won’t be working the sweet 5-12 p.m.-older- students-evening-shift as promised, but rather doing the 9-5 M-Th, 9-2 F. Not the hours I’d hoped for, but I’m excited to be teaching the little ones again (K-6th). I’m grateful to have this job, these new buddies, and a very reasonable, likable director. Life is good.

Yoga of India in Korea

As we were about to enter a restaurant the other night, we spotted a yoga studio, Yoga of India. My new friend / co-worker, Donae, & I went up to check it out. Inside, we discovered a beautifully arranged space, dimly lit, comfortable, and adorned with Indian wall hangings. Sitting on a floor mat at a low table was the petite Korean yoga instructor, whose Indian name is Soma. She had studied yoga in India, spending time in Kerala and Pune. She welcomed us to join her classes at a very reasonable rate of 40,000 won ($) per month, for two classes each week. It’s about a ten-minute walk from our abode.

The next morning, we attended our first class. Behind the sheer, purple curtain, 18 or 19 mats were neatly arranged in the clean, quiet studio. We were a few minutes early, and the instructor welcomed us to choose our places for meditation. Though the sing-songy verbal cues were all in Korean, Donae and I had little difficulty following Soma’s sequence of asanas (postures). Her sun-salutations are almost precisely the same ten-step salutations that I do, and I could tell from the repetition when she was instructing us to inhale or exhale. Soma occasionally used the English or Sanskrit word for a posture, which was very helpful. There were about 6 or 8 other students that we were able to follow. For the next month, we’ll get two evenings a week of yoga: the perfect complement to another 40-day cycle of absolute sobriety and daily chanting of the mahamrityunjaya mantra. As the language of love is universal, so is the practice of yoga. Alhamdulillah!

Keep moving

Keep moving

Finally, after being so sick
a husband has died.
At the appointed time
a baby was born.

You keep moving, coming and going
You keep moving.

Lock,
unlock,
lock,
unlock,
lock,
unlock

You keep moving with events
of your big, little life

And that’s it. That’s what it’s about.
You are alive. You are.
A bag full of blood, sweat, and tears.
You are
keeping it fun
With love, all around you.
With love, it’s all around you.
Love, if you let the world love you:

A mirrored rejoice.

What's going on

What’s going on

I am not yet awake, just dazy eyes
gazing out into reality, my world
which ends up being enough happiness
to make the day worthwhile.

That man who used to sell me coffee
has the warmest blood
flowing beneath his tattooed skin,
behind his smile, through his beating heart.
His brown hair is growing.
I thought of him as I thanked him for the coffee,
(and I think about him now.)

Later, as I wiped away the juicy remnants
of that fuzzy, ripe summer peach
I remembered the nature and conditions
and thought and work and tender care
behind its being: all that brought it to my hand.

In the nighttime I see the moon that everyone sees
if they look. I still wonder about those bricks
that make up the wall that supports the building
upon whose wooden floor I used to sleep.
I wonder about the men who made the bricks,
who laid the bricks, who drew the plan of that place, still standing:
and I love them.
I touched those bricks being rained on, being looked at by others.
I think about the other sets of eyes, the others who will look at,
who have seen those bricks.

The others, like all others, are not me.
The others, like all others, they are me. We are same.
Helping make the world go ‘round
with some, or a lot, of goodness within.