a fiendish self

Frameworks shatter subtly and silently, the rotten cores of old systems sloughing into the wake of Darkness as It lurches wildly about, clinging desperately to the shadows that for so long have been Its home; the light of conscious awareness blinds a fiendish self-repression born in sadness and carried on in addiction; a brightness burns finally in the deeps. A host of tongues mix within this budding consciousness, its contours expanding, its colors returning, the million facets of a billion firing nodes slowly puzzling out the shape and flavor that which has no shape, no taste, that which must forever remain without name and face and definition. Acceptance and harmony repopulate fields left charred by decades of abuse and discord; a weight is lifted from the soul.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

i love canggu

The shirt says 'I Love Canggu – Bali' on it, just that Love is a huge red heart half the size of my chest. With black and white striped boardshorts underneath it and a pair of white $1 thongs on my feet I look as much the tourist and feel as much the surfer as I have looked or felt for most of my life. I receive a warm welcome from my local friend and his family; he and I sit in his compound and eat before everyone else and smoke cigarettes and drink local beers and he tells me about which of his relatives live with him and which live elsewhere, at his farm near the Bratan volcano or other villages by the sea. His older son and daughter come and go, friends and paramours stopping by and leaving again, just as suddenly. A beautiful young lady plays us a song on a Les Paul electric guitar while singing along and I find myself falling in love with her as soon as she starts playfully demanding in Indonesian that he and I leave the room.

After dinner I get two sarongs (or kamen, since they are for men) wrapped around me and tied at the waist and a three-cornered cloth (already folded and held in shape with a piece of internal wire) placed atop my head. The white button-down shirt they give me is too small for my chest so we leave it open at the front, my Love for Canggu – Bali visible to all. We go first to the family's own temple, where my friend's father performs our rights after we have purified ourselves with incense smoke and prayed three times with our hands together in front of our heads and different-colored flowers grasped between the tips of our longest fingers. The priest splashes holy water into the upheld palms of our right hands four times. I peek over at my friend's six-year-old daughter to see what I should be doing and she flashes me a gap-toothed smile, so I suck the water into my mouth just as she and her father are doing but am not sure what to do with the last splash and decide to follow their lead and rub it on my face and neck. The priest sprinkles a few grains of white rice into our palms and we use the remnants of holy water lingering there to stick them to the middle of our foreheads. My friend says to me that it is now OK to ask the gods for things and so I start saying my Thank Yous and asking that my friends and family be blessed with peace, prosperity, and Happiness. Overwhelmed with relief and gratitude, tears run down my cheeks, to gather in my beard. The girl looks over with a puzzled face as the tall bulé Westerner next to her cries, sitting in the dirt floor atop a Disney-themed floor mat with frayed edges. Without wiping the tears from my face I follow my friend and his daughter to a second temple, one for the wider family, where his uncle performs the rituals for us and we stuff more flowers behind our ears and stick more rice onto our foreheads.

The process is short, not lasting more than ten minutes, and before I know it we are walking through the darkened streets back to my friend's house, to drink more beers and smoke more smokes. He shares with me insider information about some cheap parcels of land near the river not far from his house that are sure to jump in value once the government paves the big road there with asphalt. After inquiring my friend agrees that it would be acceptable for me to make a donation at the larger family temple. With his daughter in hand he leads me back over to it and I feel terrible entering without my kamen on yet am greeted with warmth and smiles and press a folded up one-hundred-thousand rupiah note into a priest's hands. He bows his head to me with his hands together at the forehead and as I turn to take my leave he and his attendants gesture at me to take some fruit, which I have now just eaten. Oh, to be sure, I Love Canggu – Bali.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

its most mind

The panic that often did threaten to rise now hides from the inner and the outer eyes. I know taste and feel it, I sample and smell, so that its soft contours I know pretty well, so that instead of ruining my days I flat-out avoid its most mind-numbing haze. “Fear is the mind killer,” said people in Dune, then trained to control it from midnight to noon, when eating and sleeping when loving and not they would not inhabit its restricting slot. So shake off those fetters and throw off that cloak for life is best met with a smile and a joke, a laugh and a handshake, a kiss and a wink, it's not quite as bad as the worrywart thinks. To fear is a daily and a conscious choice so rob it of power and silence its voice; all life is eternal, the soul never dies, now stop feeling sorry and be done with lies and be done with petty and short-sighted goals that leave a most lasting and dastardly toll.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

rocks and cow

There were waves at both places we went today, one was Balangan but the other – can't say. It is a wee secret, its approach is rough, all rocks and cow patties and cacti and stuff, our mopeds they scraped at and chewed the coral but we were not bothered, not one bit at all. Then off to the popular surf spot we went, we'd brought our own boards (there was no need to rent), did paddle and scramble, did lunge, scratch, and swim, my guide never wavered (I stayed close to him). Now I will drink Bintang, a true sleepy beer, and talk to most any female who strays near, unless there are none then I'll go sleep alone without making a single complaining tone.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

not dare finish

He drove through the darkness without hesitation while deep in his bowels much intoxication did rumble and tumble and fester and spread even after he had fallen into bed. Awakened by dreams he could not understand he lay there while touching himself with one hand but did not dare finish what he had started instead just rolled over and gently farted. Now sitting alone at his own kitchen table he worked up a lame and unconvincing fable to justify having been modest and shy and having gone home without saying goodbye. There's nothing can change things; he has no regret; he may be quite close but isn't all there yet; no man knows the whims of the vast Great Magnet.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

prayer and guns

No matter their flavor or doctrine or creed, religious extremists clearly feel the need to tell other people how to lead their lives, how to raise their children, how to dress their wives. This happens not only in the Fertile Crescent but also among American Protestants who claim that their nation is a Christian one then try to enforce it with prayer and guns. To us who've kept thinking it is hard to see the forces of ISIS, of Christianity, parading and boasting and spreading by might the teachings and habits that they see as Right. To live life in freedom by my chosen rules to me is worth more than a mountain of jewels; to live life in constant, perpetual fear that there maybe could be an extremist near just takes the wind out of my billowing sails and makes me weep buckets and flagons and pails. So stand up and fight for your right to choose to wear pretty dresses or to drink some booze, to worship in this house or nowhere at all, to stay down or get up right after a fall. This here call to action may not be too loud, it may not much rile up the masses and crowds, it is though a call for more pure anarchy and for less of religious insanity.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

out and survived

The swell we've been waiting for has now arrived, we're lucky to have ventured out and survived. There was so much water just moving around, the current was swift and mostly westward-bound, the whitewash it piled to nearly man-height, obscuring the sets and obstructing the sight. I dare say I will take the next few days off, stay far from the building peaks and plunging troughs, until lord Baruna has vented his rage and wrangled his monsters back into their cage.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

anything but clear

There's a nasty trick about propaganda – if believed it justifies all types of slander, cruelty and murder, torture, dread and fear of foes whose outlines are anything but clear. It's easy to shovel men into a box, trap women and children behind welded locks, to group people into a small pigeonhole, to say they're intruders, that they have no soul. Many nations do it still unto this day regardless of how much for peace they might pray, in public bemoaning the fate of their race, in private bulldozing with a headlong pace. There's no single answer to lasting problems, no cause for repeating those nasty pogroms that once plagued a people who now, to be sure, are almost as bad as the Nazis once were.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

with moonlight above

There are many things one must be conscious of when driving in Bali with moonlight above. The pavement is pitted and not always whole; one often encounters wide cracks and deep holes. There is also wildlife moving around, dogs darting or sprawled out right there on the ground, and bats by the hundreds that hang from their toes then race through the sky eating up mosquitoes. Animals cross or just chill out on roads – rats, geckos, and lizards; some cats; a few toads – these pale when compared to the tall mounds and heaps of dirt, rock, and soil that fill half the street. In order to avoid the heat and sunlight there are also workers who toil at night, who prop up a small branch, some leaves, or a twig to warn of a massive, car-swallowing dig. Far worse are the riders who drive without lights, or who use nothing but their high-beams, their brights, whose swift, iron horses can't see or be seen whereby it's a sure bet their hides will be clean. I have but a few, simple words of advice: drive slowly, use blinkers, and always look twice, have patience and strap a helmet to your dome lest you should be shipped in a box back to home.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

from fearfulness clean

I learned of a method in Twenty Thirteen that's keeping my spirit from fearfulness clean. Instead of just fleeing or running away from things that once used to plain mess up my day, I'm trying to meet them head-on, sans ado; I know now that, “The only way out is through.” I use this in all types of life situations, when pride, love, and honor beg for short vacations, when I get that feeling from outside to core that I cannot bear what's occurring much more. I'm slowly beginning to not turn away, to dig in my heels and find the strength to stay, to face down the patterns that once made me bolt, to adapt and conquer, to shape-shift, to molt. This is a long process, I'm still at the start, I feel in my loins though and know in my heart that there is no other, no alternate path, to conquering sadness and harnessing wrath. Some say it takes courage to face down one's fears, I find it far better than drowning in beers or numbing the senses with substance abuse or other such methods that some people use. Please lend me your patience and pardon my mess; I'll never be perfect, this much I confess; my aim is to lessen foul memory's toll and every so slowly to make myself whole.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on mighty Baruna

There is a short ritual that I perform; it's become a habit, something of a norm. I have now repeated it for many years through times that were happy and times that saw tears. When reaching a body of vast salt water I stop what I'm doing, say, “Hello, Father,” then walk to the sea just about far enough that one of my toes gets a taste of the stuff. I try to imagine I'm meeting my dad, and calm myself – feeling not happy or sad – then exchange of water by spitting mine out and taking a bit of sea into my mouth. I swallow it, tasting its salinity, then bow to the brutal but beautiful sea, say, “Thank you, Father,” and go strap on my board, then charge boldly in – always headlong, forward. It was not until I arrived in Bali that I understood to just which deity I'd been so long praying and thanking; soon a friend cued me it to majestic Baruna. He rules o'er the land of the aquatic forces, o'er turtles and surfers, seaweed and seahorses; his gaze never falters; he hears everything; will take a lost child under his sea-wing; will strike now with vengeance, now with perfect calm; does hold every seaman tightly in his palm. To thank great Baruna I find is a must, in him I place volumes and volumes of trust, please join in the habit written of right here and let go of torment and worry and fear.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

contours and longitudes

The contours and longitudes of this fine land I'm learning as well as the back of my hand. To do this I drive off and race through the night, with deep breathing exercise conquer my fright, then get lost and trust in my deepest instinct while clearing the dust from my eyes with a blink. It helps that Agung has a strong steady pull, that in her vast presence I feel subtly full of confidence, harmony, stillness, and joy though I may see nothing but rice, corn, and soy. With luck I'll be able to fully explore this place and her people, their customs and more, their laughter and smiles, their tendencies too, on Bali I find myself daily anew.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥