New chapter: seeds and salad

"But says Alice, if the world makes absolutely no sense, 

what keeps us from inventing one?"

I need fresh air. After 3 months of meditation, sitting in the same room, I need the body to get back in action. Fuck zen, fuck meditation, I ain't a monk, I join the world again and I need action. So I take the car, turn up the radio and I drive south. Direction: unknown. I first stop by some friends, the body wakes up. Dishes under the rain and wind, a bit of work in the garden, speak with a girlfriend, it feels good. A few days laters, back in the car for another friends visit. This time it's party time. We eat, drink and pass the joints. Wake up for more drinking, moments of smoky oblivion, time stops, it's artificial paradise. A few days are spent in perfect harmony with the sunsets. A night by the fire, we dance under the stars, we put our heads on drunken knees. It's good and that's enough. I make a tattoo, then 2, then 3, a bit of blood, we carve memories to better remember that it all will pass. We start building a new tippie, enjoy work together. 1,2,3 lift up that star for the roof on top of our heads.

 - What to do when that can not be done?
- I let it be.

Climb in the car again. Direction Charente department for my next workaway experience. 16 hectares, a beautiful place in the country, a sculpture garden, artists at home. I get to work. For 3 weeks I don't stop. Morning to night, I work. Cut, chop, seed, plant, carry heavy stuff, build, eat, sleep. My mam told me: "work, you will think less", so I try her advice. I work till the body is blue, mostly I try to forget. Flirt a bit with the young boy, say stupid stuff, play careme, work and more work. In the evenings we watch a movie on the huge theatre screen in the artist studio, feets high on the painting pots. The artists do art, sculpting, cooking, cleaning, feeding the animals, printing and carving. At the table we speak of art and more art. The books, the movies, the feathers in the ass. Art becomes life, all is Art, a new potatoe row in the field, tomatoes watering and abstract forms on the canvas. The kids go watch the horses in the fields, the horses watch the kids in the field. Every day we eat fresh greens from the garden, I am back on my normal vegeterien diet. Body mind feels good even if it hurts sometimes.

- Where will you go after your death?
- Stones on the road neither come nor go.

Permaculture. Long time since I wanted to learn more about permaculture. I suck up the knowledge that I am shown, like every time I want to learn something, I give it all my attention. The spagetthis beds for the terrasses, the green house watering, the outside vegetable area, all is art. Baskets of greens, cut, clean, cook, preserve, make a compost box while we speak of plants and life in silence. The bread made in large containers becomes like dow that we work like clay in our hands. The orange marmelade. I try to forget, but i think of you. Work more, wake up earlier, sleep laters, get so tired that the body becomes a machine. Forget. Everyone tells me to forget, to move on, that your acted like a selfish ass. And I make escuses, more escuses. Until the escuses don't work anymore. You wanted me to write your story, but i don't want to write about ass. It's too easy. I'd rather write about happy fluffy clouds. After all, I still have a hard time believing in the badness of people. I ain't no catholic, I don't believe we are born bad. I think it is more along the lines of ignorance. I'd rather understand the why and the hows, how did things get this way? I want to understand so I do not repeat the same mistakes and so that I can be of some benefit when others cross similar rivers. Blames, blames, they are like escuses, they stop working after a while. I dive into my own ignorance, I jump for a swim in my own vanity and pride. I am a selfish ass, we all are and it's ok. Carry water, buckets after buckets, 7:30 am. Dig into the ground, smile, mop the ground, carry more buckets, carry dirt. Boot camp to reboot the mind. Yoga they call it, unite mind and body again. Yoga, the dance of life.

 - It does not start, does not finish, what is it?
- I am what I am.

Water the plants, seperate the radishes sprouts, listen to the plants, they are the great healers. Empty the mind to let the birds replace the thoughts. Zen moments of peace and quiet, satori they call it, this also comes and goes. Accept, surrender, all that spiritual mumbo jumbo I know by heart. Not sure it works though or rather...watch the plants grow. A new sprout comes to life every day. Can't hurry life's natural processes. Watch the process happen and learn from it. Surrender, let go of the hard shell of the broken pod to let the green shout out into the light. Open door at the art shops, decorate in a few hours, show macrame, sell a few dream catchers, make a fire, beat the drums, sit by the fire, play music together under the stars. Satoris fly by. Angouleme, capital of cartoon world in France, eat a burger, go listen to a 3D conference given by the french studio that was the inovators in the fields, once upon a time. Long ago, when 3D was just code, they wrote a house that flies in the sky. A cube with a triangle on it, it was revolutionary, a few mad men with a dream opened the door to so much more. A seed was planted, the plant grew into the 3D world we now know. The frog croak.

 - How do you get out if you are prisoner of a granit block?
- I jump and I dance.

Forgiveness. Been meditating on forgiveness, talking with friends. "Forgive? Forgive what" Diana says. "There is nothing to forgive. There are just actions and choices to make." Forgiveness would be too easy, actions were done, prices have to be paid, consequences lived with. Forgiveness means accepting people as they are with their qualities and their flaws, it's true love says Lionel. No one is perfect, everyone is perfect.
There is nothing to forgive, just facts to face. And if sometimes facing our own faults is scary, I am even more scared not to face my own mistakes. Only the strong can say: i was wrong. Only those who say and do nothing make no mistakes. Silence is not gold, silence is silence is all. I am not a plant, I have a mouth, feets, hands and many more organs attached to my body, I want to learn to make good use of all the senses. I'll let notions of forgiveness to the religion makers, to the ones who never make mistakes. Me, I am full of faults, I live with them and I accept my mistakes. Better next time, swallow and digest. Forgiveness means putting the other one down, self above. Forgive what, there is nothing to forgive, that is life is all. Pull out the weeds, throw what is of no use, plant new salad seeds. When you cut a branch from a tree, it never grows back, the dash remains on the tree trunk for ever. The tree covers it with new cells. The gash, under the skin, becomes a hole in which mushrooms grow. The murshrooms fall on the ground to feed the tree and fortify it. I am not a plant, but they are some of my favorite teachers.

 - Who can take away the necklace of the terrifying tiger?
- I take it out from myself.

An artist studio is free on the land. Cheap rent, large windows, great light, big space, no isolation. I say "yes for summer time". Need a place to sit, a place to paint, a place to be with the plants, feed my mind with green, a place to work, to get back on my feet. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a man I loved does his monkey business. He doesn't love the monkeys he says, he wants no relation he repeats. He never loves anyone, he loves everyone. In the jungle, monkeys are just good for sex he used to say. He is afraid of women he says. Om mane padme om, croak the frog croak. Monkeys do monkey things, flowers bloom, dogs bark, monks repeat mantras. "Sometimes it just hurts" whispers Ejo, the Zen master. Zen does not mean the pain goes away, it only means that we feel the pain when it is there, and we let it go when it goes. The zen master does not say everything is fine when things are not fine. The master says: it hurts when it hurts. It is good when it is good.

 - When will the way covered with snow not be white?
- When it is white, it is white. When it is not white, it is not white.

Let's be friends, yeah let's be friends it's better that way. The story repeats itself. I wanted a beautiful story, I wanted mememe cries the ego. Mememe, I I iii and my needs screams the body. Paint the ciment floor, white undercoat then sand floor covering. The paint roll rolls on the floor. Stop the mind in order to find peace, kill the ego to better live. Watch the thoughts pass the mind, don't identify. Om Mane Padme Om. The mantras pass, as everything does. Sunyata embraces all. Meaning is for fools, fools are us. The sunflower sprout comes out. The sun shines in the rainy sky. I fall asleep with Jodorowski's Zen master Ejo, sake, Mu and his magicians. A new day comes. There are no beautiful or ugly stories, there are just stories, up to each of us to make them beautiful or not. Just stories, the stories of our lives, and if nothing matters at all, then it's for us to make things matter or not, choices/consequences/free will/not. Water the plants, isolate the new space, climb the ladder, go pick up fresh dandelions for the salad. The universe laughs, cries, eats and shits all at once. It just is, and that's plenty enough. My space set up, I go back up north. The month will be eventfull, big steps to go trough, make peace with death, enough for a new chapter. I gather my strenght, ready for new chapter and it is now. After watering the plants and watching them grow, I am back in the cubicle of my mind. Sun shine rain. Build, destroy, live and let live. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Learn to die every day to better live. Watch the sunflower rise and travel the sky. Eat salad and enjoy.

I turn the pages of my life, one chapter at a time, one day at a time, one seed, one love, one life at a time.

Koans from Mu, the masters and the magicians, Alexandro Jodorowsky.