Afghanistan, China 1992: Check Out Your Attitude, To The All, The Many, The Everyday Everything

I continue thinking about the Shepherd.
Clouds pass over the sun. 

Horizon turns into one colour of blue.
The grays slowed, time passed. 

Time travelled. Rainbows form and disperse.
Sun sets and Moon rises.
I watch more clouds gather.
Moon, Sun, Earth share same sky 

together with rainbow and storm clouds.

In my memory, 

I share hills and sky 

with many people,

I have met on my journey.
I see my friend the Shepherd,
who lives on the border,
between Afghanistan and China.
I see him look into the hills,
up at the sky, turn and face me.

In my memory He simple says;
humans are not birds -
boundaries once crossed,
transform individuals,
transform neighborhoods of individuals,
transform individual families, 

transform gangs, clans, tribes.

Boundaries once crossed,
transform communities
from feeling powerful,
into feelings of powerlessness.

Visible land, invisible terrains.

Earth terrestrial boundaries are manmade.

The important boundaries are inside made.
Universal crossings, centuries made.
Made by ancestors carrying forward our codes.
Passing encoded memories,
through the boundaries of bodies.

Once the veiled threshold is crossed,
like a cloud crosses the Sun,
all else, everyone else, every body is unmade.
The all of the everything is transformed 

into nothing less and something more.

Earth boundaries once crossed transition form,
change form, have an Earthy affect on it's people -
some people do not see as far as a bird,
some people do not see the larger picture.

Pointing out and naming each individual bird,
my friend, the Shepherd shared.
Birds never give away their power.
They view the world with larger visions.

If they do not like the view from down here,

then they fly to up to another dimension,
they change their perspective of the land,
map out the transformation of each Earthly detail.

Birds appear insignificant, praise the insignificance.
Notice what hectic humans miss 

in their journey to witness the larger whole 

within each entire moment of life.

Birds never give away their freedom to others.
Some people give away their power to another,

another who seems to be more significant than themself.

Another who seems to be more powerful, more strong,
seemingly more wealthy, more attractive or more wise.

The Shepherd asked me about the birds in Canada.
I told him.

When I was a child my parents took our family 

to the flower festivals to watch the new blooms open.

The Canadian Geese always flew by,
high above us, a sky family in formation.
Geese returned home from the south every Spring.
Animating shadows, moving with the seasons.

Marking the migration of change, 

the change brought by Nature's migration.

Transforming the land, weather and region,
through a bird's liberated imagination,
of a world with no boundaries, 

no borders nor limits.

I told the Shepherd.
I described the green hills my family walked.

We collected pinecones and porcupine needles, 

gathered thin layers of transparent mica crystals,

resting in a peace, openly visible on the forest floor.

Our footprints transformed the ground we walked on,
leaving imprints on the Earth, impressions of our souls.
Our breath changed the air, into more or less from one or us.

He told me about his parents.
Their walks among flowers taller than children.
How green the hills were, 

and still are despite the ever changing weather.
Their family walked the land transforming it

with the seeds their ancestors gave to them -

to grow flowers taller than the previous generations,

to compliment the eyes of each beholder's sight -

to improve the love, the love for beauty and of nature.

I told him.
I shared about the horses,

my grandfather tended for others.
The Shepherd told me.
He shared about when horses ran free,
tending to themselves and the land.
The horse's hooves transformed the grasses,
carried the seeds of life's plantings,
from place to place, state to state

altering the landscape painting it alive with life.

I shared with him.
The when and the where tales of my family.
Forced to move from the city to the countryside,
we desired to avoid the bombings,
created by pro-independence students,
and groups intent on separating from the whole.
The war on spirit transformed the light of our nation,
we lived to believe that this lie, too shall pass.

I shared with the Shepherd.
My family moved from the terror breaking the city, 

to the reinvigorating freshness of the countryside.
I walked for hours then laid down in fields.
I watched the horses eat and the cattle graze.
I always thought I was out of sight, 

beyond the animals perspective, view,
but the animals would always find me,
hidden among the blades of grass.

The animals would stare down at me.
Look and telepath to me;
"We don’t mind you being here,
just keep your part of the peace."

The Shepherd laughed and shared.
When he was little they left home,

due to conflict between the people,
speaking different languages,
from different tribal cultures,
but of the same religion.
The war on spirit 

transformed the light of their countryside,
they lived to believe that this lie too shall pass.

The Shepherd's family move higher into the hills.
He loves the high hills, and as a child 

would play a game of hide and seek

behind and between rocks to spy on the goats.

The goats eat between the boulders.
They sometimes stick their noses,
where they did not belong,
and so got stuck between the gaps -
the spaces in between a rock and a hard space.

These animals eat to keep the hillside clean,
as they have since hillsides were born.
Born new each day to grow fresh each day,

to show their love of being nurtured and cared for.

The goats transformed the hillside,
by wandering, ever seeking their individual way.
These ancient goats cast shadows 

and silence on the mountains,
drink snow which falls from the sky,
and eat grasses which spring from the earth.

The Shepherd and I surrendered
to the silence gracefully surrounding us.
We soaked in the gentleness
of the landscape enveloping us.

Then our gaze fell,
landed on a group of Shepherds,
traveling near, now towards us.

Our conversation suspended,
while we witnessed the weight 

of those walking heavily almost upon us.

Full of themselves, they are filled up,
they fill up the sky with their troubles.
They eye us to size up our threat potential.

Like gangs in New York and LA

checking out our true colours,
scanning our regalia for any tribal markings,

that might identify our human alliances.

The Shepherd and I,
stood talk again the sky,

as one colour we transformed the sky,
we reflected our Soul's tremors
and our heart's tears.

I heard several Afghani individuals,
were suspected of providing support,
to other individuals in China.
The war on spirit transformed the light of their borders.
They live to believe that this lie, too shall pass.
Individuals armed with Shepherd staffs 

support a grass roots movement 

to maintain a prospering peace.
The war on spirit transformed the light of their country.
They live to believe that this lie too shall pass.

The question of sustainable relations 

among and between people grows confusing

The word of mouth, the local media varies,

as it travels through a divergent of country's cultures.

Opinion is influenced by governing bodies 

of different worldly powers,
powers who are now calling out by name 

these individual armies creating terror.

I wonder who is responsible,
for the unmaking these hospitable lands -

so they are no longer hospitable.
No one is no longer welcome, 
Shepherds, goats, kids and mothers. 

The community in possession of arms 

is slowly approaching us,
waving their long arm of the law -
guns glinting and shivering in the sunshine.
The steel reflects the fading rainbow.
Growing closer 

each foot step mirages the sun as it blinks -
so suddenly, they arrive,

we are, their destination,

we are, their point of arrival, 

we are, their target audience.

My Shepard friend and I have become 

the focal point of peace or war.
We are, the closest unknown danger.

The approaching armed guardians of this landscape,

stop to check out our mindscape,

assess my attitude towards their attitude.

We are questioned, 
and these questions are not answers 

to the power they seek or protect.

My answers do emerge from within the world inside me.

and so my answers do transform the world around me.
Our perspective answers 

change the perception of the inquisitors.

Embracing another's humanity creates common unity.
Within our global community the inner answers 

make peace, make sense of the outer warring questions.
Remembering, we are all born from the same 

ingredients which form our common unity, 

is to recall our different tribal cultures 

are variations mirrored from the same oneness.

The war on spirit transforms the light of our world.
We all live the wisdom cycles 

as life recycles what was into more wisdom.

My love transforms the separateness in coalitions.

Love creates common unity, in communities.
Love unmakes war into love of life and love of peace.

I still, within my Self, I still.

I am responsible for my own peace and war.
I stop, to check out my own attitude towards them.
I still, to check out my own attitude towards myself,
the all, the many, the everyday everything.

~~ Other People's Fingerprints ~~
Khushal Khan Khatak sometime before 1689 wrote;
"Sweet life that passes by slowly slowly
Like water it flows slowly slowly
Friends are the flowers of spring
They follow the path of autumn slowly slowly.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn sometimes after 1918 wrote;
“If only it were all so simple!
If only there were evil people
somewhere
insidiously
committing evil deeds,
and it were necessary only
to separate them
from the rest of us
and destroy them.
But the line dividing good and evil
cuts through the heart
of every human being.
And who is willing
to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn sometimes after 1918 wrote;
“Own only what you can always carry with you:
know languages, know countries, know people.
Let your memory be your travel bag.”

“A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy.”

“You only have power over people
as long as you don't take everything away from them.
But when you've robbed a man of everything,
he's no longer in your power--he's free again.”

"Moon Sun Earth Rainbow Storm Clouds"

by Karin Lisa Atkinson