Beijing, Afghanistan 1992: A Well Deserved Rest

I am standing at the window
watching my neighbors -

a kindergarten school
of children playing.

The children run, topple, giggle, marvel 

and scream at what new things

they discover each day.

The other day, at the farmer's market
a little boy tried to pick my pocket.

I grabbed his hand and scolded him.

The man selling vegetables
cursed him into obscurity. 

The boy looked sad,
said he needed the money.

Maybe he was taught by adults
that stealing is a better way than begging.

I wished him well.
I support his progress, his journey to self-educate.
Life educates.

Out of the corner of my eye,

I continue to watch the children play,

as I read the Beijing newspaper about Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, who shares with China a physical border.

One of our worldly neighborhood boundaries 

currently being transformed, being reimagined.

The politics of individual choices 

reforms the collective whole,
for the community of well-being.
The perhaps, the maybe, the possibly
of who knows what for sure.

Throughout the history of choices,

the older the culture, the more choices.

Sometimes confusion accompanies 

an abundance of choice.

Whose life-rules to live by?
Mine, theirs, ours?
What, when, where, how? 
Never ask why. 

Rules always begin and end the same,

begin with more rules - 

and end in the rules being made to be broken.

Breaking other people's rule,

by following the rules,
means that to follow other people's rule,

is to remake the rules as they evolve into being unruly.

For each individual one of us;
there is one self-certain rule,

the self-rule of individual existence.

One personal truth -

your own Personal Truth -

learned by exercising your own self-leadership.

Invoking your own rule, for and of, your own life.

Your own personal truth
profoundly greets you upon death.

The event of Death makes 

life experience more pronounced.

When each one of us is pronounced dead,
your individual personal truth seeks you out -
and your own personal truth always find you.

The truth of your life makes and unmakes you,
then remakes you again, to make you a gain.

Personal truth makes the most of you.
Personal truth is seeded in your Soul.

Personal truth is the growth 

cycle of your own creation.

When personal truth comes 

knocking at your door, 
your inner-most deeply-hidden 

secreted-chambers open.

Your unknown greets your known -
what you have made is unmade, 
so your unmaking can be remade.

Your truth is your making, 
and the unmaking of you is your truth.

Truth, a personal force of creation creatively recreating you.

The sooner you glimpse your Self,
the more immediate you become,
you hasten to quicken your becoming. 

Becoming more intimate within your relationship 

with your own spirit-giving-life-long mortal-human-journey.

The more you become intimate with your own mortality,
the sooner your life's journey transforms life.

The breath of your own precious immortality,
is cellularly paced to inhale and distribute Self-awareness;

life's infinite intimate supply of fountain of youth.

Individual awareness is a form of Self-identity.
To be self-aware is to be essentially alive living life.

~~

The last time I journeyed within
China's and Afghanistan's shared places,

I stood at the top of a hill...
and looked out onto the land.

A land living with choices...
choices of the individuals 

who occupy those spaces.

I met an old Shepherd...
living in the raging current of the present...
with one foot still in the past,

and one toe cautiously dipped in the unknown,

future-presence-past together-still, 

kept alive from the results of yesterday’s choices. 

I remember The Shepherd and I talked for ages,
I recall we conversed about his choices,

questions which he is presented with every day...

the choices he makes each day, one day at a time.

His present-time world-of-responsibility.
His rules made by other-people's-Rule,
His unique rules made and unmade,
His rules are diverse, different from other people's rules.

Each of us is accountable to our choices,

each of our choices which show up visibly, 

immediately-within the-spirit-of-our-manifestations.

The Shepherd is of Afghani culture...
He often crosses over to both sides...
this-side-of-this-Border to this-other-side-of-this-Border;
this Border-crossing between-all-Bordering-sides,
this not-so-ancient-Border made-between Afghanistan with China.

But,

The Shepherd does not take sides.

The Shepherd lives is his neighborhood,

his neighborhood that was erected here, long before, 

a man-made Border was resurrected between neighbors.

No man, no human, knows how to bury borders;

as Borders are artificial lines of demarcation,

mere echoes of temporal perspective 

in our round spinning world that has no sides.

Besides, all sides have a center and meet in the middle.

And so the Shepherd lives by his own Nature,
the Shepherd lives by Nature's Rule.

Nature rules by having no fixed rules,

transforming as needed according to seasonal change.

Nature has no rules, Nature does not rule.
The essence of Nature is to live, 
and perpetuate the cycle of life and the living.

The life of a Shepherd is to carry his integrity, 

within himself, he moves, a shepherd is a guide, 

equally across all landscape and mind scape.

His graceful inner-movements within 

make and serve to self-define his outer graces.

His exteriorized grace is a grace of a self-expressed-whole,
a self full of integrity, a self full of self-realization.

His self-recognized, spacial-harmonies border his self,
and his depth-perception is gracefully full of self-awareness.

To witness a Self full of Self-awareness 
is to behold a Self aware, of the Nature of Self.

The Shepherd is a learned guide,

he guides, he does not need,
nor does he desire a person to Rule him,
or someone to tell him what rules to live his life by.

Guides simply guide.

Guides are by their own nature self-guiding, 

Self-awareness bestows the gift of living life simply.

The Shepherd's family has been living
on this land, in this way,
long before anyone had a memory.

When my friend The Shepherd talks of home and family ...
he laughs a great deal, displaying his big-toothed grin.

He is attractive in his sincerity and humor.

He shares a great deal, 
about the nature of the first person,
to ever arrive here in these mountains -
from another world, with another world view.

This first individual, 
this someone who came here from somewhere else,
appeared before there was a clan -

preceded the clan who grew into a tribe of community.

Over the years The Shepherd's community,
along with many other communities,
broke their rules of common unity,
and became willing, yet reluctantly combative.

The community had to unmake 

then remake their common unity;
The community forced themselves

one-by-one to become unmade. 

Each individual had to learn to make peace,
Make peace with the new transformative forces of Nature -
Not the man-made forces 

exerting their power upon the community,

but Nature's seasonal forces and temporal abnormalities.

The Shepherd knows 
that no community or individual 
can control Nature -
but humans can make peace with Nature.

Making peace with Nature 
means living with no rules -
no one Rules and there are no rules.

Some humans find it difficult to make peace,
to make peace within themselves,
to make peace with Self-awareness,
to make peace with human Nature.

Each one of us has free will, 
and can choose to make peace with Self and world,
or choose to wage an inner war on personal prosperity.

To be a resistance fighter of conscious evolution is a choice.
The path of least resistance is a journey 
of less Self-terror and more Self-peace.

The Shepherd's community of individuals
one by one, each one of them, 
chose to become dedicated to preserve their humanity -

chose to be Creators and Protectors of Nature's integrity.

The community chose 

to marry their beliefs with their actions,
to honor, to have and to hold 
a sacred union with Nature.

This peopled community chose to safeguard 

humanity's precious sentient society of resources.

"The personal power of every one of us" 

is essential in a community of guides, 

whose are life's stakeholder-motto is: 

"To never get lost".

Guides do not consider themselves owners 

of the land they traverse, but consider themselves 

guardians of the land and it's resources.

Guides love the land they shepherd,

and Shepherds loves the land they guide.

Love is a choice, 
individual love,
the love of togetherness,
the love of the land,
the love of the planet,
the love demonstrated in human kindness,
the love of home, the love of family.

All individuals and communities 
eventually must choose to have love 

for their community of individuals,
and to create a common unity. 
Commonality that chooses to love choice,

Commonality that chooses to love the land you live on,

Commonality that chooses to love life, your life you live,

Commonality to love the planet we all live on.

Love for planet is the food and nourishment of a community.

Love for our planet's mothering is a love that honors immortality.

From farming fields and shepherding flocks,

each individual within The Shepherd's community,
over centuries has become engaged,
and committed to live a life of Self-preservation.

Feeding family health is more important than fighting over ill words.

Nature informs what actions are worth fighting for.
Nature introduces the forces of seasonal existence.
Nature teaches how to birth the newborn in Spring,
and bury death in the dead of Winter.

My friend, living in the Shepherding community,
lives according to 'Nature's Code of the Living';

"Love the life all around you, 
and life all around you will love you."

The Shepherd's community has a common unity ...
"Do not fight life and life will not be a battleground."

Within each individual, within any internal war,
within each neighbor, within any inner battle,
within each neighborhood, within any inner struggle,
within each community, within any inner conflict ...
the challenge is to not fight the extreme external forces,
but the challenge is to go within your Self and make peace.

Self-focus to go within to make peace within your Self.

A season veteran, The Shepherd knows
the only way to safely ride the disruptive cycles,
of long Winters and late Springs...
the only way to have victory...
move through over heated Summers 

and pass through bone chilling Autumns,
is to surrender to the common unity of Earthly love,
and to make peace with the terrestrial tendency to struggle.

Shepherds learn to ease-off on effort,
and ease-off on the controls ...
to let go of controlling and to let go of trying.

Who in the entire history of humanity
has ever controlled life's seasons?

How can the uncontrollable in life's cycles be controlled?

My friend, The Shepherd taught me life's basics.

Basically within each individual 
there is war, peace and everything in between.

Basically each one of us 
gains independent experience.

Basically each-one-of-us-individuals,
gain the ability to visualize each day independently.
Individually recognize Sheep distinctly from Shepherd,
and define the Shepherd separately from the Sheep.

Each one of us is unique, 

no two alike, to each to their own
individual personal journey of Self-recognition.

Each one getting to know,

the 'who I am' ... 
Me, I reflect 

within mySelf, 

in kind ...

me that I, 

project out into the world of Others.

I experience the 'who I am' in the 'what I know I own'.

I own my behavior I personalize, 

I own my words I use,
I own my actions I choose, 

I own my compassion I share.

I have my individual opportunity to see my personal growth,
I have my individual potential to share my personal sense of Self.

Each one of us 

individually experiences the inner resistance,
the sense of Self that senses self,
and knows the difference 
between life's thorns and flowering clarity.

My friend, The Shepherd, 

Self-reflected and so taught me by 

Reflecting back to me his Truth.

Wisdom made from Truth transformed by experiences.

Experiences willingly transformed into Wisdom.

Experiences based on Truth willing to be unmade.

Self-given Freedom to move through new experiences 

Unmakes previous Truth makes new Truth.

Unmaking the Present

bye

Letting go of the Past

bye

Visualizing a better Future

by

Love as a force of imagination.

Reimagining that which was previously imagined.

My friend, The Shepherd, 

Self-reflected and so taught me by 

Reflecting back to me his Truth:

Make personal insight visible.
Create insight to experience Self-made certainty.
Make certain my knowledge of my Self. 

Organize my inner Self in order to Self-realize outwardly.

The Shepherd leads by example,
He knows who he is, as an individual ...

Who I am.

He knows where he is, as an individual ...

Where I am.

He knows what he is doing, as an individual ...

What I am doing.
He knows what he needs to know, to care for himself.

Know I, my Self, me.
He knows each individual Sheep's need, to care for them.

Know I care.

The Shepherd observes his flock,

witnesses individual sheep.
Knows the feeling of safety and security.

Knows that if the Sheep's individual attention
is distracted from taking care,

if attention is drawn-away from giving-care to Self,

then lack of self-awareness gives less to one's Self.

Responsibly to guide others means first Shepherding your Self.

Take-care to not be distracted from first giving-care to Self.

Each Shepherd knows each Sheep smells the fear in confusion.

Each Shepherd knows any one Sheep can be distracted by fear.
Each Shepherd knows that if any one Sheep gets distracted by fear,

then each and every Sheep might become scared enough to follow.

Everyone might come to be lost in an oblivion made by choices.

Everyone comes to be lost in oblivion,

quickly every last Sheep becomes lost,

Lost by becoming an oblivion composed of unconscious choices.

In the world of the Sheep all it takes is one to stray into distraction.

A flock of Sheep can die from care-taking diversions,
distractions can divert the strength of the flock,
from peaceful-coexistence to individual perils that take life.

The danger of distractions are that they take time away
from care-taking-time needed, 
to look after the needs of Self and another.

In the mountains sure-footedness is life-affirming,

sure footedness in the journey through rough peaks,

is life-giving when you are in relationship with each foot-step.

Each step-taken moves your Self in a care-full way.

Care-taking is taking care of even the smallest details.

Vigilance in learning how to give-care is your first priority.

Each Sheep, each Shepherd, each Self, 

each and every need must first be recognized, 

to made Self-awareness is to safeguard personal ease and peace.

Love of community creates a common unity.

Common bonds of shared caring 

creates common attention to Self-awareness preservation.
Each Shepherd must care for himself and each Sheep.
Each Sheep must care-give of itself and it's Shepherd.

To ensure survival of the community, 
the common unity is love.

In-kind care-giving and giving-care to be kind, 
giving-care to love and care-giving of love.

Love is defined by not taking-trust but be trust-worthy,

and giving-care to take-care to create-more care-giving.

There is a vast difference between care-giving and care-taking,

both require paying attention to common unity of community.

Trust, caring-trust, trust-in-care-giving, being trust-worthy, 

caring-for-truth is built up over time by practice.

Repetition and frequency creates familiarity, makes familiar.

Often speaking comforting words while moving through deep valleys,

climbing the same steep hills, scaling unfamiliar mountain peaks,

and by going over the same ground more than once,

we awaken familiarity, make everything familiar, create family.

Love for life breeds familiarity, 

being familiar with life gives birth to peace.

The Sheep in turn engage with the Shepherd,

train the Shepherd how to be with them individually,
and how to be with them communally with common unity.

The Shepherd engages with Self-cultivation -
he watches, to learn and to know the Sheep's preferences.

How to be with himself and how to be with the Sheep,
to guide the Sheep, the Shepherd must first know himself.

The Shepherd engages with Self-cultivation -
he watches himself, learns to know his own preferences.

To know himself is to know how to Self-lead to create self-peace.
To be the peaceful leader of his commonly peaceful unity,
is to learn what it is like to be a peaceful leader worthy of trust,
and to be a care-giver within his own common unity of community.

My friend, The Shepherd witnesses,

when individuals fight,
within their home territories,

changes occur within the flock,

over time the number increases of individuals fighting,

and so the fight grows ...
and so the fight grows more influential ...
and so the fight grows more influential over more individuals ...
and so the fight grows more individual influence ...
and so the number increases of individuals fighting ...
and so the fight increases its power and influence over all individuals.

Each Shepherd knows if he is distracted, 

or scared into distraction, 

enough, so, he learns to practice fear,
then the Sheep come to be distracted -

become scared and fear-full of each and every step.
When each and every Sheep is scared of their next step,

then the common safety of their easy steps become broken,

then community, the common unity becomes lost in oblivion.

I asked The Shepherd about his children ...

the children living in these areas who see ...

other individuals coming here, 

individuals who live to fight, 

bring their fight among them.

Do the children simply see new individual faces ...
new bodies constantly being spirited here ...
being spirited there,
being spirited away from here ...

by forces of each individual's own undoing ...?

Do the children see each individual,
insisting that the forces which unmade them,

are forces not of their own making?

Individuals who insist that what became familiar to them,

must now become familiar to others, 

and they are here to familiarize others,

by any means necessary even by force 

into a new familiarity.

The Shepherd replies;
"I have trained my eyes, 
and my children's eyes, 
to view each individual face, 

each Sheep, as unique."

"To view each face and body as easy to see, 
to view what is new as easy to make out, 
and simple to uniquely define."

"I have trained my eyes, 
and my children's eyes, 
to look for what is simple, 
to find the simplicity in what is individually unique,
and to recognize simplicity within the individual, 
even over long distances."

The Shepherd observes;
"Humans do not often
view themselves as unique -

some humans do not know their self,
some humans do not self recognize,
some humans lose their sense of self...
some humans lose themselves ... 
not only within a large flock, 
but also with another individual.
Every human can become lost within their self."

Shepherd says;

"Sometimes Sheep are born into a flock,

importing anger and waging fights,

anger can lead to being scared, 
that fear weakens the individual Sheep, 
as well as the flock."

"Being ill at ease, 
the Sheep hosts dis-ease -
provides an environment for malady to spread,
from one individual to another,
and eventually over time the ill humor grows
to become a disease that unmakes one's own free will.

Frequent dis-ease once familiar becomes a practice of patients.

"Being ill at ease for long periods of time 
will take-over free-will and create more ill-will ...
ill-will will affect individual internal well-being."

"Free-will when angered is borne forth,
and carried over distances on a fearsome ill-wind.
Frequent wild winds create a storm of change,

they change the landscape over time.
Transform well-being into being-ill, which can spread fear."

"Fear transported transplants into new environments.
Each individual environment has its own ecosystem.

External environments once contaminated can diminish wellness.
Internal environments experiencing discomfort can become diseased.

As a Shepherd responsible to safely guide others, I have learned,

that imbalance can spread invisibly into whole flock's well being"

"Each Shepherd knows if he is distracted-to-fear,
and any one Sheep is distracted enough to become scared,
then each, every, Sheep can become scared enough to lose balance."

I tell my friends -

The Shepherd and the Sheep,
"We are all now in communion,

forming a community, a gathering,

a gathering of like-minded souls around us."

I share with my friends,

"I come in peace.
I am making peace within my own home.
I am making peace with my own body of experience.
Even though I come from afar 
the expression I wear,

within my heart and on my face,

can be viewed and felt as familiar.

Peace."

My peace can be easily recognized, 

by one Being and another,

and passed-to and passed-from each other.

Peace shared as a offering 
is Peace created as a choice. 

To first offer, you first choose.

A singular compassionate expression.
I wear my individual choices, full of peace.

I carry within myself my right, to peace.

I carry my right to share my-Self my-Peace.
I carry my right to choose my peace.

I share my Self-expression, of My-peace,
I share my own individual humanity, as peace.

The Shepherd gazes into the sky.
He views the hills.

He looks into my eyes.
I blush as he smiles.

He says.
"I have heard that birds often carry sticks in their feet.
So when they fly over large bodies of water,
they can float the twig in the oceans of our world."

"Birds create their own safe place to sit still.
A bird's wisdom knows to gather their courage

and find their strength within themselves."

"Birds know how to create their own-peace."

"When they are well content within themselves,
Birds continue their journey until they find land."

"Birds keep moving until they find a safe place to land -

a safe haven on this Earth to stay still."

"Birds shape wings by their will to be at peace."

"When Birds are spent of their energy, they rest to create peace.

Birds spent their peace, then earn more peace.

Birds know that peace is more that a respite from warring journey.

Birds know that a comfortable respite creates a peaceful continuance.

Birds use their will power to learn peace. 

Birds use their wing power to earn peace, spend peace,

and create peace to enjoy a well deserved rest."

~~ Other People's Fingerprints ~~

Sometime after 1840, 

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt 

(Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain) 

also known as Chief Joseph leader 

of the Wallowa band of Nez Perce said;

"the country was made without lines of demarcation, 

and it is no man's business to divide it." 

"It does not take may words to speak the truth."

Sometime after 384 B.C., Aristotle wrote;
“Inferiors revolt in order that they be equal,
and equals that they may be superior.”

Sometime after 1890 Charles de Gaulle said;
"We may go to the moon, but that's not very far.
 The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us."

Sometime after 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi said;
"To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious 
than that of a human being."

Sometime after 1900, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote;
“For millions of years
flowers have been producing thorns.
For millions of years
sheep have been eating them all the same.

And it's not serious,
trying to understand
why flowers go to such trouble
to produce thorns
that are good for nothing?

It's not important,
the war between the sheep and the flowers?

It's no more serious and more important
than the numbers that fat red gentleman is adding up?

Suppose I happen to know a unique flower,
one that exists nowhere in the world
except on my planet,
one that a little sheep can wipe out
in a single bite one morning,
just like that,
without even realizing what he'd doing -
that isn't important?

If someone loves a flower
of which just one example exists
among all the millions and millions of stars,
that's enough to make him happy
when he looks at the stars.

He tells himself
'My flower's up there somewhere...'
But if the sheep eats the flower,
then for him it's as if,
suddenly,
all the stars went out.
And that isn't important?”

"United" by Karin Lisa Atkinson 

Oromia, near the Sudan and Ethiopian border,

in the terraced valley of the Holy Caves of Miracle Healing Water,

Debre Libanos ደብረ፡ሊባኖስ Ethiopia 2006