South Pacific Ocean 1989: Focus, To Be Transparent Within, After Birth, Before Death

I am the Daughter of Troubled Sleep, 

Hine-maki-moe.

Beauty surrounds me 

as the cargo boat arches 
as the waves swell.

I feel Te Kore-rawea, 

the Delightful Void, 
rock me to sleep -

communicating 
via heavenly stars 

to talk me through the night.

My armed guardians 
of the sky 

are on twinkle alert 
to watch over me,

from their high vantage point 

they sound a caution to the winds,

and whisper encouragement to me 

to keep my imagination alive.

I dream 
that I dwell 
within the empty Space 

that produces the atmosphere above us –

from the Nothing, 

the amplification from the Nothing, 

the abundance

and the power of increasing -

The Living Breath that dwells within, 

my empty Space.

In the beginning there was Nothing, 

Po, Te Kore –

Te Kore-tua-tahi the First Void 

without light, heat or sound;

chaos without form or motion, 

gradual vague stirrings 
that began Within –

the Nothing of light 

intercoursing with darks 

producing heat and moisture.

An entanglment of relationships 

within Te Kore-tua-rua, the Second Void,

and Te Kore-nui, the Vast Void, 

That sounded substance and form.

Vibratory elements interacting 

creating a swell of unpossessed thoughts –

from thought the remembrance; 

from remembrance the consciousness, 

the intention and desire.

Te Ao-marama, the Bright Day, 

so resistant to leave, 
smears the sky in a dance

with Te Po-terea, the Drifting Night, 

who wants day brushed away.

Te Po, the Night, 

hurries in to paint the sky 
into evening shades

by dipping its brush 
into the Wellness 

of Te Kore-roa, the Far-Extending Void.

Under the moon 
the cold wind stiffens me 

as I lay on my back staring into Nothing.

I watch the starlight disappear 

each time I pitch with the roll of the ship.

Te Po-teki , the Hanging Night appears.

The Moaning Night of Te Po-whamha 

sounds me Wide, Awake.

I feel for my back, 

pressured numb 

from the wooden deck slats,

the form shipping my ribcage across the Ocean
the wooden bars of my cradle, 

when pressed against me checker 

a labyrinth of patterns into my sleep.

I am Begat to Become, 

a thought on a game board ready for play –

a feminine knight 
contained within the opacity 

and thickness of my own skin.

I am a watery sack 

moving around the transformational field,

the swishing and sloshing 

Begets me my transparency.

I become a remembrance, 

a filament of the four directions 

as elemental as earth, water, fire, air and ether
Within my sound Conception 
into thinned skinned colour,
into lightness of being clear through -

I am a focused beam of transmission, 
designed to be transparent 
Within, after birth, before death.

~~ Other People's Fingerprints ~~
In 1883 Gubran Khalil Gibran 
was born in Ottoman Syria,
and he died in 1931 in New York City.
The period in between life and death he created 
a book called The Prophet.
His sounds were published in 1923, he wrote them, they read;

“The sea that calls all things unto her calls me,
and I must embark. For, to stay,
though the hours burn in the night,
is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould.
Fain that I take with me all that is here. But how shall I?
A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that give it wings.
Alone must it seek the ether.
And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.”

Image Credit: Karin Lisa Atkinson "Self Portrait, Star Gazing, South Pacific"

Viti Levu, Fiji Islands 1989: Restore Your Conscious Appetite for Self-Knowledge

Heaven on Earth, as above so it is below.

In town the smells of the open air market 
lead me straight to a nice lady of India ancestry,

who takes great pleasure 
in my insatiable compliments of her cooking.

The Lady of the Market blesses me, 
and shows me her baskets of spices,

then teaches me to make aloo samosa -
a deep-fried turnover stuffed with potato.

She somehow knows it was my favorite food 
when I lived in Toronto -
so she stuffs my face with her cooking -

occasionally tugging at my cheeks 
to see if they are full – 
or can become fuller.

My Lady of the Market tells me not to leave 
until my food is finished.
She is glad to have a customer, 
with nowhere to go in a hurry, 
with whom she can share her opinion,

of the latest political coup two days ago,
as well as the history of Fiji’s India population.

I gladly swallow anything she offers me -
her food, her stories and my digestion deepens
as I listen to her perception of the divergent histories 
of the Native Fijians, Fijian Moslems and Fijian Hindu citizens.

As I witness her story, I notice -
all the food stalls and stores 
are Indian owned and operated.

To balance my perspective I ask -
what economic conditions support 
the Native Fijian population?

The Lady of the Market blesses me with an answer,
her reply is an extended history lesson

of the epic effects of spices on the human body and mind-
She says;
"To live a balanced life you must know,
how to ground and make fresh curry daily."

She takes my hand, 
and guides me to feel 
the textures of the ginger, garlic, chiles,
coriander, cumin, and mustard seeds.
Presence is required for creating a meal.

She asks me to observe the colours,
and then close my eyes and smell the world ...

inhale the colours and textures ...
be present, with the aroma of tamarind, turmeric, 
saffron, red, pink, green and black pepper.

She explains to whoever is listening ...
in order to take good care 
of our bodies of emotion, mind and spirit –

we must pay attention to the wealth of food on this planet -

and be grateful for how it gives the gift of vitality,
and nourishes our lives daily.

Humans are dried up within, without clean water.
Humans are wasted, within without pure energy.

Our good Lady of the Market shares her world of the spices;
"All beings voyage,
a cosmic quest of the world and beyond ...
starting from the point of Panchabhuta the five elements.
According to Indian mythology 
there are various types of fires. 
The four important internal and external fires are 
fire of the earth, fire of the sky, fire of the stomach, 
and the fire on Earth we commonly use to complete actions.
Fire of the stomach is the power to be hungry,
and digest all things related to the food of life forces.
First, humans must try to understand the five elements
which are Earth or Pritvia; Water or Jal;
Fire or Agni; Air or Vayu, and Ether or Akasha.

Each of these Five elements has its own character, 
and celestial elements - 
which within everyone, 
everyone engages with, in their own life.
Our Panchabhuta five elements manifest,
in an enjoining manner to form our life force, 
and then, later, our five elements disintegrate -
to ensue a celestial traverse at our atom level.
All aspects of life are made and unmade, 
made to be unmade and unmade to be made again.

Universe in one Heart, multiverse within and without.

Our good Lady of the Market relates; 
"Spices are important

to the religious life of the Hindus, 
and according to ancient stories told, and in books,

spices affect the balance and harmony of the body’s temperature.

Fennel, cloves and green cardamom are known as “cool spices”,

and take body heat away during the steaming hot months of summer.

“Warm spices” like bay leaves, black cardamom, cinnamon, 
ginger powder, mace, nutmeg and red pepper -
generate internal body heat, so are eaten in winter cold weather.

During sacred marriage ceremonies, 
in the part of India where her ancestors are from,

the wedding banquet is offered to the spirit which protects life,

and must include eleven sacred elements 
of rice, sandalwood, betel nuts and leaves, 
turmeric, coconut, bananas, sweets, fruit, 
holy grass and holy water –

to ensure the goodwill of the spirits of creation 
including Sun, Earth, Moon, water, thunder and wind.

Our good Lady of the Market thinks it is funny, 

that I am from Canada, 

because an India born philosopher

name Kashyapa, later called Kanada, 

is credited with having propounded 

the concept of atom for the first time.

Kanada believed that atom was indestructible,

a particle of matter of the material universe made up of Kana.
Kanada felt that when matter is divided and subdivided,

we reach a stage beyond which no division is possible -

the indivisible element of matter is Parmanu ...

indivisible, indestructible, 

and yet not sensed through any human organ.

I sneeze 
as the wind blows salt 
from the ocean into my face
and red pepper up my nose.
My senses load 
the harmonic magic of chemistry 
held fast in the heart of female ancestry.

Our good Lady of the Market 
fed my internal balance ...
I am full of her food
and nourished by her sharing her wisdom.
Now, she leans over her spices 
and whispers more wisdom into my ear ...

"Start listening to your five elements, 
you have the power to hear Ether Akasha,
and all sounds man-made or otherwise -
You must ... you must ... if you want to ...
restore your conscious appetite 
for expanded Self-knowledge".

~~ Other People's Fingerprints ~~
In 1989 when he won the Nobel Peace Prize,
The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso shared;
“No matter what part of the world we come from,
we are all basically the same human beings.
We all seek happiness and try to avoid suffering.”

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"Light Curves" by Karin Lisa Atkinson

"Goddess of Water" by Karin Lisa Atkinson

Polynesia Society Islands 1989: Trust in the Moment. Moment by Moment Nobility, Illuminates That Within

In Polynesia death is represented as a journey,
crossing a body of water, a river or ocean.

Reunion comes 
with family and friends gone before, 
who chant welcome 
to commemorate 
the arrival of the latest,
to pass from our shores.
Those who pass over from this path of life.
Those who pass on 
between the two worlds,
that may be traveled 
in either direction.

Voyagers emerge,
who have left 
the physical dimension behind -

the arrival of strangers from the sea
is fortuitous and welcomed.
The sea is the ocean of life.

Traveling via the seas, 
like ancestors before me,
I create a ritual 
to celebrate the celestial map above me.
The joy of seeing the work of ages 
reflected beyond me, 
and mirrored below 
underneath me. 
In the sea I see
the shining illumination of the stars.
It is as if the galactic heavens 
are mirrored on each universal planet,
and our earth life is reflected back as stars in our cosmos.

I am above everything on the surface, neutrality is harmony.

The peace of the ocean’s face is rippled by wind gusts. 
Gentle kisses blown at pink, black and white coral reefs,
whose noses poke out over the turquoise water’s facade.

Soldierfish and Swordfish aggress
the musical wake of Angelfish and Harpfish.

Butterflyfish and Parrotfish are buoyant 
a chorus of humour that keeps our world afloat.

Gold breaks the clouds 
into vessels of mystic gems 
reflecting onto billowing surf.

A ray of sunlight illuminates my hands 
as I turn the pages of my book.

I read a tale of Maui, a Polynesian trickster ...
and cultural hero whose actions accidentally,
or otherwise, undid the efforts of others.

Maui was a rebel, 
a seducer and toppler of established hierarchies.

He flaunted the conventions of strict social order 
and the customs of tapu (taboo).

He represented the power of the weak over the mighty -

the commoner, and outcast, over the privileged.

Maui is the instigator of change 
in present-day circumstances ...

youthful fearlessness ...
daring to swim the depths of darkness,
lit only by the illusionary, still, surface, moonlight.

I read another Oceanic story 
recounting praise for the untold mothers,

whose maternal genetics are inherited 
from thousands of years of motherhood.

It says, 
"Our souls walk into bodies forming within our mothers,

our bone is from her bone, our blood is from her blood –

our atomics, cellular and DNA are the inherited life experiences 
of our ancestors ... sounds, smells, tastes, touch and sight."

These words relate the sounds of the all-encompassing, 
our sound of our world forming.
I read on, 
"First within there was movement 
omnipresent sound, colour and light".

I feel the textures of our tapestry eternally weaving 
backward and forward into infinity -

the entangled knitting of our origins,
within our actions that sew us together.

Prophetically, all the planet’s children 
are a mended lineage encircling the edge.

We children traverse the threshold, 
to end the cycle of humanity demonstrating destructivity.

This story describes 
the mystics,
who hold the power of being, 
the feminine,
who returns to light up the planet,
the citizens 
with instinctive intuition.
These great mothers 
are called guiding lights,
Souls that appear in clouds
as full moons sailing 
to the people of the earth ...
to show them how to embody 
the feminine grace of the unimaginable.

By practicing 
trust in the moment -
moment by moment nobility
is illuminated 
in the spirit of our toils.
Practicing trust in the moment -
moment by moment nobility,
illuminates That within.

~~ Other People's Fingerprints ~~
Sometime after 1709, Dr. Samuel Johnson said;
“Nothing will ever be attempted,
if all possible objections must first be overcome …”

"Sea Space Light Matrix" by Karin Lisa Atkinson