First, shadows.

Hello, all!

I've missed posting for the last couple weeks because I was on vacation in Japan. Quick rehash: I had a great trip in which I got to stay with one of my best friends in Kawagoe (outside of Tokyo), climb Mt. Fuji, visit shrines and temples in Karakura, do karoke in one night Tokyo, let a Japanese family dress me up in a yukata, and even visit co-blogger Martin in Kyoto. There will be pictures and more blogging to follow, but I wanted to comment on the first topic that happened while I was gone, shadows, because I had two pretty great experiences with them while I was in Japan.

In Kyoto, I visited several different shrines and temples, but my favorite was Kyomizu-dera. As I wandered the expansive grounds here and tried to avoid the busloads of tour groups, I happened across a little man holding a grainy picture of a rock next to a flight of steps leading underground. He explained in broken English that I could pay 100 yen to walk through a dark path until I found this rock and, once I did, I could place my hands on it and any wish I made would come true. Well, that's worth 100 yen to me, so I took off my shoes and paid up. 'Keep your left hand on this railing here,' he told me, leading me to the stairs, and I headed down. At first, I was holding a smooth, normal railing and could see well enough from the light coming down from the stairs. But then, after a few twists and turns, the railing turned into circular knobs that made me think of Buddhist prayer beads, and the pathway got completely dark. I mean, my eyes were making up their own images, dark. It reminded me of visiting caves in Georgia as a kid when the tour guide would turn off the lights to show us how dark darkness can really be. My face passed through a curtain that made me gasp quite loudly. I continued walking along and began to feel panicked-- "what the hell was I doing? here I was, in a foreign country, all by myself, and I paid some guy to let me go down into a dark hole? I'm not even wearing shoes! Who knows where I'll end up! I'm just wandering defenseless through some twisting cave? I could fall down a shaft and end up for sale in China! I can't even see where I am!!" But I kept walking, pressing my hand over that railing one bead at a time, stepping slowly in my socks. Eventually, I realized, "you know, I may end up in China. But I'll just have to deal with that when it comes. There's no use panicking about it right now where there's nothing to do. Just keep walking, keep following these beads, and let's just see where you end up." I felt relief, calm spread over me. I took a few deep breaths and another step. Suddenly, to my left, a soft shaft of light appeared, shining directly on the face of a huge granite boulder, grey and unpolished except for a zen circle and some Japanese characters engraved on the top. I followed the beads over and rested my hands on it-- even then I could only see my hands, not even my wrists, in the darkness. I was so moved by this that I actually started to cry a little. After "making my wish," I found the beads again that lead me around one short turn and back suddenly into the light, and the spell was broken.

The other experience I had with shadows deserves a picture. I mentioned that I climbed Mt. Fuji. This involved me joining a Japanese tour group (oops, thought it was English-speaking!) and starting our climb at noon on Monday. We climbed until evening when we stopped at a rest house for some food and a few quick hours of sleep. Then, at 2am, we got up again and climbed the rest of the way up the mountain so we could see the sunrise from the top, above the clouds. There are lots of stories with this but, for the sake of abbreviating this already long post, I'll just mention that after sunrise me and a few other people walked around the volcano's crater to the west side, which is the highest point and actual peak. Here, I was able to see this:



The shadow of Fuji-san on the top of clouds. Incredible.

Ok, I'm already late for work, so more later from me. I know I have a lot of catching up to do!

missed my post

sorry folks,
i'm moving this week, so i think that's a good enough reason for being late on the shadows topic - which is an easy one for me, although significantly different from all the other posts. here's my shadow:




he's 3 years old and he was rescued off the streets of escondido, ca with his sister when they were about 4 months old. he never quite got used to any humans besides us (there are about four other people who have ever seen him) but to us he is mister demanding. he'll stalk right up to us and demand petting in the squeakiest meow i've ever heard, and he loves people food. he is currently chasing a moth around the apartment. go shadow!

Ploem

Here's a poem in which I tried to use the theme of shadows. It needs some work.

THE THINGS WE OWN AND THE THINGS WE WISH TO OWN

At the gas station before dawn the moths
are huge. The size of dinner plates. Wings
like a paper doll project. Bright colors. Non-
aerodynamic. Gets your heart racing. In a bad
way. So get back in the car already. I told you
this wasn't the sort of place we should stop.
There is still a hum on the air. Something high
pitched. The shadow of the earth crept up on
us somehow. The radio only plays gospel
stations. And even they're not coming in clear.
The CD player broke miles ago. Not that we
could agree on the albums. Above Atlanta
the hills swallowed the major highways. So
suddenly there were curves and even the small
light the stars gave was gone. A runaway mine
cart. The pedals too far from our feet. And then
the hum. It could be power lines if there were
any power lines. It could be cicadas but the only
living things we've seen are the moths and the gas
station attendant. Sometimes the body is at
home in shade. Other times it's a razored snare.
Reason to feathers. When we see a rest area
we will sleep, O, Charon. O, stream of blood.

King of the Shadows

“Even shadows die sometime”, Gabe thought, “when the sky is moonless, void of light - they die”. He snuffed out his cigarette and then chided himself for indulging in his apparent desire to be a 16 yr old goth kid. There was a task at hand, and this was no time for philosophizing, - if you could call it that. Or was it? Death had always brought out his inner Socrates, Kant or Nietzsche.

He hefted the gun in his hand, relishing the weight, the power inherent within. How many times had he used this thing? “Maybe we become the shadows when we die.” If that was so, it wasn’t much of a change of existence for the people he had “taken care of”. People living on the edge of true existence - they were there, visible, but were rarely noticed until night came, and were suddenly transformed into instruments of fear, making their true forms known and causing havoc with others. During daytime they retreated to dark crevices, or were largely ignored by the population, used to seeing them day in and day out.

If that were true, what would happen to him when he died? If he became a shadow too, these people, monsters, could torture him for making them that way. Or he could be relegated to king, out of gratitude for liberating them, freeing them from the shackles of a corporeal body. King of the Shadows. He knew about enslavement himself, but that would all change in a matter of moments. Tonight he was freeing himself from his damned life.

Gabe put his gun against the right temple. The sensation took him back to the beginning of this whole - mess. The flood of emotions - the fear, the hatred, the overwhelming melancholy - made his hand shake, and he lowered the gun, afraid if he took a shot now, he’d miss, and damn himself further.

He took a breath, and resumed the gun’s position. He had to take control of his life now, and this was the only way he saw possible.


He closed his eyes, and braced himself as he pulled the trigger.



The light was blinding, but as Gabe wiped the blood from his hands, he felt he was finally free from his life as a hit man, and free from living in the dark, the world of shadows - for now.

******************************************************************

Ok - sorry if this was a bad and self-indulgent post - it's just the only thing I could think of. I'm not going to be back on a regular schedule until next week, and hopefully then they'll be better. At least I posted on the day I was supposed to this time.

The shadow army, the shadow government

How much do you know about government contractors? I suspect that it might not be all that much - hell, turns out the US government isn't all too sure how many government contractors there are, what they're doing, or how much they're getting paid. Doesn't sound too great now does it?

Before I cop out and post two links to some VERY informative and interesting podcasts on the topic, here's my two cents: A while back, I wrote about my experiences as a government employee. My job was to conduct background investigations on government employees and contractors in need of security clearance. Many contractors were also hired to conduct background investigations. They were doing the same job I was doing, only they got paid based on how many cases they closed. Do you really think that quantity over quality is a good thing in this scenario? And does it surprise you that this was happening under the Bush administration with all it's tough on terror, strong on security rhetoric? Oh, the hypocrisy.

Anyway, I'm running late this morning, so I shall leave you with two podcasts to which you absolutely must listen:

The Rise of Blackwater USA (the shadow army of the US)

Government Contractors (the shadow government of the US)

America the great and what's lurking in the shadows

Well howdy doody there cats and kittens, thiseehere blog might be a day late and a dollar short but hopefully its at least enough to get you all through a cup of coffee or whatever it is you drink over there in your own respective areas of the world. I had a lot of trouble getting up the nerve to actually admit all the things I love about America, but here I finally am, perhaps mostly because it is my turn to post the topic for this week as well and I don't want to keep you people waiting too long.

Letssssssseeeeee... America. Yup pretty much I like being in the mountians, in the ocean, or somewhere dodging bullets if I'm back in the states. The last part was a lie. I've never dodged a bullet in my life. By the way, I'm writing this on like 3 hours of sleep and not nearly enough coffee to sustain any kind of logical thought process. But as it were, I do like the fact that Americans generally don't beat around the bush as much as people living in some other countries *ahem* Japan *ahem*. I do miss my friends, family, and the openness of being able to walk up to some random people on the street and strike up a conversation, but the better my Japanese becomes the more opportunities I have to do just that and am able to make more friends here, so even that is perhaps only a matter of being accustomed. But I also miss smalltalk. Like little quips about whateverthehell when you're at work. But that might be something I love about English and not particularly America.

Anyway, thats about all I've got to say about that.

Now for the topic of the week, which can be taken as literally or as figuratively as you want. The topic is shadows. I'm going to post a longer blog about it later this week but I'm interested to see what everyone has to say about shadows, be it their own or the ones cast over them, the shadows of lingering memories, of love, the literal shade of an oak on a scorching summer day. Just write about shadows. And let it roll out of you like the nothing.

Peace.