Rugged Travel from Where There Be Dragons on Vimeo.

the first of a flurry of vids on their way... part of a worldwide collaboration with hundreds of individuals and dozens of communities in 14 countries... credits forthcoming!

Home-stays from Where There Be Dragons on Vimeo.

This is a year for giving:
clear-eyed, we become open-hearted.
Release tight-fisted lonelinesses
in group hugs, we encompass all our sick selves.
We surrender our wound-up and wounded insides into the earth,
the hoarded riches of our selves rushing into her warm embrace;
humbled to our knees,
vomiting and shitting out what we do not need
into ancient tunnels that take all into the sacred river
that accepts all pollution
and gives by giving up its own purity:
divinity come down down down to earth.
Likewise, we level our small selves to exhaustion
stretching ourselves thin to brittle breaking
so others may be full to brimming
and so fill our newfound emptiness grown in our expanded boundaries.
Freed from our own clutches,
we give ourselves a break, and give in to break-throughs
as we give way
to the sweet offerings of milk and smiles
we have so long denied our severe, separated and starved selves.
We give gods to ourselves, to each other,
to the caves and temples,
to the rice paddies and filthy alleys,
gods in cosmos-imbued stones and bowls and bells and paintings
and poems.

This is a year for joyfulness:
reveling in richnesses, we give the world permission to thrive.
We pardon our sad poverties for the suffering they heap upon simply being poor,
and extend a laughing hand to our haughty unhappiness, pulling it down
to roll around in the grass with us,
to smoke a joint in bed
and giddily watch the wow of the world in slow-motion.
We sit in pain and thank its power to unclench our head's fingers
from its hold on our souls,
so that we may spring rejoicing straight through our crowns
and into the ecstatic cosmos.
We dance in wild figures of eights intertwined: knots of infinities,
our feet blissfully making love with time and space
with that bee-bop ta-tha-ta dance,
with new stomp that unmakes existence as we know it
and the old drum that brings us back into the familiar beat
calling us to get back up to boogie back down,
to leap swimmingly into the air and down to the river like a homemade kite,
rejoicing in the breath of the moment
as a hungry child cries rejoicing in a mango out of season,
as a pilgrim cries rejoicing, after years of walking in exile,
in the sight of their spiritual home,
surrounded by their sisters and brothers
in that enraptured bliss born out of the blooming lotus of pain
that is holy joy.

This is a year for integrity:
becoming the change we hope for the world, we heal.
We practice what we preach, and only preach through practice.
We teach peace with every step, being imperfectly in the perfect moment:
ringing what bells still ring,
forgetting perfect offerings to perfect gods,
we know the crack that runs through everything
lets in the light which illuminates all.
We radicalize the interconnectedness of reality,
rooting down like the bodhi,
calmly stretching like her branches;
rhizoming out-up-in like ginger,
infusing our metabolic movement with his nodal energy.
We cognize, recognize, decognize and dive in to dissolve
those manifold manifestations of the multiverse
and find the buddha within as she smiles
in the passing stranger, praying and cursing,
in the filthy child with outstretched hand,
a hand asking to be held, a voice asking for change,
eyes demanding change,
presence requiring to be held in the same world as palaces for dead kings.
We contemplate,
we caress,
we cry out in yearning to integrate,
and slowly, with the care and calm of walking meditation,
of being held by the branches of aerially rooted trees,
of feeling out kora around high transcendence-striving temples,
we become whole.

Dragons Global Video Project

First fruits of my travels in Asia, and collaborations with good people worldwide... more to come!

This video was created entirely with images, words, and music recorded by Dragons students and instructors in collaboration with local communities (representing 15 countries) who shared their homes, temples, villages, families, music and presence with us. Over 100 contributors from around the world conspired to weave together the poetry and magic of this experimental collaboration, "Where There Be Dragons' Global Video Project."

Where There Be Dragons is a community of educators with the collective aim to guide authentic, rugged and profound cross-cultural experiences that expose the beautiful and complex realities of the developing world.

http://www.wheretherebedragons.com

More videos to come soon. If you've been on a Dragons program, stay tuned for an open invitation to send in your (past, present, future) videos to contribute and participate in this ongoing project. If you want to know more about Dragons, visit www.wheretherebedragons.com to learn about who we are, what we do, and why we do it.

IMAGES filmed by (in order of appearance):
India, Tibet, China, Nepal, Thailand, Bolivia, Peru - Mateo Hinojosa
Silk Road, China - McKay Barrow
Laos, Cambodia, China - Caleb Brooks
Burma, China - Stew Motta
Morocco - Allanna Hearn
Burma - Kara Wong
Guatemala - Juan Salvador Galich
Indonesia - Aaron Slosberg
Peru - Annelies Hamerlinck
Rwanda - Jamie Persons
Rwanda - Ariana DeToro-Forlenza
Jordan - Sarah Hay
Jordan - Paul Fean
Nepal - Amrit Ale

MUSIC created by: Art Vandelay (Andes and Amazon 2010)
FLUTE played by: Zach Sirotkin (Himalayan Studies, 2012)
SITAR and TABLA: Ravindra Goswami, Ram Chandra Pandit, Narendra Mishra, Kishore Mishra
VOICES singing: the children of Ale Gau Elementary School, Nepal

VOICES reflecting:
China Princeton bridge year - Yun-Yun Li
China South of the Clouds - Eli Rosenthal, Chloe Larkin, Jihelah Greenwald, Alexis Cheney
SE Asia Mekong semester - Sami Burke, Allyson Quigley, Cody Barnes, Lindsey Kelley
Himalayan Studies semester - Madison Shankle, Nicholas Gredin, Soffe Watson

STUDENTS and INSTRUCTORS appearing* and collaborating:
Bolivia:
Henry Casserly*

Burma:
Nathaniel Aron
Katherine Blenko
Zoe Ettinger
Katie Fee
Marley Forest
Irene Garcia
Abigail hester
Erik Janson
Margaret Leshner
Alexandra Lovaas
Grey Martin-Buhrdorf
Ye Thao

Cambodia:
Jack Betz
Jacob Binzen
Grace Cawdrey
Cooper Feltes
Michele Ferrari
Juliana Heffern
Andrea Herrera
Charles Myers
Julia Rosenheim
Catherine Von Holt
Andrew Wofford

China:
Eliza Browning*
Alexis Cheney*
Evan Gastman*
Jihelah Greenwald*
William Hallett
Chloe Larkin*
Kira Tebbe
Eli Rosenthal*
Talia Brooks-Salzman
Rachel Chen
Justin Kierskey*
Sara Galvin
Stew Motta*

Guatemala:
Zach Ashley*

India:
Thomas Denenberg*
Sean Fentress*
Nicholas Gladstone*
Eva Horner*
Lucky Jackson*
Cecelia Jeffrey*
Maya Katz-Ali*
Sarah Knapp*
Julia Reichard*
Natalia Shevin*
Jenna Spitzer*
Elizabeth Teach*
Eleanor Tremayne*
Matthew Collaciello-Williams*
Elizabeth Johnson
Bantu Pandey*

Indonesia:
Emily Armstrong*
William Brokaw*
Eliza Culhane*
Peter Foster*
Lauren Harper*
Naya Herman*
Alyssa Isabelle*
Lyda Langford*
Olivia Rothberg*
Cassidy Schultz*
Scout Vernon*

Jordan:
Emma Lister*
Leo Lou*
Franscis Balken*
Olivia Markbreiter*
Marshall Surowiec*
Justin Vogel*
Brendan Powell*
Forrest Stone*

Laos:
Cody Barnes*
Sampor Burke*
Henry Copeland*
Solara Farquhar*
Thacher Hoch*
Lindsey Kelley*
Benjamin Pratt*
Allyson Quigley*
Oliver Rock*
Caleb Brooks*
Sarah Galvin*
Jesse Millet*

Morocco:
Alex Ding*
Jackson Kenna
Anna Klink
Benjamin Marrow
Deina Mejia
Amber Nielsen
Sharon Shuppe

Nepal:
Laura Aldridge*
Emily Alford*
Hayley Drury
Maya Fielder*
Nicholas Gredin*
Morgan Mamon
Anna Medina*
Amara Ames
Charles Nunziato*
Emily Tatro*
Sebastian Vasquez*
Japhy Dhungana*
Hillary Sites*
Gavin Turner
Madison Shankle*
John Wyrough*
Andrew Billson*
Joshua Kohnstam*
Soffe Watson*
Margaret Sears*
Emily Fields*
Stacey Morris*
Zachary Sirotkin*
Christine Lifton
Amrit Ale
Germaine Bartlett-Graff
Derek Shephard*

Peru:
Jamie Whalen*
Annelies Hamerlinck

Rwanda:
Cameron Barker
Isabel Castellanos
Bermeley Ferreras*
Finn Freymann*
Oumourumana Jalloh*
Gerardo Jauregui*
Calum McGuckin*
Dilsy Mendez
Alice Woods
Ariana DeToro-
Jamie Persons*

Silk Road:
Jack Rosenberg*
Roger Mittnacht*
Robert Hutchins*

Thailand:
Alyssa Li*

Where are all the people at?

mostly in Indian subcontinent and E China, it appears...

source

Mi tesis de maestría

Expandiendo la percepción de lo posible - la intervención en espacios públicos en el documental

when they ask me
(or godforbid when They ask me)
what exactly I'm doing just standing there
where I should be circulating and going about my business,
I just tell them:
I'm watching rabbits who are listening to me...
epa! there they went, you just missed them!

Counting breath instead of minutes

Counting breath instead of minutes,

air flows infinite

as you sit in it

adjusting mind to spirit.

Epics-to-be sling hooks of hope

at mind's great tapestry;

the feeble weave of consciousness

unravels, sends its threads into cosmos.

Currents electric like Northern Lights

carry crackle of deep-night sparkle,

the bright cackal of glee in silent dark peace:

it isn't me, I'm all, empty.

Mi último videito, de una nueva novela argentina (muy recomendada). Jugando con voces, sonidos y fotos.

Another Rebirth

There was, as there always is,

the Fiery Moment:

You burst into flames

at the sight of the Angel of Death

when she walked in what was your front door,

pointed at you, then out at the wide wild world.

Your denial died as you drowned in her eyes

and saw your long-time love in need

of more than you now provide.

Then, the Time of Reeling:

stumbling, stunned, eyes drowning

in the haze, mind ablaze,

the Angel now came cruel.

You clutched at your chest (of fool's gold)

as her claws sank deep,

tearing away hard-won hopes and fears - more fuel for the reblooming fire

And then, when all was burnt into past, the Time of Ash:

in you and about you, all fell apart

and you let the pieces lie,

let wind and passersby scatter the bits of you

in the land you once called home, held as your own,

and bit by irretrievable bit, you let it all go,

grieving the lost soul.

You would have walked away to see fairer horizons...

but neither your legs nor your eyes had survived.

Finally, the Time to be Fallow:

pure presence of emptiness

patience

stillness

surrender.

First you harden, then slowly, selectively soften,

yielding to layers of ash,

inhaling new nutrients.

Your deep earth gathers unto itself fertility

for another rebirth.

maybe you thought that you'd decide

that there would be plans to understand

but forget free will or saving your hide

the world is taking you for a ride

don't despair though, soul's on your side

you've got the wiles, wares and spirit

to do it, to see your way though it

to let the path find your feet and then move it

you've go the let go to let the need flow

to let the dead breathe some grow into seeds you know

to give earth to future whispering come now and grow

you may not know how but listen

just listen

dismembered

This steady hand belies dancing feet
skipping over rug pulled from under me
this serene smile hides a tortured heart
feeling the fabric of life being torn apart

and

yet... the whirling dispersal of the tatters
frame (and so reveal) what really matters:
not-so-far-off land to steward, love and trust,
earth whose form gives steps to this wild dance,
in spite of us

and

so... let me relax as the Earth quakes and cracks
let me flow as I lose track of rhythm and rhyme
and am dismembered from this place and time
to be remembered not as face but as deed
there where the whirl of the world deems fit to fill a need

video por / video by:
Mateo Hinojosa - sidestreetproductions.blogspot.com
Felipe Guerrero

música por:
Art Vandelay - música gratis / free music - soundcloud.com/art-vandelay-productions

info:
estilolibrearg.com.ar/

1 / 1 / 2012

oh Uruguay

I don’t know if we’re at the beginning of the end

but still I want to learn…

let me start by bowing to your humility, to

your satisfied gaze across oceans which you have not ruined

over continents you aren’t trying to conquer

you calmly offer me yerba mate so I may sip your same elixir

sharing without fear that I might contaminate you with my diseases...

yes, I'm ill, sick with fright that my people will kill the world,

stressed into a knot that I am powerless to stop the apocalypse

that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing...

yet convinced that I, we, need to do-not-doing:

imagine the world revolution if all our politicians, bankers, activists, teachers, welders, trash collectors and soldiers were able to sit and meditate on the air that enters and exits their permeable, impermanent bodies

if we could all just gift ourselves a month to be at peace on the Uruguayan coast.