a i m l e s s

Deep within the jungle of my unconscious mind a long-limbed spider monkey swings from the rafters of a bamboo hut.  Fueled by frustration she erratically sways from one beam to the next.  Her fingers and tail powerfully grip the smooth bamboo poles.  Her graceful movements tell a story.  First soft and steady, syncopated rhythms resound.  Without notice, she accelerates, becomes flailing, vicious, and violent.  She embodies the chaos of the spinning swirling infinite abyss, hands feet and tail blindly reaching for anything solid, teeth bared, voice wavering between shrieking and screaming.

She realizes she isn’t alone.  She focuses her frenzied assault.  Open hands become fists, tail becomes a whip, feet become cannon balls.  Every swing is a hold-your-breath-you-just-might-make-it… miss.  Spinning round and round this round bamboo room, whirlpooling the air, unable to leave, unable to breathe.  Her screams pierce the air.  In time they are reduced to hoarse grumbles.  The sheer effort is too much, she tires quickly.  Her movements falter, she moves as if through jello, thoroughly exhausted.  She finds stillness, cries, slumps into a pile of defeated furry limbs and tears.

This monkey isn’t real, you know.  She’s just a figment of my dream-self.  She embodies how I dealt with that heartache, I owe her my happiness.  Up until she came to me in a dream, I had different ways of dealing with pain.  I would curl in the kitchen cabinets when the monster was after me.  I would spend all night running away, hiding away, unaware that there was another option.
My monkey spirit taught me well.  She told me to speed through the hurt.  Accelerate.  Cry all the tears as they come, speak the words with the thoughts, move my body whenever and however it needed.  Dance it out.  Kick and scream, just like the toddlers do.  Have a tantrum, fully exhaust myself, and then fully surrender.  (Just like yoga class.)  The calm after the storm was buzzing with awareness and new realizations.

Inner wisdom whispered her secrets during those quiet dewy mornings.  Acceptance met my acquaintance, jealousy and fear left the building.  I embraced the hurt, I accepted it, and I learned that speeding through the dark allows me to live in the light.

And in the light is where I plan to stay.

The stars poke holes in the blackest night sky.  Ideas about self-empowerment, beauty in the breakdown, and dancing mercilessly into the void shine through.  The stars appear united from behind.  One cohesive blinding light.  Justice, love, truth manifested.  They poke holes in our being, our utter blackness, our own singular point, our void.

The night sky would hold no importance to me, no beautiful poetic narrative, if it weren’t for the stars.  These pieces of truth that manage to squeeze their way through pin-sized holes in the great abyss.  Moments like these, these points of clarity, are what makes ‘it all’ worth it.

The dark includes the twinkling stars, full of possibility.  Inseperable.  ONE.  Dualism is a way to reflect this universal truth into our earthly paradigm.  We often take the unknowable apart, and simplify the bits to fit our cultural commonalities.  Although divided, the story is reunited in daily acts.  Reunited in our full collective unconscious.  Memory soup.

Gazing up at the night sky on this very evening has allowed me a moment’s glimpse of the ‘one hearted way.’  I am inspired to more fully understand, to know it in my bones, to sow my seeds in it, to breath it, and become a living representation of it.

Actually,  we probably already have.  We probably already are.

Meet Amy.  Hilarious, compassionate, beautiful blue-eyed, inappropriate and strong Amy.  We met in Korea, in case you didn’t remember.  We re-met in Cambodia, Nepal, and India… our paths purposely crossing to co-create a world of adventure and trouble.

Amy is the yin to my yang.  We trade ham for radishes at meals,and trade stories about farting afterward.  She’s always up for any ridiculous and spontaneous adventure.  Together, all things feel right.

All things, save for a few ‘incidents’ that we knew we’d laugh at once they were through.

“Fan death” is Korean folklore.  Even the most educated Koreans believe that if you sleep in a room with the fan on and windows closed, you will die in your sleep.  Although it makes no sense, it terrifies most Korean people.  We always laughed at the idea of fan death, up until recently.

A few nights back, we found ourselves in a three-bed room with a steel fan that didn’t oscillate.  Since I had the center bed, I figured it only fair that the fan point at me.  Both Amy and our Canadian NGO friend agreed, and we passed out.  I awoke in the middle of the night to a cold shiver.  Too much fan.  In the dark, I couldn’t see the switch to turn the damn thing off.  Instead, and with a smirk of trickery, I turned the fan full blast at her and then jumped back into bed.  I fell immediately, deeply, and comfortably asleep.

I awoke again to Amy frantically asking me how to turn on my headlamp.  I caught a shimmer of something dark covering the palm of her hand as I flicked the button to turn the lamp on.  “AMY!” I screamed, realizing that the shimmer was actually blood dripping down her fingers, flowing over her palm and making a beautiful waterfall down her right wrist.  “What happened!!??”

We rushed her over to the sink to see the damage.  Amy had attempted to find the switch to the fan as I had.  Only, she somehow managed to get the tip of her pinky caught in the wire and gashed her finger open pretty bad.  We applied pressure, neosporin, and multiple band-aids.  She said it hurt a ton.

The next morning we called for a taxi to take us the last leg of our journey to our current home in Nicaragua, InanItah.  Amy was enamored by the tiniest baby monkey on a chain at the hostel.  As we sat to take some pictures, a big mean monkey crept out from behind the tree and began leaping full force, teeth bared, straight for Ames.  Luckily, his chain was just a centimeter short.  He bounded back to the tree multiple times, finally gripping hold of her hair with his tail.  He just barely reached her sparkly bracelet with his front hand.  Amy, not wanting it to break, let her hand move with the maniacal monkey.  His big incisors made contact with her thumb flesh.  Like a clamp, he bit down, not letting go for a few seconds.

The next few minutes passed in a daze.  I didn’t realize the magnitude of the bite, and we concentrated our efforts on collecting the special beads from the debris beneath the tamarind tree.  Tico, the monkey, wouldn’t give up.  He continued to spin-kick towards Amy, levitating between the chain on the tree and her bangs.  Like a mean monkey hammock.

The owner came out to see the commotion.  In just a few seconds Tico was curled in his arms like a baby.  Schizophrenic monkey perhaps?  He explained that Tico spent most of his years defending his life with razor blades in cock fights.  He was trained to kill, and this innate reaction wasn’t his fault.  The small sign near the tree read, “Ouch!  Monkey Bites!”  This didn’t deter Amy, or dozens of other travelers who also recently got bit.

In the next two days we visited two clinics and a medical center to treat Amy’s highly painful swollen monkey bite.  They gave her antibiotics, painkillers, and a tetanus shot to be safe.  At the second clinic, the nurse cleaned her massively swollen palm and squeezed the pus out.  It was nasty yet intriguing to watch.  After another day the swelling went down, and Amy was able to bend her first three fingers.  Now, five days later, the hand looks a million times better.  She is bruised and has a massive gash, but thankfully no infections or diseases.

Funny enough, Amy’s main concern through the whole ordeal was her gold St. Christopher charm that was lost in the debris.  The hostel owner promised to rake the area, but I didn’t have high hopes that it would be found.  Was this an omen?  Did this event happen for a reason?  We’re unsure.

Miraculously, the charm resurfaced and made it’s way back to Amy’s person.  A good omen?  Perhaps.  What was learned here?  Amy learned to always sleep in the middle, and not to photograph ‘ugly monkeys.’  This girl has experienced the hospitals of every country she’s visited, and I’m glad to come along for the ride.

Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama…

http://www.inanitah.com/

Flying south in the morning… see you in June!