Portrait of Moctezuma. Antonio Rodriguez. 1680.
Xian of Eight Rivers
China is made of earth,
of sun-dried mud.
In this part of China
everything is made from the earth:
the houses, the walls
around cities, and villages,
the tombs scattered over
the countryside.
Even the people.
There are hills below
that appear to be piles of mud
set out to dry in the
sun, naked,
without a single tree or
bush.
They crowd around the
landscape
like the coils of bulging
intestines
tossed on the ground
outside butchers' shops,
slowly unraveling.
Sometimes we fly so low
that we almost touch them.
And then I notice that
the wind has brushed
some kind of pattern into
the earth: a mysterious alphabet
written in the mud,
struggling to communicate
something precise.
But there is not a single
animal
or human being in the
yellow desert below.
Not a single village.
Suddenly we are landing:
Xian,
the geographic center of
China,
where Chinese
civilization was born,
in the cradle of the
Yellow River.
In front of the terminal,
three children are
playing with a lump of earth:
they are bundled up in
jackets
and brightly printed
cotton trousers.
I join them in their game
until a young woman comes
out of the terminal
to call me in for dinner.
One of the children grabs
me by my overcoat,
to keep me from leaving.
So do the other two,
clinging to me,
asking me not to go.
The young woman comes out
again,
and yells at them to
stop.
They let go,
disappointed.
One of them calls to me
as I turn away:
Come back soon!
We eat quickly and then
prepare to take off for Lanchow.
My three new friends wave
goodbye to me. The littlest one
gives me a present: a
pebble,
a precious gift.
In this part of China
there are no stones.
You have to go to Karelia
to find stone,
very far north; or to the
Caucasus;
or to southern Siberia,
along the slopes of the Pamir,
slanting toward the
steppes of Central Asia.
I put the pebble in my
pocket,
to take back home, to
show what a precious gift
I was given by a little
Chinese girl: a pebble
from the cradle of
Chinese civilization.
A civilization made of
earth,
a civilization without
bones,
without a skeleton for
support.
A civilization of
assembled customs,
which suddenly unravel,
dissolving into thousands
of separate gestures,
thousands of calligraphic
icons,
thousands of smells,
colors, flavors,
thousands of different
shades. And then just as suddenly
they solidify again into
tradition, memory, habit.
It is this absence of
stone, of solid, durable material,
which makes China such an
exquisite thing.
Everything is reflected:
an unimaginable number of
movements,
of patterns, thoughts,
images,
of which we see the
copies in immense numbers,
but never the originals.
The originals were
destroyed long ago.
Here are the four
elements out of which China is made:
Earth, Wood, Porcelain,
Silk.
The most durable of these
is Silk.
I should add a fifth
element: Poetry,
which is the most durable
of all.
TRANSLATED BY WALTER MURCH
EB
Kin 192: Yellow Planetary Human
I perfect in order to influence
Producing wisdom
I seal the process of free will
With the planetary tone of manifestation
I am guided by the power of universal fire
I am a galactic activation portal
Enter me.
Galactic Signature of Mahatma Ghandhi and the Roerich Peace Pact. You control the body, the breath and the thoughts in order to bring your whole being into alignment with the all-abiding reality.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2014-2015.
Muladhara Chakra
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