"And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act." Joseph Campbell

And then will come the morning. It always does. Not a pretend morning, those come plenty as well. Those mere wanna-be's, shameless con-artists half-filling your consciousness with fake light, those heart-of-darkness-mornings when you wake with eyes full of tears, when you wake to a wish to just sleep, sleep and keep on sleeping. No. A real morning. How shocking is a real morning after a real bout of the real night.

It was a long night. Yet not nearly as drawn-out as it might have been. I know that the reason for that is the pact I made with the night-time and with suffering long ago. When the nights do come, as they do, as they will, I offer them no war, I greet them with an understanding of non-resistance. And they in turn burn in me and as me with a fast powerful transforming flame. Everything in life has its place and reason. When it's time to grieve then who are you to argue. Resistance is not only futile, it is ignorant. So when the demons come, why not face them head on with no fear. No. I'll go further than that- why not dance with them! Their bared-up teeth to you can either be a terrifying growl or a grin.

A well-groomed girl wearing a red silk dress trying out all the porches in the slums for size and deciding to take a nap on the rat-filled street in the end. Sad? No- she enjoyed the experience. Her suitor for the night, finally frustrated by her friendly, sardonic, easy-going, happy, sad, approachable, unapproachable, funny, obstinate behavior, tearing up the roses that he bought her and sprinkling the torn-up petals and thorns on her smiling tear-filled face on the pavement. Ridiculously beautiful- at least thats how she saw it.

The truth is never ugly. Feeling buried under the earth of sadness will unavoidably lead one back up to the stars and the sun and the beauty and the joy. And from my experience- it is perfectly alright when offered no resistance. There is the right time and a reason for everything. For grieving, for coming out of grievance, for the night and for the morning.

Sunlight creeping in through the dusty old granny-curtains of my rented room in down-town Phnom Penh, with roses and the words "Love forever" printed on them. I stretch my whole body like a cat, and for a moment have the strange feeling that I actually am a cat, purring to the pleasure of the wonderful warm rays of sun on my naked body and to the thought of a whole new exciting day in front of me with nothing to do but run around looking for adventure. Lying there under the sun and feeling it shaking up my heart slowly, surely, savoring each waking shiver of a newly strung chord. It is the stretch of a good rest. No- it wasn't a bad dream. It was merely the night.

The good-bye

The slum-like streets of downtown Phnom Penh. Smoking a cigarette at a streetside cafe and watching life unfold and miraculously keep on moving while my own heart has stopped dead on the tracks. How many people do I myself pass on the street every day without knowing that their hearts are weeping black holes longing to be blasted into oblivion?? YOU. Eyes that don't see, ears that only hear the genuine madness, beauty, truth and love of life turned into conventional greetings and arbitrary words. YOUR EYES. YOUR PLAYFUL FLIRTY EYES, TENDER LOVING EYES, RED-RIMMED EYES READY TO BURST INTO TEARS, COLD AVOIDING EYES. And yet why is it that when there is suffering in my own small existence then I feel so strongly the connection to all those strange and apparently distant faces and voices. I know that they suffer too. DID YOU SUFFER? A plump local hooker crossing the street, dressed up to the nines in the afternoon, throwing one shimmering high heel in front of the other in a cocky careless desperate way. We are all on the same boat. Am I not blocking the sound of an argument between a couple in the next table at the moment because I want to be alone with the struggle of words and emotions in my own head. So we all must find our own salvation and pretend to be alone and separate. Life never ceases to pierce and amuse me with its unrelenting contradictions and hilarious wicked irony. The Garden of Eden is once again filled with only dead roses. My instinct is to harrow my friends for sympathy but when it comes down to it then I know that the only sympathy that I need is the one for myself. For we are our own wrathful Gods of Vengeance, judging, always judging our actions and their concequences as mistakes, instead of forgiving and recognizing the true gift of any painful situation- that of a possibility for personal growth. YOU. ALWAYS YOU. IN EVERY SIMILAR SHAPE OF A BODY, FAMILIAR MOVEMENT, SLANT OF THE EYES, CURVING OF MOUTH. I hear a ringing in my ears, a tolling for mercy and for death. I put out my cigarette in an old beer-can torn in half, dispensed to me by the ever-smiling waitress and cool my alcohol-filled stomach with a tasty coconut shake. Yes- it is tasty, there is still an ounce of flavour left in the world and this simple joy amazes me for a while. But this passes quickly and once again I am THERE. THERE IN THE LONG HALL-WAY. YOU FAR AWAY IN THE OTHER END WATCHING ME WITH MY PACKED UP SUIT-CASES, BOTH OF OUR FEET AS IF GLUED TO THE FLOOR. STARING IN AN ETERNAL MOMENT AT EACH OTHER AND THE UNCROSSABLE DISTANCE BETWEEN US. WAS IT NOT ONLY A FEW DAYS AGO WHEN I RAN INTO YOUR ARMS AND COVERED YOU WITH KISSES? I AM LONGING, LONGING TO BE RELEASED FROM THE CHAIN THAT HOLDS ME ON THIS SPOT. I FEEL YOUR CALL WITH EVERY FIBRE OF MY BEING, THOUGH I KNOW THAT YOUR FACE SHOWS NO EMOTION AT ALL RIGHT NOW, YOUR FACE, THERE IN THE DISTANCE, THERE RIGHT INSIDE MY SWIRLING CAROUSEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS. YOU TURN. AND I WATCH YOU LEAVE. SO YOU WERE THE FIRST TO BREAK FREE. AS FOR ME... Yes- love is pain. And pain is also love though we may not see it at the time. Now that another obsession with immortality and illusion of permanence has run its normal course into being torn apart, I am once again in the peace and wholeness that is the Void. And even though I am there most of the times with your ghost following me everywhere, I let it be. I let you be there and the pain, and the pain- I let that be there too. It will pass, as everything else does. Suddenly I feel nothing but gratitude for all the love and pain that I have been blessed with in my life and I smile. Somewhere a bird is singing.