Selections from the Cultural Chameleon

Isn't she beautiful?

Mom, she looks like a doll!

Is that really the color of your hair?

A picture painted without flaw

A blank canvas beneath

Such time, such effort, such energy,
such utter devotion

Dedicated to the creation of a mask of perfection

Dedicated to the creation of an illusion

Of what never was nor could ever be

A kabuki mask created and perfectly placed

No one can see the turmoil the angst the passion the intensity

Lying just beneath the surface

You remind me of a movie star!

You must be a model!

Where did you get that gorgeous outfit?

You have a fabulous figure!

A fat, plain, stuttering, shy little girl

stumbles and builds and hides behind a carefully built wall…

alone…

No more acorns can be hurled at her now

No more stoning of one found so ugly that heads turned away in disgust

No more taunts or insults that re-open painful wounds 

that bleed slowly
ever so slowly

No more pig snorts mixed with laughter behind her back

that seem to echo for an eternity

So she runs and runs and runs and runs and runs and runs and runs and runs and runs...

Finally disappearing 

from everyone
from everywhere
from everything

From even herself

---Just silence and the erratic beating of an imperfect, plain, fragile heart---

Then a small voice,
a little girl’s voice

Not a voice.... more like an echo of a little girl’s voice in a deep dark cave

“Am I real, do I even exist?

If everyone is so convinced that

I am what I appear to be...

Have I really become the illusion I've created?

If so, then why can I not silence 

these deafening piercing primal screams 

of pain that keeps echoing in my head?”

(Selections from the Cultural Chameleon 1992, amended 2008)

Easter Morn in Opava (Rano Velíkanocví Opavíe)

Beauty arrives regally with trumpets of Silence

Fat fluffy Snowflakes transform

An ugly, coal-graveled sidewalk into

A path into an Enchanted Forest

Opava, Velíkanoce, Sní y Sluníčka

Perfection existing without effort or struggle or pain

Krasnỳ, perfektní, žena s Mirové Sborů

A lonely fat ugly girl transforms into

Beauty, Strength, Confidence, Purpose

A Goddess of Snowflakes

(composed November 10, 2007)

Definitions of a Cultural Chameleon

A Cultural Chameleon is adaptation personified

Always changing, it is what you want it to be

Always changing, no one knows what it really is

A Cultural Chameleon blends in with the current surroundings

Always changing, the tilt of the head, the touch of the hand

Always changing, the words carefully selected,

the Silences strategically placed.

A Cultural Chameleon adapts into any Society

Always changing, never committing to any one point of view

Always changing, encouraging others to voice their opinions endlessly.

A Cultural Chameleon never quite fits into any category

Always changing, colors can never match it exactly nor forms fit completely around it

Always changing, a concrete definition can never be formulated

A Cultural Chameleon adapts to any type of relationship

Always changing, providing a challenge to those arrogant enough to try and conquer

Always changing, answering every unspoken need and desire without revealing its own.

A Cultural Chameleon is Adaptation Personified

It can never be trapped, hurt, or destroyed.

Trees- a stream of consciousness

 

It’s so quiet, so still.

It’s depressing to consider how long it may be before I speak or hear another human voice.

Alone, why?

And why am I so terrified to consider being alone?

What’s so horrible about it?

Lord knows I’ve been alone most of my life.

These trees don’t speak or communicate with each other and they seem to be doing just fine.

But we’re more advanced, so much more evolved, better than these trees.

Are we?

It feels so arrogant, so full of hubris and hot-aired arrogance to think that we’re so much better or have progressed beyond so many life forms here on earth or elsewhere. Wouldn’t it be the ultimate irony if the progression of evolution was the other way around?

Ironic to discover that we are the ancestors, the predecessors, the less-evolved or lesser of the species that now inhabit the earth.

We’re the dinosaurs and the amoebas and, in contrast, the whales and trees are our children.

Preposterous?

Let’s compare—

Humans are mobile, trees are stationary. Yet which is the more advanced?

To move and never settle in one place or to “put down roots”?

Isn’t that the lament of so many people nowadays? Just wanting somewhere, geographically or metaphorically, to put down some roots and grow? To have roots, a place to call home, etc. 

Aren’t we just envying the trees?

And are the trees as stationary as humans believe?

How can a tree possibly travel?

By allowing a seed, a part of itself to detach from the source and flutter away. The seed then travels to discover new places, new things. If the seed wants to stay and the earth wants it too, then it becomes absorbed, planted, puts down roots and grows and flourishes and discovers what it’s like to be there; a new place and time. And if it doesn’t want to stay or grow or flourish in this new place it’s discovered, then it will either fly away to another place or simply die.

Does the tree, the source, benefit from one seed’s growth or, rather, suffer because of the loss of the seed?

The tree never suffers from letting go. The tree benefits- for whether the seed that has separated or departed, has lived or died, either way the tree has experienced being somewhere else. It travels, is mobile. 

By letting go, yielding a part of itself with that which is outside of itself, the earth, the tree has lost nothing of itself in the sharing.

Friend- noun or verb?

Etymology of the word friend-

Old English (O.E.) freond, prp. of freogan "to love, to favor," from P.Gmc. frijojanan "to love" . Related to O.E. freo "free." Related: Friends. 

As a verb, in the Facebook sense, attested from 2005.

What has been lost when the noun becomes a verb? 

What do we lose when we derive such pride and pleasure from the quantity of people we “friend” rather than on the care & cultivation of our friends?

"A true friendship develops on the basis of genuine human affection, not money or power. "

-- Dalai Lama

Ophelia and Athena

I'll come for you, he said. The hours and minutes ticked by and she was alone. Her heart beat, the sun rose and set, and time passed. The shock of separation slipped away like a gossamer veil.

I'll come for you, he said. Flashback. The little girl smiled and hoped that her father's words would come true. The hours and minutes ticked by and she was alone.

Wait for me, he said. And she waited. She donned the robes of Ophelia, feeling the madness invade when torn apart by the desire and fickleness of men. Madness born of losing her sense of self while trying to seek the love of both father and lover.

Love me, he said. And in that love she saw a thousand moments of ecstasy and heartbreak. How can she love someone so deeply that did not love her? The robes of Ophelia felt familiar and comfortable. How can she love someone that loved her and lain with another? She gathered daisies, rosemary, and violets to make a garland wreath of remembrance.

To be or not to be, she wondered. To love or not to love, to hope or not to hope. She watched as her gossamer veil slipped away with its adornments of love and devotion. She saw her companion, Solitude, standing straight and proud before her, beckoning her towards the future. A future filled with shining accomplishments and accolades, but alone.

I'll come for you, he yelled. Wait for me, he pleaded. Love me, he begged. No, she answered.

She placed the garland wreath on her lover's head and slowly shed the robes of Ophelia. She turned and embraced Solitude who transformed into the armor of

Athena, strong and unyielding.

She walked away from him towards her future
and felt the coldness of the armor seep into her bones.

The hours and minutes ticked by and she was alone.

Trees of Winter

These wintry skeletons

surrounded by a surreal fog,

a shroud painted with a thousand shades of gray.

A beauty

without the cosmetics of color,

without the clothing of leaves,

without the halo of sunlight.

These wintry skeletons,

like an Egyptian burial, display a magnificent beauty

in their starkness, their very absence of color.

These wintry skeletons

stand in defiance, or more so,

in compliment to the overt beauty of--

Spring, Light, Color, Birth, Renewal

A beauty hidden, covert, dark, and secret.

Hidden beneath green leaves, full of color and energy,

and blooming flowers that catch men's eyes.

These wintry skeletons defy the seasons, never falling or dying.

Intrinsic to life, true to the essence of absence.

A magnificent sentinel of Truth in its brutality

standing in gray grandeur

when flowers blossom no more and the sun fades forever

Elegance within the gray shroud of Absence

Beauty within the Ugliness of Truth

Embers of Autumn

Friday morning creeps in under a veil of fog. The trees seem to sag under the weight of morning dew, appearing sad at the barrier between themselves and morning’s warm red glow.

It's cool but not yet cold.

Winter hasn't come just yet, but its noisy, blustery arrival is anticipated while Autumn silently enters. Each day she paints the leaves with a fiery red or a warm golden glow, quietly revealing a color palette with such energy, intensity, & passion, I’m astounded no one seems to notice. As I gasp in awe in my head I hear a musical crescendo building & building & building with each color I see that I feel the musical climax approaching with the inevitable release from the source and descent into the unknown.

This season, Autumn (Automne, Podzim, Herbst, Autonno, Otoño) resonates so deeply within me right now. The cool air chills you, just a bit, yet its crispness and clarity awakens you to the quiet beauty surrounding and within. The trees, having been so busy, so productive during Spring and Summer growing, blossoming, stretching and expanding so noisily, now begin to slow their movements, quiet their growth, contract instead of expand.

Turning away from absorbing energy from the sun, earth, and sky, Autumn beckons her children to turn inward, focusing her sacred energy to their center with such an intensity that they must seek release and escape from their appendages, the leaves, in an explosion of color of fire or slowly burning embers.

A thousand shades of green evolve into a thousand tiny fires.

Although I know I sound crazy or worse yet, waxing poetic, but I feel these signs of Autumn are symbols of the fire within-- within every molecule, every cell, every living being, from the infinite expanse of the universe to the quiet voice within me. Yet it is only a symbol, a trite talisman. I feel vainglorious to think I could ever describe something so intangible, so precious. A thing I understand everyone possesses, but few are conscious of. It cannot be described, drawn, seen, or heard. For it is part of an indefinable process, the journey. And every attempt I make to describe it seems somehow… sadly… lacking.

Yet for some strange reason I cannot help but try—

After absorbing from the outside; opening up and changing with Spring's rebirth and blossoming, then whisked away with Summer's eagerness to grow, produce, stretch, expand. Autumn brings silence and reflection, and in that quiet stillness, watching the watery sunset and feeling the omens of Winter’s dark and icy coldness, she whispers her passionate secret —

"I am alive, I am here, I exist. I am a form of beauty like no other. I am worthy of life and love and honor. I matter because I have a purpose-- I am classic beauty, archetypal elegance, eternal grace. These fiery colors signal the inevitable time when light diminishes and warmth fades and the energy from the earth, sun, and sky that has given me life slowly disappears. The flow of energy changes course and balance is restored. Yet these fiery banners, these autumnal anthems also reveal the immeasurable, incomprehensible, breathtaking energy and fire in me, from me, of me. Energies that never fade, never die, only expand and retract, ebb and flow."