Loons Encyclopedia: A Wooden Om

THERE IS NOW A MUCH BIGGER WOODEN OM SITE:

http://woodenom.blogspot.co.uk/p/a-wooden-om.html

I WAS ONCE ASKED WHO CARES

IT TOOK ME QUITE SOME TIME TO

ANSWER AS I HAD MY OWN

PROBLEMS AT THE TIME

HEMORRHOIDS SPIDER FETISH GOD COMPLEX

WHEN I FINALLY SAID

THE PEOPLE WHO HELP YOU

IT WAS A RELIEF I WASN’T SURE

IF THAT WAS THE RIGHT ANSWER

OR IF I MEANT IT

BUT WHEN THAT GREAT CREATURE

CREATED IT ALL

HE LET THERE BE LIGHT AND DIVIDED IT

INTO COLORS AND DREAMS AND

PROMISED US IF WE WERE GOOD

WE COULD COME TO THE PARTY

AT THE END OF TIME

THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF LOOKING

AT SOMETHING THE FACT THAT I

PRAY TO APHRODITE UNDER A

FULL MOON FOR GUIDANCE DOESN’T

NECESSARILY MEAN I'M A LOST SOUL

DOES IT?

Tony Wright.

Fantasy Palace

Shopping list.

GOA

Fort Teracol 19.12.80
Every thing is made out of seasoned hard woods and heavily waxed.
At night the sound of the sea on the brittle red rocks below is beautiful.

Hecktor Chrome

And he was a crow on the front page (barking)

it was a big and maybe dubious idea

his big, hard, loose feet flopped onto the threshold.

He ought to have studied political silence.

The sea was always so blue at noon and always just simply beautiful.

Some stars bigger than others, other worlds, other views, other parts of the picture. Other galaxies Orion's square be it the seven sisters Betel star, a crooked line of bright stars, the cliff, palms and a diamond of stars, the light on the cliff. The illuminated dolls house.

Premonitions; the atom like realisation of an oncoming force.

The overcoming dark, ominous waves, but warm the eddying surf, the twinkles from the glowing bodies in the water in a bowl in the waves. And ancient kingdoms built on older rocks. Unknown Aborigines, life on similar planets with slight variations -green men?

And so on the sand at night, they talked of other worlds and other times and sometimes of other nights. The cold stars sizzled in a sky of geometrical circles and angular intersecting joining lines, Sometimes, many big stories all at once.

And then left all alone (again) with the withdrawing sea.

2-3-81

Three sets of drums thud from a temple somewhere in the night

it is Shiva's birthday,

you don't go to sleep tonight as you may meet him in your / his dreams.

Today there were some clouds in the sky,

and simply everyone at the junction heard of it.

This time

that time

springtime never

live today and die tomorrow.

Varkala, Kerala, 6-3-81

Ever tried elephant curry?

It surpases beef and pork curry by leaps and bounds and of course, you get more of it.

The skin is a bit tough though.

I prostrate myself at the bronze feet of the great teacher and am completely fooled

Madurai

Please.

Let me die by the temple in a huddle in the gutter and I am content.

Cross your forearms and grab each ear lobe and then bend at the knees about three times, or alternatively make a big fist above your head with both hands and with bent knees: turn a circle.

PURE AFFECTION

RADIATING AFFECTION

DEVOTION

SYMPATHY

TRUE RENUNCIATION

FEAR, ANGRY JEALOUSY, AMBITION, GREED & MURDEROUS RAGE.

Chamba

View of local government offices from the observatory windows, 28-3-81

The hill on the other side of the River Ravi.

Bharmor 16-4-81

My friend the sky

Overawed by the Lord Dizzy

falling backwards - such heights.

I signal with my hollow temple bells.

Such wooden and many coloured tones.

He sits and thinks in his mountain home,

very alive and smokes his charis

at the end of a very dangerous road.

(its spring and very thawed)

The burning pink turns to ice green

and the sky is the limit.

Heavily protected bridge down in the valley, over the Ravi.

11.4.81

Hill Bill x Ben Billy

Chamba 11.4.81

One of the chaps that i went through the art college experience with was Richard Butler,

who later went on to front a band called the Psychedelic Furs.

During our last year at college, from time to time we returned to the topic of what part of the world we may end up in during our oncoming formative years.

It took me six or seven years to finally end up in India.

On this occasion we were sat in a shanty town restaurant in Chamba

- a meeting of the ways.

All the drovers pass through on their way to higher grazing grounds.

It's a bit of a frontier town, or was anyway.

We were treating ourselves to a meat curry.

We had met up with a couple of blokes who had spent the winter up in the mountains.

One of them had brought a compendium cassette of relatively recent rock tunes

and put it on the rare cassette player that the establishment possessed.

I cant remember the exact words but it came as quite a chilling surprise

when the Furs filled the mud floor with

"hello India, this is America"

The mountain yawned no answer (largely)

higher up and you feel you see right over the tops

and all around its your domain.

But I don't really believe in any other gods here.

But I'm sure that they don't worship me.

The little lights on the side of Big Big twinkle a little

- they are some of them fires

that no one could reach to tonight from where I am

stood in the cool post twilight.

The little small villages lie darkened on little ledges

cooped up with livestock and nits.

Small speck

I was all alone and shivered slightly

on my haunches.

I had nothing to say to a bluey grey coolness

that didn't come out from the ends of my hair.

I have a pocket of unsung reasons

(going higher and higher - till I'm dead)

Chamba, H.P. 28-4-81

All Topsy turvey bent sideways and forwards,

up and twisted, folds, creases, hanging upside downs and inside outs.

(daunting you could say)

Sliced by ice - the ice man breaketh.

Could not fit more mountains in when India was squeezed up a little bit and not so long ago.

Untouched and unspoilt, in fact, quite naive.

The sheep herders return in their woolly coats,

sacks, bundle blankets, little fires in the hollows and shelters

away from the cold winds from the glaciers.

Returning from Kangra, the warm valleys and the plains.

Sach Pass

3rd June 81.

Going up from Satrundi.

The tracks from the coolies.

The giant bowl which housed the flowers beneath the snow line.

Kashmir

And they were peace and quiet sometimes,

a little bit of that premature nostalgia sat o rickety wooden steps

with paddles splashing in the fairly reedy water,

exercise book lined lines of ripple to the couple of rows of boat lights

The spruce pine firs and the velvet dusk line of mountain range.

It gets quieter with the dark.

Yusmarg 4-7-81

Lamayaru.

21-8-81

This rock formed some amazing deformed peaks. The softer rock: "leper" caves and upright pinnacles sticking off the side of slopes, not yet washed away by whatever rain they have - just like the moon.
And not a shrub insight.
On the soft rock slopes above, perched here and there were large angular boulders which had poked through the surface once upon a time.
The odd truck must catch it every now and then and I must hastily say that they deserve it. You should see them when the one way section of the road is clear, just like Park Lane - only there's a sheer drop and anyone in England chucking out that much black oily smoke would be hung (amen)
And so on to magnificent Lamayaru where the tall white prayer flags hang and ripple like falling stream water and where all the monks are round and jolly --------------

23-8-81 Amazing and Unbelievable

Amazing - that's what I told the monk. He wondered if I was writing a history book,

"No , making pictures" gesture gesture I said.

"Oh, a history book" he said

"Yes, that's right," I said.

But, whatever, that ride and that monastery, I find easier to believe now - when I can select more pieces from memory than I could then when it was all happening (and very bright too)

BUT THOSE MOUNTAINS, SO COLOSSAL.

A French tourist guide said the place was magnificent. But I think I picked a better pair of words, It was too much to draw - a case of "where do you start?" In the end I thought a little corner would be unsatisfying so I left it and have contented myself with a handful of photos and the postcards we will buy.

We didn't know the place was perched on this 2-300 foot drop until we walked down to the fields at the bottom. From the side it seemed to be incredibly placed on a flat topped truncated spur. But on walking round you realise that it is in fact almost a series of vertical columns of orangey, softer rock, eroded and eroding. Some of these building HAVE to fall off one rainy day. The place seems magnificently perched, but some of this erosion seemed to be shadows right under the houses.

It was hard to tell, especially with the houses which was old and which was new.

For two reasons:

Because they have always built them like that.

And, if one corner crumbles away, you simply rebuild it.
Everywhere, there were signs of roofs going through with just the bare pole skeletons poking through surrounded by black hole. They'll patch them up before it gets very cold, or simply not use them.

A line of them leading up to the monastery built up as a 10foot thick wall and covered with individually " sloganised" stones. An impressive statement about the agelessness of the thoughts. Some in bare floral circles, some just lines of (probably) script. Some of them stylised picture words. The row stretched back for 2-3 kms and was punctuated by roughly triangular white mud obliques of which meaning, I have as yet not divined. Something to pause, stop and think by perhaps.

Something perhaps similar in notion are the cylindrical, pivoting prayer wheels, set vertically in walls where people - slightly pausing - turn the cylinders with their hands - feeling the idea. They are often situated en-route to things for instance on the way in or out.

The other effect similar in passing life "eureka!" stimulation - also had their own pedestals and shot upwards in triangles. They divided the monotony of the flat roofs and little square boxes, they were:

The monastery temple was also "stucco" in mud and went up and up, again, it had little square windows spaced just like a skyscraper (only with smaller windows!) and a big square arch all dark and airy inside.

Outside this building was a shrine complex painted brick red in parts, with dragon lions (4ft long) on some of its flat sides with again, interspersed obelisks. And everywhere were strung white prayer flags, in muslin with full prayers on them and hung like washing lines. And little (coloured) triangular flags and the tall fluttering flags with striped, colourful head pieces made from material and also "pinpointing" in the sky.

On the other side of the gorge/valley were also houses leading into the main dry river from way up. The houses with black shadows were set against another black upright of rock with here and there, very useful caves carved into the more forward columns of soft stone and all the houses angled

Yes, we walked down to the dry gully (through the barley) It had been robbed of its water by the very effective drainage/irrigation system. It was very stony and obviously when it rained: turned into a rushing dessert arroyo, obviously a place to miss.

But - by the side of this effectively carved channel were two flat dead donkeys, half eaten by I don't know what. I wonder if they were too old to eat: they simply fell down: or they don't eat donkeys anyway and something else (bigger than insect) should have a meal.

Still, whatever, it lets you know - it lets you know.

And so we turned and began the ascent, rapidly realising the lack of oxygen - one hand on the wall, gasp gasp. They say you get used to it though. We walked back up (that early evening) And the changes of shadow, and general changes in the tone of huge masses of stone and mountain, and the glare off many walls, and the difference between morning and evening ( the sun simply moved from one end of the valley to the other) made this a little

Well, whatever - we couldn't afford it, due to ill balanced immediate budgeting.

The monks are certainly beginning to learn about tourist cash in a big way.

The place was only left with a skeleton crew, most of them seemed to be away on holiday in Srinagar in order to avoid the tourists. But all that were left seemed to have a blanket on the ground stall selling relics and curios probably a lot of which were manufactured.

I think they were quite used to squeezing money out of tourists without too much fuss. I mean: its difficult to stand up to a monk and say "you cheat, you are robbing me"

10. A monks cell, warmish and windproof.

11. A bottle of chang in the windy night.

12. A lack of oxygen, ten yards and puff.

13. Its amazing what you can do with carrots and parsnip. Buried in dry earth.

22-8-81 Ley

25-8-81 Two Stars Hotel

Ley

7-9-81 Alchi

8-9-81 Kargil

9-9-81 Srinagar

Rich green rice turned gold, king harvest has surely come. With night time scarecrow eyes.

Srinagar 13-9-81

23-9-81 Agra

On the opposite side of the river, the emperor had a colossal tomb built the same as the white one he had built for his wife, only black. Thus ensuring his everlasting glory - only trouble was - he drunk too much.

29-9-81 Lucknow

I will remember Lucknow affectionately. We arrived in the morning off a sleeper problem being: you don't get much sleep on a sleeper. They are a good place for a party, the argument goes " if I am awake, so should you be"

We alighted to find the tail end of the monsoon still raging and beelined it through the chanting/pleading rickshaw men to the fixed breakfast haven on platform one (fixed, but soggy)
It was brawn and persistence that found us a room in the end.
It was a small dark room, dark because it had no window and the electricity wasn't working. The fan also was not on and water dripped onto the bed, just like the jungle it was!
Then we moved to a light room facing the road and over the cinema, I think at this point, I need say no more on that one.
But finally we have a large, airy light room (away from the men's toilets) and are (sight seeing) for a few days.
This involves threatening a rickshaw driver with violence for a fair price and baking in the blinding sun, fighting off "tourist operators" in the "places of interest" (their age range is 4 to 90) and watching sweat stream over your sandals, in boiling cafes manned by cheeky imps. But it is all worth it!

--------------------------

Please do not spit

in the office

-------------------------

said the sign

There are more intensely grouped places of interest here than anywhere else we've seen ( who needs a festival?)

Today we went to the residency - I should have taken my camera.

Where British soldiers hung out for so long.

I realised on my arrival that all I wanted to see were the bullet holes, and was immediately satisfied! Quite a place of light and shadow though in the late morning.

All arches and basements and overhanging trees.

They have left this crumbling red stone monument be, but they will never restore it. In fact, all the stately buildings have corners falling off here and there. You have the "holy place" situation where you have to take your shoes off, to find the floor littered with rubble and ceiling debris.

But the skyline is dotted with peculiar shaped domes and pinnacles. It's a pity I cant sit down and draw them ( I attract too big a crowd of oglers) (they look down on passive ogling) I expected Lucknow to be much more British, It's not, it's pretty Mogul and I can see where a lot of our Georgian designs came from following our visit today.

Varanasi

6-10-81

(Which was pretty close to what did happen on our return to Blighty, only not in a pub but down the Police Station and starring as a suspect)

A Killer Finish

Realise the big joke,

the laughing empty space,

the chronological crook.

He is, for us - always,

the big unfortunate,

a terrible pity,

the end.

Umma Ganga eats

she is the earthiest

I see no grief

We are all bricks in these huge mud walls.

It cloys, it clogs, it seeps into your blood stream.

O the shortness of life and the longness of ambition!

13-10-81
When the moon had risen over the iron girder bridge the boats came floating down the Ganges in fast current. Each carried a glittering light warm and alight. The reflections of the town lights echoed in response. The surface of the water felt warm chocolate and the sky a feint violet velvet.
And she was queen bee.

Bodhgaya

Sunday 18th Oct

Peaceful garden,

everywhere - gnome stupas

enchanted and overgrown.

A safe secure forest that no-one uses,

no shadows over your shoulder.

Calcutta

Survival of the shitty

You see the space, you sound your bell, you take the space.

Its not boring, just watch your back.

Surviving - not survivors

they drop down and out all the way en-route,

ripe fruits,crawling insects, rubber reptiles, all lepers.

Smile as you kill

and everywhere a thin black dust.

2.11.81

Prayer flags lower incarnations and temples, in a non des-art

Puri 3.11.81

The old man picked the dead crow up and showed it to his grandson. He gave it to him to hold (by the wing) - took it back and threw it away. His grandson pointed excitedly to the living crows and was quickly whisked up and taken home - lesson given and underlined and the sun went down over the sea.

11-11-81