Sunday, September 30, 2007

Become!

It cannot be denied that there is special excitement raging inside today.
The retreat at El Triple, Baja California, Mexico, is now in its 23rd day and supplies have run very low.
Hardly any more fresh fruit and vegetables.
It is time to break up the camp and make the 3-hour trip to the town of La Paz.

This is a very hard thing to do.
One enormous side wants desperately to stay at El Triple and continue peacefully this life of living healthy and being fully focused on making new conceptual photography.
A much smaller side sees that for practical reasons a trip to La Paz is unavoidable.

In the end it is a forced departure.
No more drinking water.
No more food.

In La Paz there are several things to do besides getting new supplies.
Seeing friends.
Seeing a lawyer.
Returning to the mechanic to have rubber put between the camper box and the Fuso chassis.

The plan was also to pick up the parcel transported by UPS to La Paz containing a new Seelevel Tank Monitor panel.
But that seems not to be an option.
The parcel had been sent to Tijuana, Mexico, but then back to the USA.
Next, it was sent to Mexico City where it is being on hold for 4 days now.


According to UPS this is because of Mexican Customs.
There is the NAFTA-agreement between Canada, the USA and Mexico.
North American Free Trade Agreement.
Free trade means that a parcel containing a part with a value of less than $ 50 takes more than 10 days to ship from one country to the other…
But there is no worry about this stagnating trade between the USA and Mexico.
The water pump is working well now based on instructions by Don Shapansky of Garnet Instruments, the makers of the Seelevel Tank Monitor.



In all this turbulence of parcels lost in bureaucracy and having to quit being in the peaceful existence of El Triple to have to return to the dazzling town of La Paz, only one person comes to mind.

Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi.

Rumi lived in Turkey in the 12th century and was an accomplished scholar in religious and positive sciences.
He wrote many beautiful poems and as it is Sunday today we take the opportunity to enjoy this one:

From these depths depart towards heaven,
may your soul be happy, journey joyfully.

You have escaped from the city full of fear and trembling,
happily become a resident of the Abode of Security.

If the body’s image has gone, await the image-maker,
if the body is utterly ruined, become all soul.

If your face has become saffron pale through death,
become a dweller among tulip beds and Judas trees.

If the doors of repose have been barred to you,
come,
depart by way of the roof and the ladder.

If you are alone from friends and companions,
by the help of God become a Lord of happy circumstance.

If you have been secluded from water and bread,
like bread,
become the food of the souls,
and so,
become!


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To learn more about the Sufi mystic Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi, click on:
http://www.khamush.com/






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