sipping the milky way together

I’ve always been fascinated with stars and everything celestial. Give me a blanket and a bed of grass and I could lie under the night sky forever. Yet forever seems like an exaggeration. I’m impatient and messy with my time.

On a moonless and cloudless night in Daunt Gyi village, in all my self-centeredness, I felt as though God made all the stars for me alone. And when I concentrate long enough, it all blurs… like what your eye does when you blow into an ant colony and try your hardest to focus your vision. It’s probably absurd to compare the Milky Way to an ant colony. And it’s more absurd to think that it’s all for me.

But that was how it felt like. Aloneness (yet not alone). Centeredness. It’s when I catch a glimpse of the massive Milky Way, I see how close we are to one each other. And how we’re made for one another. (I say catch because when it comes, hold on to it because it’s fleeting.) An ocean, a time zone, miles and kilometers, geography, skin color and personal descriptions are all ambiguous at best. This is a mere sip from a drop of galaxy in a soup of swirling and colliding galaxies that is the universe.

But how good this tastes. It invites me to drink deeper.

I’ve always been fascinated with stars and everything celestial. Give me a blanket and a bed of grass and I could lie under the night sky forever. Yet forever seems like an exaggeration. I’m impatient and messy with my time.

On a moonless and cloudless night in Daunt Gyi village, in all my self-centeredness, I felt as though God made all the stars for me alone. And when I concentrate long enough, it all blurs… like what your eye does when you blow into an ant colony and try your hardest to focus your vision. It’s probably absurd to compare the Milky Way to an ant colony. And it’s more absurd to think that it’s all for me.

But that was how it felt like. Aloneness (yet not alone). Centeredness. It’s when I catch a glimpse of the massive Milky Way, I see how close we are to one each other. And we’re made for one another. An ocean, a time zone, miles and kilometers, skin color and personal descriptions are all ambiguous at best. This is a mere sip from a drop of galaxy in a soup of swirling and colliding galaxies that is the universe. But how good this tastes.

sipping the milky way together

gray to green

So I’m sitting here in a boutique salon waiting to get my hair cut and the speakers are playing 80s dance pop. This is a far cry from my experience a few days ago. I feel as though I’ve stepped into the future and my mind and heart are trying to make sense of it all.

A year has passed since Cyclone Nargis overturned the Irrawaddy and much of the brown and gray are overcome with paddy green. A little too serene. In the face of a woman who lost five children to Nargis I find myself lost in her strength and hope. She served me food and as I ate she insisted on fanning me.

But before all this we were in Yangon. We were scheduled to conduct a one-day youth camp in a church but before we arrived, the church was shut down by the authorities. Yet this was normal to them. We met at a park instead — in full view of the public and patrolling junta. When the latter came by, us non-native speakers kept silent in hopes of blending in. And they left us alone.

We praised God and washed each others’ feet, literally.

The next morning we put on our disguise, which came in the form of I Love Myanmar t-shirts. From Yangon, we took a boat across the river and then hopped into a taxi towards Bogale. Our bones ricketted with the old Toyota Corolla, crisscrossing paddy fields and villages. At the Bogale check point I hid my camera under a hankerchief and shut my mouth. Foreigners have limited access into the Delta and even more so when you carry a camera. I mostly prayed to be invisible.

From there on, we headed south down into the Delta. We faced the unkind sun and embraced the monsoon rain with hearts filled with hope and expectation. And it failed us not.

It won’t be an overstatement to say I’ve fallen in love with the land, 8 hour journey and all. We traveled along the marshes and more paddy fields. We walked into flooded areas and visited schools. In everything that we did, I prayed we did in love.

So today I’m back in Malaysia wearing the I Love Myanmar shirt not as a disguise but as a step towards solidarity with the people and spirit that left a dent in me. A very good dent. No one goes to Myanmar and comes back unchanged.

Below are images from Tee Chaung village. More to come.

irrawaddy mud

I’m back from Myanmar with a chunk of my heart left in the Irrawaddy delta. I miss the rice fields and smiles and people so badly I don’t really know what to do with myself. I still have some Irrawaddy mud stuck underneath my toenails. It’s a spa, I tell you. Not really. Mud and some cow dung, more like it. But still awesome. I don’t really feel like getting rid of the stains and clay.

I will post up more photos and stories (hopefully) soon. But in the meantime, do visit www.ilovemyanmar.org (an organization set up to help rebuild impoverished and cyclone affected areas in Myanmar) to see some of the work I was honored to witness when I was there.

between work and work

Although I’ve been r.e.a.l.l.y. busy, I still got to eat. And have some fun. Oh yes.

breathing lessons

With the influenza sweeping the country and the thick haze, I realize that I’ve taken the simple act of breathing for granted. Too often. Yet in my foolishness, I’m again reminded that with every breath, life is given and there’s much sacredness to the filling of the lungs. The rising and falling of the chest. Life to the blood. Blood for life.

It’s truly something to be silent for moment to listen to nothing but your breathing. And it’s more than something to be able to listen to the breathing of those you love.