Dharma Wheel again?

Trauma, memories! You think they are gone, but no they don’t go away. Hidden in the recesseses of your mind, until one day another incident happens. Wham! They reappear and you see them as clearly as when they first happened, like a big screen movie. There was the day Trevor had a seizure in my classroom and quit breathing, the awful day Andy died, and then last week finding Ross passed out by the coy pond, head hit, bloody lip and not breathing. Why? Why me? Why am I the one in these situations? What is God trying to say to me? Life is just one foot in and one foot out, fragile like a fine imported crystal wine glass, drop it, the shattering pieces go everywhere. My life is like glass, it shatters over and over, pieces here and there. Why in one instance our lives seem fine and the next there is a dreadful rush of adrenaline, quick decisions to make and frenzy to save a life? It just spins all around and suddenly I find I am in the middle again.

Life replays, different actors but same story. It seems to me incidences are repeatedly happening again, the drama, the trauma, the unbelievable exhaustion. The running, yes the running, I am running away from it all mentally and physically. Dharma? Karma? Double dipped dose of doing it over and over!

Barbara Myss wrote a book on “Contracts” — something I partially read years ago. But one thing did stick and that is we are here for a reason, a lesson so to speak with people we already knew before we incarnated. All of us intermingle with each other teaching lessons to one another. Each lesson is one step to further our soul’s enlightenment. So what is the lesson, why do it again and again? Haven’t I got it right, can I move on or am I on the constant dharma wheel?

Mao says, “If you climb the Great Wall, you are a Man!”

Mao says climbing the Great Wall makes one a man.  Daisy and I did just that so does that make us men?

This stele states Mao’s comment in Chinese.

I found a driver and a guide and off we went to the Great Wall with a couple from Bintan, Indonesia.  Robert is an American hotel owner and his wife Etie is a darling Jakarta native.  Robert wanted to smoke his cigar on top of the wall to celebrate his 57th birthday.   We had a “hoot and a howler” laughing about all the little mishaps during the day.

First stop the Jade Factory and Market.  They wanted to sell us jade out the wazzoo.  I took a picture of a giant jade cabbage, one of those auspicious omens.  Who needs a jade cabbage in the first place and where would you put it?  Then to the wall, as we paid our toll, we passed a two hump camel going the other direction though the toll.  Like I said a “hoot and a howler!”

We climbed to the first tower, huffing and puffing.  Low and behold look what I found!  What are these terra cotta soldiers doing on the wall, guarding?

Robert with cigar in hand passing me up to higher towers.  I took a latte break and only climbed two towers.

Next to the Ming Tombs.  As it turned out, we were the only tourists there,  it is bad Feng Shui to visit a tomb during the holidays.  For some reason it riles all the dead emperors!  Nothing is more fun than riling up dead Chinese emperor souls!  No bad ju-ju here!  The guide said it would unbalance the Yin and Yang!

We walked into the entrance and it was totally vacant.  The guide just wanted to leave and I kept dragging him on.  We patted the butt of  a turtle sculpture  for good luck.  Then the guide made us say something in Chinese as we stepped into the rooms where the ceremonial banquets for the emperors were held.  Left foot first for men and right foot for women, he was so superstitious.  The picture with the red canopy bed is for the dead souls to lounge in.  I thought that was really cool, Daisy about lost it at this point and wanted to leave.   I thought if I was dead, what fun this would be to lounge and look at the tourist folk passing by.  The Chinese emperor that is seated in the throne shows his traditional garments.   It is not a stuffed dead emperor!  Well I don’t think so.

Next stop was “China Town!”  Yes a China town in Beijing, just like San Fransisco. We experienced the Tea Market and the Silk Market.  They are always wanting us to spend more money, sorry I spent all mine at the Forbidden City yesterday.  The driver took us lastly to see the Olympic bird nest stadium.  Very cool, but I am not into sports so we went in the Boxing Stadium and had a foot massage instead.  Absolutely hysterical wonderful day!

I’ve had no strange dreams of Emperors coming to visit me in the middle of the night!  The Chinese and their beliefs!