Cool Asalha Puja Rainstorm

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Asalha Puja – a major Buddhist holy day

The celebration of Buddha's First Discourse

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A tremendously windy rainstorm

Just hit us this late afternoon.

The coolness is exquisite

The fresh smells intoxicating.

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I had gone out earlier to my hammock

On our back-facing second floor veranda

With reading and writing materials,

And I started reading the First Discourse.

But it got so dark I couldn't read the printed paper page;

So I just lie back, watching the wind whip the big tree.

Then the sudden cool breeze hit,

Reminding me of my father's weather lore:

"It feels like it has rained somewhere."

And it had.

Then it rained and blew spray on us with a vengeance,

And I sat back and delighted in the blasts of coolness.

It doesn’t get any better than this!

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-Zenwind.

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St. Swithun’s Day 2015

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Let the Feast of St. Swithun begin! 15 July 2015

Old Swithun (aka Swithin), often considered the patron saint of drought/rain cycles, you are needed now to relieve the horrible drought in Thailand. It is the worst drought in countless decades and the farmers up-country need rain. We down in the parched central plains need clouds and rain to cool things down. The sun is scorching our brains! I don’t really believe in saints, miracles, or theological meteorology, but appealing to fantasies such as this can be tempting.

As the ancient lore claims:

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“St. Swithun’s Day if thou dost rain

For forty days it will remain.

St. Swithun’s Day if thou be fair

For forty days ‘twill rain nae mare.”

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Therefore, for centuries the old-timer farmers in England and America had a strict rule: you must get your first crop of hay into the barn by 15 July, because if it does rain on that day, what if it actually does rain for the next forty days? Superstitious? Or prudent?

However, I hear that in old Warren County, Pennsylvania, USA they have been getting too much rain. Up there, folks are going to want a dry St. Swithun’s Day!

-Zenwind.

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St. Swithun’s Day mid-year reviews 2015

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I consider this Feast Day of St. Swithun (15 July) to be the calendar year’s mid-point. It was about the midway point in public school summer vacations, vacations which I considered the high holy days of freedom when I was both a student and later a teacher.

So, this is a good time to pause and record things about the last half-year. I started recently listing the books I’ve read and the movies I’ve seen, mainly so that I could keep track of all of them and possibly give them as recommendations to those few (if any) who read my blogging. I’d like to review them all, but that might be too much. From New Year’s Day to St. Swithun’s Day, here they are:

Books Read:

Ira Levin – This Perfect Day (1970) [libertarian SF] [reviewed on Zenwind]

Marc Headley – Blown for Good (2009) [reviewed on Zenwind]

Victor Koman – Solomon’s Knife (1989/2014) [libertarian SF]

Elie Wiesel – Night (1958/2006)

Lawrence Wright – Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (2013) [reviewed on Zenwind]

Steven Pressfield – Gates of Fire [great novel of the Spartans at Thermopylae]

Basho – Narrow Road to the Interior [master of haiku]

Richard Flanagan – Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013)

Nancy Many – My Billion Year Contract: memoir of a former Scientologist (2009)

Tony Ortega – The Unbreakable Miss Lovely (2015) [Wow!]

J. Neil Schulman – Alongside Night (1979) [libertarian SF]

E.M. Forster – The Machine Stops (1909) [libertarian SF]

Jefferson Hawkins – Counterfeit Dreams (2010)

Amy Scobee – Scientology: Abuse at the Top (2010)

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Movies Seen:

Predestination

Into the Woods

Blackhat

Guardians of the Galaxy (DVD) [recommended]

American Sniper [reviewed on Zenwind]

The Imitation Game [recommended]

Still Alice [recommended]

The Theory of Everything

Birdman

Lost River

Child 44 [reviewed on Zenwind]

Tomorrowland

Mad Max: Fury Road

Wild (DVD) [recommended]

Crazy, Stupid, Love (DVD)

Nightcrawler (DVD)

Unbroken (DVD)

The Voices (2014)

Spy (2014)

Inherent Vice (2014) (DVD)

Jurassic World

Love & Mercy [recommended]

The Kingsmen (2015) (DVD)

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I hope to recap the next half-year’s books and movies at New Year’s next. Let me know what books and movies you have experienced.

As far as our family, we are still doing well. I am still under treatment for chronic Deep Vein Thrombosis, blood clots in my legs. But I'm trying to stay fit and exercise whenever possible.

Swithun lives!

-Zenwind.

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Hammock Daze

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I got a hammock for the second-floor veranda out back! I haven't yet made it to the big flea market as I'd planned for hammock shopping, but I did get great tips from the online expatriate community and found a store with good camping gear with easier access in downtown Bangkok. The hammock is made of nylon parachute silk, which is not quite as ventilated and cool as I'd like, but it sure is nice otherwise. With it I got a mosquito net covering.

Our rainy season monsoon this year is a weak one, and we are not getting much rain. Yet we do have more clouds and a bit more wind, which are welcome relief from the heat. When the wind blows, I can cool off a bit swinging in the gusts with music and a book/Kindle. When it rains, I enjoy the occasional blasts of cool moisture while under the overall protection of the open and roofed veranda. (Gotta love Sony for their waterproof products!)

Blessed Coolness. Zen Delight.

-Zenwind.

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A Slightly Cool Relief

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The Rainy Monsoon is here (albeit a very weak one), and the constant blazing hell of the Hot Season has been replaced by days with at least some cloud coverage and some nights with rain. Anything is an improvement. Even if we do not get the rain, we can often feel the relative coolness in stormy winds -- reminding me of my father's summer observations during similar weather in NW PA, USA: "It feels like it has rained somewhere."

Blessed Coolness. Zen Delight.

I would like to buy a jungle hammock with its mosquito-netted cocoon that you zip yourself into. It would be great for sleeping out on our roofed open second story veranda during rainy nights. I had one in 1968, which I used heavily while hitchhiking through the Northeast and hanging out as a forest hermit in my home county.

There is a famous -- and huge -- weekend flea market in northern Bangkok that might have jungle hammocks, but I must take a taxi to get to it plus I don't like crowded places like that. (I'm still a die-hard hermit.) We will have to see whether I ever make the expedition there or not.

-Zenwind.

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Vesak 2015

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Toady is the full moon Buddhist holiday of Vesak, which in Theravada tradition celebrates the birth, enlightenment (at age 35), and paranirvana (death at age 80) of Gotama Buddha. Each of these important times of his life are believed to have happened at the full moon at this time of year (usually June). Big holiday. The neighborhood is very quiet.

-Zenwind.

I’m Complaining…

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...But I don’t know whom to complain to, and you’ve probably heard this gripe of mine over and over before. I’m complaining about how hellishly hot it is these last few days. It was easily 100*F today and was 104 and 106 on recent days. And those are just raw temperatures without factoring in the humidity, dew point, and Heat Index.

I know: I chose to move to Thailand, so I should be able to hack it. Maybe I’m getting old. Or maybe the heat just makes me grouchy. The one or two people who ever read this blog must be very sick of my constant comments about the heat here. But I’m still astonished by it.

(Trying to calculate temp and humidity into a Heat Index number on a day like this is as futile as trying to calculate Wind Chill when it’s 40-below zero with a stiff wind. One would just say, “It’s damn cold, and there is a brutal killer wind.” In both cases, one just scrambles to survive without bodily damage.)

I defrosted our old frig tonight because I couldn’t sleep and its ice builds up quickly in this weather. Then I went out at 23:00 hours to the all-night store for two packs of ice. As I stepped out of the house unto the street, I felt like I should be swimming instead of walking – the wetness of the air made it almost difficult to breathe. “Thick and soupy” would be the best way to describe the air, and there was no hint of a breeze.

We look forward to the relative coolness of the Rainy Season, which might start (hopefully) in a month or so.

-Zenwind.

On the Great Chao Phraya River

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I haven’t been on the Chao Phraya River express boats for a long, long time until the other day. I haven’t been going to Bangkok as much in recent months, and when I have gone into the city I’ve taken a taxi in to at least the closest Skytrain (light commuter elevated rail) station and then a taxi back home late. I’ve been opting for the coolest rides in air conditioned comfort. I must be getting old.

Yesterday was my annual trip to the US Embassy to get a notarized document for my annual big visit to Immigration in two weeks to apply for an Extension of Stay in Thailand based on Retirement. I intended to take the boat in the morning, but I was running late and it’s hotter than Hell here, and an empty taxi happened to come by. There are no good movies playing, so after the embassy visit I made a quick bookstore run and jumped on the express boat for the afternoon trip home.

Standing outside for 10 minutes I felt like I had just taken a swim with all of my clothes on. The other day gave us a freak hard thunderstorm which made the night cool. The following morning wasn’t too bad while the clouds blocked the sun. But when the sun finally came out, all that moisture just hung heavy in the air. Sweat city, without mercy.

Looking at the city from the lowest elevation, at river level, I could see a lot of changes. Bangkok is a dynamic place. Buildings and infrastructure are going up everywhere. One new bridge for elevated rail is already finished not far down-river from us, and I got to look at the new bridge(s) closer to us. I was amazed that there are two double train track bridges being built together. These rail connections will soon make express boat travel antique, as air conditioned fast rail stations will be within walking distance to us in a couple of years.

But you cannot beat the scenery experienced from the river’s level. You see the extreme poverty of collapsing tin squatters’ shacks on stilts on the river’s edge right next to luxurious new high-rise condos going up – that’s Asia in a nutshell.

The Great Flood of 2011 still has its reminders left along the banks. Wooden structures are now showing their immense foundational decay from that deluge. And a couple of riverbank temple monasteries are finally showing their damage as debris is slowly being shoveled out of their ground floors.

Ah, I long for coolness.

-Zenwind.

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Silly Willy, R.I.P.

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[This post was moved from "Zenwind" to this blog.]

Silly Willy, our silliest but beloved cat, died recently after a year-long struggle with some kind of a feline virus. The vet had tests done in late 2013 and told us it was a terminal case, but Willy didn’t give in without a fight and lived much longer than expected. He was seven or eight years old.

Willy was a favorite of ours, and he always wanted to be close to Tuk – until the last weeks of his sickness when he would snuggle next to me because I sleep more. Right from the time he was a kitten, he was always doing silly things, hence his name. He just looked silly. I would always greet him by saying, “There’s that silly little guy!” and he seemed to like that.

He liked to hear us talking to him, and during his last days and nights I would recite a short Mahayana verse to him that I got from reading Jack Kerouac. Although I don’t believe in the Mahayana ideas of rebirth, etc., I do admire their sense of compassion. I really like some of their ideas – which I look at as metaphors -- of a long series of karmic rebirths that have the potential for all sentient beings who think and act virtuously to work their way up to the state of complete Buddha-hood. The Kerouac verses, into which any name can be substituted, went like this:

-- “Willy: equally empty.” [“emptiness” meaning that our individual natures are not fixed; we can overcome ourselves, improve ourselves, and climb higher]

-- “Willy: equally to be loved.”

-- “Willy: equally a coming Buddha.” [even Willy may, in some far future eon, reach that highest of moral heights]

Willy would weakly look at me as I recited this, appreciating the attention. I couldn’t resist assuring him that after his final rebirth he would become famously known as “the Silly Buddha.” I don’t think he took my humor in the wrong way. We sure loved the little guy.

-Zenwind.

Over 100 Degrees F. and Humid

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The title of this post says it all.

And yet what did I do at noon? I took a march around the neighborhood and down past the river.

"Mad dogs and Englishmen/ Go out in the midday sun." All the dogs I saw were sane; they relaxed in the shade. It was me who was the April Fool.

-Zenwind.

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