Journey to Surrender

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Ego always seems to get in the way for anyone living in the material world. I'm no exception. as we continue to move forward on our film, creative differences abound. As the writer, I'm called upon to resolve the differences, so people ask, "What are we doing tomorrow?" Or, "How does this dialogue move the story." "What's the character arc," etc. Since we're really working on a documentary, there isn't much character arc, still I've been told to script the dialogue. Later characters are removed, replaced by other characters, the scenario changes from documentary to reality tv to gangster movie, to horror movie and back to documentary. I've been rolling with the punches as much as I possible can, but sometimes I just can't do it. I'm about as close to complete burnout as I could be. But when my friends saw me packing my bags this morning, determined to disappear forever, they cajoled me back to work, changed the premise, rewrote the scenes, and now, strangely we're back to the original script. I hope it's going to work.

Sometimes it's best to just go with the flow.

But I've always been someone to swim upstream against the current.

Monday, January 19, 2015

El arroyo de la sierra...

mountain stream in angkor

It's not easy filming here. When the local police discovered we were filming they arrsted our tour guide and confiscated the cameras. But after negotiating a bribe we were allowed to continue. This little stream meanders through the strange trees quietly. If you look closely at the water you see tiny quadraped insects that walk on the water. The water ripples out in concentric circles and if you pay attention you will notice the tiny fish that feed on the tiny insects.

Strangler vines

filming in the jungle of kbal spean

Today we went to the River of a thousand lingam in Kbal Spean, within the Angkor area of temples, but remotely located. As this area was used by Khmer Rouge soldiers for staging attacks, the whole area is mined with land mines. But the clear water stream was beautiful and inspiring with many views.

huge strangler vines abound

The trees were dominated by a weird assortment of powerful strangler vines that created a mad tangle of roots that grew down out of the trees and branches that snaked along the ground. I see these complicated vines as a metaphor for Cambodian history, a byzantine labyrinth of tangled connections impossible to unwind.

You can clearly see the struggle of trees and vines in this dense forest. This also reminds me of a verse from Bhagavad-gita that explains that The entanglement of this material world is compared here to a banyan tree. For one who is engaged in fruitive activities, there is no end to the banyan tree. He wanders from one branch to another, to another, to another. The tree of this material world has no end, and for one who is attached to this tree, there is no possibility of liberation.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Angkor Thom

After a mixup over permission to shoot, we finally made it to Angkor Thom. We scouted the ruins...

In front of 4-headed monument in Angkor Thom

We plan to get started tomorrow actually filming in the ruins. It's hard for me to post photos, the internet is slow.

No one's really sure if the carved heads represent the king who build Angkor Thom, or one of the Buddhas. But Angkor Thom is one of the 7 wonders of the world.

Jayavarman VII was a Buddhist. The stone carvers were instructed to capture his face in a mood of contemlation. Still what an ego trip: carving your face in stone hundreds of times.

Swami Avadhut in ruins of Angkor

Angkor Thom is an amazing, spiritual place. Constructed around 10 centuries ago, it draws about 2 million tourists a year, just to see the sunset.

We'll go there tomorrow and shoot a few sequences discussing the origin of Angkor and the destruction of this great civilization.

bas relief on outer wall of Angkor

One of the greatest treasures at Angkor Thom is the continuous series of bas reliefs decorating the outside walls. They mostly depict daily life of the inhabitnts of the city, as for example fishing, or selling things in the market.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Separation

It was a woman who broke the record for the longest time in outer space. I forget her name and how long she was up in the international space station, but it was something like 527 days. I remember they asked her what she missed most about being on earth. She missed the feeling of sunshine on her skin.
I've been away from home for six weeks now. I miss the smell of corn tortillas and chiles rellenos. I miss my wife Aurora. It's been a long time since I felt the warmth of her hand. I hear the sound of her voice, but it's so faraway, like the cool reflection of sunlight on the inside of a space capsule. I miss the laughter of my Mexican students, the endlessly barking dog of Doña Pachita, and the insistent church bells calling everyone to mass.
I miss the easy afternoon under the Mexican moon in June, and the cool evening breeze under the tamarind trees where hummingbirds dive and whirl.
I miss the mariachi's tune, a bowl of beans and a wooden spoon, acapulco sea and sand, living the life of ease on the other side of the world. But I'm ten thousand miles away trying to be creative with a mysterious russian swami and his dedicated band of geniuses, camera experts sound men and IT nerds with a plan to film the great temple of angkor wat. Who knows if we'll be successful. Wish me luck.

Friday, January 16, 2015

tonle sap lake

I'm still having internet problems. It's so slow it takes about an hour to post a few photos. We took our documentary crew out on the Tonle Sap Lake close to Siem Reap, to film a few scenes about a legendary underwater city, created by the Naga people thousands of years ago and lost and sunken beneath the lake.