The following was written 7-15, in Sukhothai

5:52PM I’ve finished Black Elk Speaks, as told through John Neihardt by Nicholas Black Elk, which I also purchased in Chiang Mai. I enjoyed the book as a history of the Lakota people and an insight into Native American spirituality, through the eyes of a Shaman and Warrior. It’s strange that a book written in 1931 can seem so new, even today.

What struck me most was Black Elk’s vivid memory of his past. He’s able to recount so many details, and has so many tales to tell. Yet after his people are slaughtered at Wounded Knee, he has nothing else to say. As if living the way of the Wasichus ended his life – all a downward spiral of no significance from there on.

The following was written 7-12, in the garden of my Chiang Rai guest house.

3:45PM Ralph Blum’s The Book of Runes I found faded and worn, buried deep in a used book store in Chiang Mai. It is “a handbook for the use of an ancient Oracle: the Viking Runes”. It tells of their meaning and ways of their use. They are not so much a form of divination, of future telling or fairy-tale magic, but a challenge to look into yourself. By using the runes in search of an answer, you find your own interpretation and project what you already know, but perhaps do not wish to express, onto the stones. Their symbols, sounds, and arrangements seem almost arbitrary. Still, I must question it.

In The Spell of the Sensuous (which I will have to comment more on later), David Abram spends a great deal of ink on the impact of writing, particularly phonetic, with our experience of the world. He proposes that systems such as ours, where the sounds and the symbols themselves bear little to no resemblance to anything of the sensuous world, serves to cut us off from the that world – he assaults (with the alphabet, of course) this the same way Daniel Quinn assaults agriculture. Seeing the runes through these animist eyes, one wonder why they’re to be used as an oracle. Question their validity. Their symbols have no reference to the natural world, nor do their sounds. This unlike, for instance, the Hebrew aleph-beth, the first letter of which meant ox and looked like an ox. Indeed, Odin happened upon the runes one day while torturing his own body – attempting to transcend the sensuous, and thus the whole of the natural world. From my limited understanding of the runes and their origins, I must be skeptic of their use, even if it is unimportant. I would prefer a more natural gateway within.

Still, a good read. Recommended for those who are interested in a Western version of the I Ching or Tarot cards.

The following was written 7-9 in Pai.

4:36PM I should leave Pai before I run out of books.

I’ve just now finished Jeff Greenwald’s Shopping for Buddhas, which I picked up at Hobo Books in Chiang Mai. It documents the author’s time spent in Nepal, searching for the perfect Buddha statue who’s purchase would lead to enlightenment.

I enjoyed the book – sort of a Hard Travel to Sacred Places trip. Very humorous at times, and offering up ironic spiritual journeys at others. It is an accurate description of travel throughout Asia.

The following was written 7-8, lounging around my bungalow.

5:47PM I’ve finished reading Hermann Hesse’s

Siddartha

. It’s a great book, with many thoughts that need further thinking.