We’re just back from two amazing spots in Northern Thailand: Huay Cha Ka which is a King’s Royal Project and Lisu village, and Doi Mae Salong @ 1,800 meters above sea level where the finest oolong teas in the country are grown, another royal project that was established in the seventies to replace opium crops with tea…

The whole family piled in the truck: Aloma, Cha and myself at the wheel. The objective was to take a small vacation to one of my favorite places in the North of Thailand: Doi Mae Salong, and purchase some teas to stock my inventory (The new batch is available! contact me for shipment options) and to check out the Lisu village silver smiths to see what kind of creative juices they got going, and if anything was worth purchasing. Here are some shots from our travels….Peace.

In front of the Mosque, along side a hundred year old Thai style house in the Chiang Mai night bazaar area, there is a unique weekend market. The sellers are mostly all Hill Tribe, Chinese Muslim, Shan Burmese and more.

Get there early, this market is finished by midday, as most good fresh food markets usually are in Thailand. The main objective was to shop for fresh plums which are in season, we came back to Pai with a truckload of fresh fruits, and other fresh hard to find produce.

Shopping at open air markets is the best way to select fresh produce, you’ll never feel the same entering a supermarket again. Not only is market culture a place to shop for groceries, it is a social event, a place to see and be seen. Open air fresh markets in Thailand (especially northern Thailand) are ethnic melting pots where different people gather to sell their wares and co-mingle amongst each other.

Check out the assortment of colors, natures finest paintings…

First Burma, now China. What next? Reports are in that there are plenty of ‘freak storms’ popping up in North America now too. Mother Earth is definitely taking control of the situation. Population wise, as a whole we are being leveled out by the Mother herself, she will make all wrongs right.

“Ain’t no wrong now ain’t no right, there’s only pleasure and pain…”

-Perry Ferrell

Stay tuned in people, stay ready. The future is upon us, all prophecies are coming to fruition as we approach the year 2012: The age of Aquarius. Stay on top of the Game! Treat Mother Earth with RESPECT. 1Love y’all, shine ya Light!

R.I.P. Great Master of Beats. “Too fast to live, too young to die” is the motto for some… The good always die young. Soul is immortal, and in the afterlife we go into the internet to be enjoyed by all.

RESPECT, listen to Jay Dilla, Slum Village, … it just gets better with time, like a good wine. Jay Dilla was a hip hop visionary, he went to places where no man could go, may the beats live on, timeless tracks that flow like water off the brain when it rain. Instrumental or what have you, Jay Dilla is the Picasso of sound.

What more will the Burmese be able to endure in 2008? First the ‘bloody protests’ recently where monks and nuns were brutally murdered, and now the killer typhoon reaching estimated death toles up to 100,000 + people (and animals). Mother Earth is truly trying to tell us something, without sounding too typical I won’t try to decipher what the exact message is. The message is clear and simple:

(ORAL TRADITION) LOKAH SAMASTA SUKHINO BHAVANTU
May all beings everywhere be happy and free and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all. -Sharon Gannon

This post is dedicated to perfection, its seldom that beings attain to such greatness. Mary J. Blige is one such person that if there is such a thing as perfection, she is it. Her voice is angelic, soul she is not lacking in, and her style is timeless. ‘Empty Bamboo’ would like to honor Mary J. this month with a two thumbs way up - grandmaster shout out to the lovely, Miss Mary J. Blige for being such an inspiration vocally and visually… Thank you, and God Bless.

It’s Songkran again (Thai new year) and everyone’s throwing water and celebrating. Lots of alcohol, bad music and good times. I like to watch from a distance, it’s mostly the younger kids that go out and have a blast. Although I am doing my part by compiling a nice compilation of hip hop and tight grooves on my MP3 player so the younger Lisu youths can have some dope beats today (they love my music, as they should, I got the goods!) If I could spread the message of good music, than my work here in Thailand this lifetime has been complete.

Today is unique because we are cleaning all the holy images on all the shrines in my home. My wife is Christian and I am Buddhist, but that’s fine, we preach Buddha and Jesus as Brothers (like Thich Nat Han says). So the cross gets a bath, St. Francis, Quan Yin, the Hermit, and the Buddha. Everyone cleaned and happy, all people and holy people alike.

Even though they are only images, the physical act of cleaning them, and the alters has a direct effect on my Mind and Body. The acts we perform in the physical world directly influence what goes on in the metaphysical realms. Good tidings to all.

Have you noticed that people do a million and one things to constantly change they’re appearance? New hair color, hair cuts, clothing styles, facial hair, adornments, the list goes on. You can change the outside, but the thing that always remains the same is the soul, how best to view the soul? Through the eyes. No matter what we do to change on the outside, the eyes always reveal who we truly ‘Are’. They hide no lies, no peripheral disguises. Just observe and you will see what I’m talking about: love, fear, compassion all communicated through the windows of the eyes.

For the past six months now I’ve been composting on a large scale. All food scraps mixed with yard waste put into large row houses I had made of cement. The results are amazing: rich soil only after three months, with earth worms and all. I add EM (effective microorganisms) into the mix to help break everything down.

I harvested my first batch of ‘ready to use soil’ just last month, spread it all around my yard, especially around young trees, it’s like food for the trees and earth. The trees responded immediately, semi-yellowing leaves turned back into green in only a couple of days. The second batch is almost ready to use.

Thailand is a slash a burn culture, I got tired of breathing (other people’s) smoke for the past eight years, so instead of complaining about it which got me no where, I finally started acting by composting. It took me a little while to research, but I’ll give you the condensed version here, it’s easy:

1.) Equal parts Carbon and Nitrogen, that’s the secret. Save all food scraps, these count as nitrogen parts, also fresh lawn\yard cuttings. Anything that’s green, manures included. Cow and buffalo manure is great, horse manure is a little acidic, but can be used in small doses, same with chicken, duck, or bat guano. I sometimes use elephant manure because I live out by the elephants. It’s not quite as rich as the others, but it does the trick. Anyway, manure is not necessary, but helps speed up the process adding to the mix of richness, the more variety you use the faster the breakdown into rich, ‘live’ top soil. Dead leaves, small twigs and branches, anything brown and dead counts for carbon. The trick is to add equal ratios of carbon to nitrogen. Like when you were a kid in the sand box, remember making layer castles? Same concept.

2.) Everything should be watered. Once a week will suffice, you want everything in the piles to stay moist, like a wet sponge, but not overly saturated.

3.) Keep the piles aerated, once every couple of weeks or so break the pile down and put it back together so that everything gets air and breaks down easily, usually after this you can water again.

4.) Make your own batch of EM and add this to the mix, once again this is not necessary, but why not add ‘more’ effective microorganisms into the mix? Making compost is all about spreading love and fertility, so get down with the EM! www.emamerica.com EM, like manure helps to break the compost piles down faster, so that you can use them sooner.

We can’t take all the credit for this most profound alchemical process, really it’s the microorganisms that do all the work, you will see for yourself once you start your own piles. When the piles are opened up, you can see all the life inside moving around, breaking stuff down, it’s breathtaking. Humans play a small part in this process, we just get all the parts together in the right order and place. Everything eventually breaks down, but why not have a role to play in the process? Good gardening starts with good soil. Happy Trails, get started!

My buddies wife just had a baby girl last night 3.2 kg, name: Pema. This is the third 1/2 Lisu 1/2 Western baby born unto my crew. Welcome to the world you little half-breed super races! The future is crossbreeding, in the next 1000 years it will be impossible to distinguish between am Asian and Caucasian, a Hispanic and a Black person because the gap is getting smaller and smaller. The breeding between westerners and Lisu is quite amazing, we are not the only three in the town of Pai to have 1/2 breed kids, there are others mostly Thai, a few Lisu families that extend up to the Soppong (AKA Pang Mapha) area, between Pai and Mae Hong Son.

What will the future of these children be? Stay tuned, it will be interesting no doubt. One topic that keeps coming up is education, the school choices around here are strictly village, and marshal. There are a few international schools in the Chiang Mai area, but isn’t the point of having kids so that you can grow up together, and have a part in raising them? It is important for this next generation to hold onto their heritage: ie. music, song, dance, traditional clothes, nature wisdom, etc. The old ways are sinking fast, nowadays most Lisu are pressured to keep up with the ‘modern world’ and one of the only options aside from agriculture is prostitution and drug dealing. I have confidence that this will change, maybe it is our part to help accelerate this change, maybe that’s why we’re here married to these Lisu women: to exchange knowledge, create a super race, and help to bridge the ever shrinking gap between East and West.