Ruin Reminiscences – Remembering Cambodia

Sometimes, glory is in the heart’s yielding. In simply beholding something bigger than us – a timeless tease. There is prayer, in standing happily helpless and mute before beauty that postulates and promises poetry.

Here, everything is still. These stones stare at us, with an explosion of movement waiting within. And they pulsate with stories – they tell, sing, whisper, and we pledge our listening to a calling. A calling that makes us want to walk this wild, wild Earth of divine grace for all the ancient tales she carries. These temples are now creatures with tolerant bones – stone-strong, if you will. They are storytellers, and we offer our obedience like children with fawning eyes.

The smiles of gods emerge from stones, like a spiritual uncocooning. Slipping into a consciousness from torpor, we see how the gaze of these beings isn’t straight ahead but within. Their languor, an exquisite ennui. Their quietude, a conversation.

The winds hiss and sway in these corridors, ruffled and inebriated by all the stillness.

When quietly flows the dawn, these faces glow gold in their eternal smile, and even the sun wants to see what he makes seen.

A muffled moan rumbles in our marrow as the naked sky curves down to learn the liberation of form. It yearns so, and in these stones, has found its teacher to learn so.

Some lands are for contemplation. There are places that teach us self-abandon. Opennesses that coax us out of our cocoons. From their soil, an elemental love blooms, and cradles us in its embrace. We learn an unwanting. We untangle. We unfurl. We are.

#cambodia #southeastasia #asia #temples #ancientcities #ancienttemples #stonetemples #history #travel #writing #travelstory #travelogue #Angkor #words #photography #storytelling