The following is in today's Saipan Tribune paper. Thanks to all who sent greetings for the day. Self-immolate They were monks during the Vietnam War who protested thecontinuing presence of American forces and the tragic conduct of an unpopularwar of attrition. Their method wasself-immolation in busy thoroughfares for maximum publicity. With their bodies, they called attention to asituation that demanded a radical response. Charles Moore in some quarters was dubbed a madman. At 79-year old retired United MethodistMinister colleague who I knew briefly in the late 70s, his teenage son oncegiven to our family's care in Saskatoon while parents conducted training inIndia, doused himself in gasoline and lit his being up in flames in GrandSaline, Texas. Those unfamiliar with theprofundity of the Buddhist act of self-immolation were quick to condemn Charlesas a kook. EmileDurkheim categorized suicides into four types: egoistic, altruistic, anomic(moral confusion), and fatalistic. Self-immolationinvolves and covers all counts, in his estimation. It is an act of despair and defiance, a symbolat once of resignation and heroic self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice is big in Christendom with theimage of the crucified Christ so folks like quiet but dour Charles, consumedwith a burning cause, who takes on the ultimate self-sacrifice. Todaymarks the end of my 69th year in the Gregorian calendar and thefirst day of my 70th year in the lunar one of the Far East. No, I am not anywhere close toself-immolating. I am mesmerized by themetaphor of having one's being in flames. Thepoetry of light and the metaphor of heat are as old as humanity itself. Light particularly is often compared toclarity, as the waters of the Aegean Sea was once seen as crystal clear, andone of Europe's eras from where we derived some of our mental behavior arethose of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The picture of transcendence looking down from Olympus informs this viewof "seeing the light." Heat isa bit more immanent. It is allconsuming, the image of the self and the fire as one, completely embraced. This is more than the unity of the Om, or the harmony and balance of the yin-yang in the pugua. It is the flamingavatar stealing fire for humanity. Thistheme recurs in many world mythologies, e.g., Matarisvan in the Rig Veda, and Prometheus in Greeceenabling progress of civilization while Azazel in the Jewish Book of Enoch taught humanity to usetools and fire. Maui of the Polynesiansstole fire from the Mudhens, the alae birds. The spider for the Cherokee, the coyote forthe Pacific Northwest, the crow from the volcano in the Yukon, the weasel tothe Creek, the rabbit to the Algonquin, and the hare to the Ojibwa, all stoleand provided humanity with fire. As Itraverse the last 17-16 years of my one-moment-in-time, I adopt the lifestyleof an embodied scorching avatar rather than the sedate and resigned retiree ina quad by the metro stop of Hang KongHang Tian Da Xue in Shenyang. Mysword shall be words in englisCHe, sharpand vivid as they come. It hasbeen a long way from the agrarian fields of Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija where I wasborn, to the wind-swept Manchurian plains of my current residence. The many causes that added verse and prose tothe interior mythos of my self-story stacks in the database of my memory downto the level of the unconscious. Now, Iprune the top of my iceberg as my willful engagement in scrapping wayward postingson walls, washing telephone numbers on steps, picking the trash off thewalkways and sidewalks, and keeping the green of summer in community nodes andgardens. It isthe mental self that I immolate. I am not into saving myself for social glory,nor finding ways to work my name into anyone's marquee. As the term "immolate" implies, itis my life's goal and daily task to set the "self" aflame, let itburn into ashen nothing with the heat bringing warmth where needed, and lightwhere it is shunned. Intrusive but notcoercive, collaborative rather than combative, I side with other selves engagedin their own self-immolations. Fornow, the warmth spreads amongst young learners prodded to pay attention totheir innate sense faculties, to describe what they see around them, theobjects that they touch, the aroma and odor they smell, the sounds and musicthey hear, and the various cuisine of their heritage that they gulp. They are too young to fall into the morass ofabstractions that learning in China imposes. They are, at first blush, what they sense. Slowly,they are urged to narrate their responses to experiences at home, on the road,at the playground and in school, and start expressing their feelings, of fearand delight, pointing out things they hate and like. Then they segue into the world ofabstractions that the Chinese language is good at. Tooyoung to make their own behavioral choices, they are nevertheless, made awareof the little things that make them whine at their parents' feet for thingsthey wish to do. Or, decide to pick-uptheir lives and walk! All theseexpressed in englisCHe, with CHcharacteristics! That's how I am setting myself on fire. j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031@aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!