Earlier this afternoon [ 'round midnight for all of you, I'd think ], I clicked on over to Apple's movie preview site and watched the one for Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain." I sat here, giddily slack-jawed, and as I described the trailer to my Lady Friend later , she laughed and said that it sounded exactly like the perfect film for me: "Past lives, space, Tree of Life..."

www.apple.com/trailers/wb...in/trailer1/

And while I certainly think that there's an obvious appeal to most people in such a story (and such visuals! good night!), I thought about what she said and how there is an association with/inclination toward fulfilling a destiny [or sensing a destiny/a space or time or circumstance as yet unseen] among Balsamic Moon natives.

Personally, I've sought to go to Africa (Mali, specifically) for the better part of the last six years. Had scheduled to go with Afropop Worldwide in 2000, but that fell through at the boarding gate with some unexpected visa problem. Went to teach at in int'l school in Qatar in 2004 (where I looked forward to saving money and being in closer proximity to NW Africa than Seattle was)... but ended up making a midnight run to Amsterdam and then Seatown two months later, after things became shady and exploitative.

Headed to Egypt to meet my Lady Friend last summer. We tried to make inroads at teaching there (and enjoyed the time we had; nmazca.com/cairo/), but the best money is in East Asia... Which meant that after we were eventually hired in Korea in February (after three frustrated months in Taiwan [that decision made and contracts signed toward the beginning of MercRet*]), we weren't able to take time off to see the total eclipse in Egypt in March (a part of my years-long desire to go to the continent).

Still, it's what I continue to anticipate doing, either next winter or spring, or the year after (2008 being the Year of the Rat, my astro-animal). When asked what I will do (since I often mention staying for several months or even years), I can only say "I want to learn about traditional methods for healing and making medicine; agriculture, culture and rituals..." My father had told me many years ago (before he died in '98) that our family is descended from the Fula tribe, a nomadic people whose territory overlaps areas in Niger, Burkina Faso and perhaps SE Mali (and who seem to have been slaves to the Mandinke, as asserted in the fable "Gassire's Lute").

Mentioning Mali again, I heard music by the recently deceased Ali Farka Toure for the first time in 1998 (just weeks after my father died) and it felt like I was almost able to sing along, the music sounded so familiar. And then there's the Dogon in their cliff dwellings, with their knowledge-bearing antelope-deity totems, serpent-anointed priests, and otherworldly cosmology... and I just believe that there's a homecoming or a access point for a higher function of being to be had in that region.

Can you see what I mean about the sense of what is there beyond seeing, an as yet refined plan or action that compels over time? This what being a Balsamic native seems to be about ... or what it feels like to live through and aspire.