An Indian Visa Run

Date: 25 Jul 11

Location of accommodation: Club Mirissa

Activities: Bus trip to Colombo for the Indian Visa, walk through Cinammon Gardens.

Money spent: 800 Rs. Roundtrip bus

                      1500 Rs. Food.

Special experiences: Telling the bureaucrat off at the Indian Visa office wasn’t healthy, but it felt good.

Insights: In Sri Lanka, always try to take the air conditioned busses. They are much more comfortable and faster than the public busses, and not as crowded as the train (and really not much slower than the train either).

Thought of the day: Rich neighbourhoods are haven’s for the traveller weary of poverty and normality.

Photo of the day:

Reflecting at Club Mirissa

Date: 23 Jun 11-27 Jul 11

Location of accommodation: Club Mirissa

Activities: Reading, guitar, surfing, running, swimming.

Money spent: Avg:

900.00 Rs/ night accommodation w/ breakfast

            600.00 Rs./day food.

Special experiences:

            I did absolutely NOTHING here but read, surf and hang out in my room. It was a very healing time, incredibly introspective and quiet, with absolutely NO pressure.

Insights:

            In Sri Lankan “May I help you” is, literally, “What do you want.” The Sri Lankans translate this to English and use it for customer service. It sounds horrible, but is by no means meant to be offensive.

           

Thought of the month:

            There is no loneliness that the road cannot drive away. It is time to move on.

            There is no activity as good as reading.

            There is no job as good as research.

            There is no sport as healthy as surfing.

Photo of the month:

Poem of the month:

20 Jul 11

The suns send sparkles throughout the daily hours

Not so like Earth,

And who can say if the lesser sun rules nighttime or day,

The moons are not visible anyway,

And you can read a book and drive your car

Without needing sunshades like when shines the brighter star,

Glare of sunscreen over the eyes is an artificial night,

And most of them sleep anyway, during this time.

But not so the wandering Beat Boys,

Named after so many years era’s gone by

Beatnicks, back before humanities joys

Had been exported beyond the sky

And ruled a paradise of transgalactic high-

Way hypertunnels through the wormholes

In the black sky that borders every life.

(God, they say, had to rescind his light,

to make room for the night. Rescind I’m

not sure, breath in,

breath in, and breath out the dark,

one might exhalation before he spoke the spark

of the Phoenix creator

that breaches the gap between first and last

so that there is no first and last,

only the constant cycle

pitter patter pitter patter

of rising and falling breath-filling life,

spoken as the reflection of God.

Are we breathing out while God is breathing in?

Makes you wonder,

And I do).

The wandering Beat Boys,

This galaxy isn’t big enough for our jiving styles

Our finger licks and our juju toys

Like a Carzac coin clipping wind on the flip-bys

Of the city street vacuum lamps,

Sucking up the heat of the Greater Sun

While the children sleep and the tramps

Break bread in the parks by the tun-

Nels of love, where the gay boys

Go to Beat sticks together in the anti-rhythm

Of howling against the skirt. Noise

Will always be noise, and the lights so bright in the pavilions

Of the tunnels that nobody can see what you do,

And those boys where the darkest shades you’ve ever seen

To block out the sun stream-

Ing in from on high. The sky

Erupts with the fire of young-men-never-die

Love raised to the startops of faraway blues,

Their feet itching on the underside from all

The sundrop beating on the blacktop, up through their shoes,

Mean 20^th century Industrial blacktop poverty crawl-

Ing on this world like indecision. The technological age

Never made it to Kelsa Minor, it’s always been a stage

For the theater of the blue jeaned lovers left stranded

In material time through some strange reflection

On a time they don’t want to teach you about but branded

On the palms of every 12 year old boy confession

Time confession time you know you do, too.

We all want to be cowboys, riding the Simatar

Hordes across the Plains of Blue

Where Kristam met his end at the hands of the Jews,

Or gay men in sun-swollen shoes

(so they’ll teach you in their church-swollen schools,

all Kristam Kristam till the last man is through).

The Beat Boys.

Now that’s a different drummer,

Running on the hills

And in the streets and on the soft grey

Chrystaline sea,

All splish splash splish splash

Too fast to be boulderdash

Sinking in the semi-liquid up to the knee.

Running on water’s always alright with me.

There’s Tomboy

Dickboy

Rickroy

And Slim,

And me and old Scrawny Kid

Don’t forget about him.

I’m worried about Scrawny,

He’s starting to pick up the sin,

I found spoons in his room

Bending over for him.

Tomboy’s a girl,

And I got in her shorts,

But she don’t like me no more

She don’t like me no more like that.

Dickboy’s from Chadding,

Just over the ridge,

Where the rich boys pretend

That they’re on Omega Six

Playing backgammon for money

With the superstar rich,

All in linen waisvests with no shirt on their skins,

Smiling and smoking and drinking their gin.

But Dickboy plays bass, so we’ll let it slide just for him.

Rickroy—he’s cotton, if ever cotton there was,

None of this polyester shit they got on all of us.

I’m so sick of the oil that keeps us stuck in the sludge,

This planet’s only oil,

What’s the use of that gunge?

(they say a thousand years ago, back on Home Earth,

oil was 100 dollars a barrel worth,

and they’d go to war with each other therefore.

I can’t imagine our lives could be worse—but that sounds

Like hell). Slim, he ain’t got no money,

He’s just like the rest of us down on his luck

And trying to pick up his payment

In the music we truck around on our

Backs like some Hadowinian Turtoise shell

From up Bleaker Bay way. We crawl in and out of it

Like we’re trying to make love to it. Hell, I don’t know,

I guess we are, and we’re hoping it will reproduce some ticket

Off of this rock. Me, you know. Scrawny Kid, he’s my best friend,

Always together, tight like the number two.

So they we were, speeding over Canal Street

Where the Sea of Blue pours over to meet

Roper’s Bay a hundred miles south of here.

(they built it three hundred years ago before the

big contractors came in to start exporting all the

Simatar Beef off planet. All the range rovers lost

Their livelihood, most of them, like my old man

Wandered into the cities to look for non-existent jobs.

That’s when he started playing the bars

Along Canal Street where we’re heading now,

But my old man’s a different story. You’ll meet him soon

Enough anyway, he’s got the sin pretty bad in him).

“Willam ‘Slick’ Burrows and the Beat Boys”

reads the marquis. Nice to see something there

talking about me and the gang,

and the old man’s been a local favorite

Since ’97, when he transferred up from

The lower vibrations—even if he still can’t shake

The spoon he’s rock solid on the sax.

I mean, not that anyone else talks about all that old-time

Materialist hype like they used to before high stakes

Capitalism moved in. Nowadays there ain’t no such thing

As spiritual materiality…it’s all just greed,

But we know what time it is around here

And my old man ain’t Willam Burrows by accident.

His mom’s got the third eye like you wouldn’t believe,

And she saw it from the moment of inception…

So she says.

They call me Junior, but I ain’t really,

Cause I ain’t much like my old man at all.

But that can wait.

Mirissa, Dimilla Inn

Date: 16 June-23 Jun 2011

Location of accommodation: Dimila Inn, Mirissa

Activities: Body surfing, reading and writing.

Money spent: Avg: 

                        800.00 Rs—room

                        500.00 Rs—dinner

                        100.00 Rs.—internet

Special experiences: the bay here is lovely, with almost perfect body surfing waves.  They aren’t perfect, because they break too much over the top, but the back wash is powerful enough to give good experience for the beginner, with little danger since the water is only hip deep at the most and the bottom is beautiful sand all the way around except for rocks on both ends. 

Insights: no matter what, and even if it is only a façade, it is better to be humble and nice then to be true and angry.  A man refused to serve me at the market on the 19^th, I think because I am white.  But rather then carry the grudge of it I pretended within myself a fake modesty, and had soon forgotten the incident.  I had other good interactions subsequently at the market.  But the Sri Lankans seem to be particularly racist, and I have met zenophobia and racism at every turn here, although more so in Mirissa.

Thought of the day: false humility is better then truthful wrath. 

Photo of the day:

Poem of the day: 

The sky is blue today,

The air is green,

The sea is white with foam capped domes

Aspiring to the light.  The dream is lavish

As the surf beats on the shore,

And I think that we shall not be coming

Back here anymore.

No, we shall not be coming back here anymore.

The love that once enthroned itself upon our hearts

Has beaten its retreat to other plains of wild grass,

Flowing seas of windy sweet grass,

Tall as leaves of grass upon the other shore.

This shore is not meant for us here anymore,

The sky has turned away its eyes

From crowning us forescore,

And we are left without the bud of grace that we once wore.

No, we shall not be coming back here anymore.

We shall not be coming back here anymore.

The long blue days of rocking stillness

That we once did enjoy.  The sandy pearls

That once were left cast upon the moor,

The tumbler full,

The art-imbued,

The ever ready score.

The phallic traces of my heart long whistfully, for sure,

But we shall not be coming back here anymore.

For all the worlds on fire,

And this is the eve of a new sunrise.

The helicopters beat their tomtoms through the midnight skies,

Enforcing all the codes of heavy handed suicides—

The shores we knew are now so few,

So much has run atide:

The air is green with dreams I’ve seen

And faces painted black,

Under the hat they sit, while my heart hangs on the rack,

And all the faces painted green will never bring them back—

For those brave souls have gone to worlds

That mean the death of that. 

And I know that we shall not be coming back,

Oh, I know that we shall not be coming back.

Galle Fort

Date: 24 May-16 June

Location of accommodation: Galle Fort

Activities: reading (mostly enlightenment history), writing (novels, poems, Wordsworth essays), tai-chi (nearly every night), swimming and jogging

Special experiences: My last full day in Fort, 15 June, was a full moon holiday.  There were many Sinhalese visitors on that day, and the shops were all closed.  I decided not to leave that day as I had intended, because the busses would be so crowded, and bought lunch at Thenu Rest.  That evening I went out walking, watched some cricket being played in the park, and had a nice chat with the owner of Thenu Rest.  The next morning I ate breakfast at the court house tea house, and prepared my bags, then headed out for the hour ride to Mirissa.  Having already a place prepared in Mirissa, I made it in without any inconvenience and promptly when out swimming in the beautiful bay of Mirissa and then for a short jog.

The night before I left I began to watch a BBC production of the life of Byron.  It greatly inspired me with a love for the man, and I wrote the following poem after I had been out for a short walk about town, admiring one last time the wonderful Dutch architecture and the lighthouse on the bay.

Photo of the stay:

Poem of the stay: Byron’s mother died

While I was out walking,

And the chanting of the Buddhists

Led her to her grave.

The stars of the Indian are particularly

Bright, they twinkle on neverminding

All the tit-tat tit-tat of petty human

Hearts’ conflict.  The lighthouse at the

End of the row is quite

Possibly the most beautiful thing

I have ever seen,

And Byron’s mother died while I was

Out admiring it.

‘Dead?’ you say.

Whatever could that mean? 

What will the poor boy do with himself?

(She always complained of being ill,

so he told me once.

He never was in a hurry for her health).

The sea breaks sadly on the rocks tonight,

Great gray foaming clouds exploding in the rain.

Byron’s mother died tonight,

As if Napoleon himself had led the charge,

All top boots and breeches and I remember

A beautiful French lieutenant once,

Who danced topless before the fire,

Her hair long and silken dewed

Nipples the color of amber honey

Kissable to the nth degree.

Yes, the jungle is warm tonight,

But Byron’s mother is no more.

The Peace Pagoda

Date: 04 June 2011

Location of accommodation: Galle, Fort

Activities: bicycling up to the Peace Pagoda above Galle Harbor

Money spent:  1000.00 Rs room

                           120.00 Rs. Breakfast

                            250.00 Rs. Bike hire

                             350.00 Rs.  Fruit

                             550.00 Rs. lunch

Special experiences: seeing huge iguanas climbing trees

Insights: don’t buy cheap batteries, they won’t run a camera long enough to even get one shot.

Thought of the day: the light inside is strengthened by the light of others.  Don’t be afraid of that light, embrace it.

Photo of the day:

Essay of the day: Rather than writing a poem or other creative work today, I have decided to write an essay on the Rurounin Kenshi anime series that was produced in Japan in the late 90s.  The first season of the TV program, as opposed to it’s OVA “Trust and Betrayal”, is, in its storylines and art, an adolescents program.  However, with the opening of the second season, the writers and artist matured the series full force to an adult-level program.  The first story of the second season tells the story of Kenshin’s dual with an old adversary from the Meiji period, a leader of one of the troops of the Shensingumi.  To fully appreciate what the depth and maturity of this storyline, it is necessary to remember that the Shensingumi fought on the side of the Shogun, while Kenshin, during his days as an assassin, fought for the side of the Emperor. 

            The whole point of this series is to tell the story of Kenshin’s life after he turned from being an assassin.  He swore to never again take a life, but to use his sword as a tool for helping and aiding people in their time of need.  For this purpose he takes up a reverse blade sword, one whose blade is actually dulled so that it can not be used to kill with.  In the first series, Kenshin fights numerous opponents with the reverse blade, but in the story opener of the second season, he is actually for the first time driven back to a state of mind where he is ready to kill in order to win. 

            The final fight scene is one of the most brilliant fight scenes I have seen in anime.  The opponents employ numerous tricks in order to outmaneuver one another, all the while growing more determined to kill.  Meanwhile, on the sideline, Kenshin’s love watches as the Kenshin that she knows gives way to the Kenshin that was—the protector gives way to the killer.  One of the most striking moments is when Kenshin’s friend tells her that only a person who lived through the Bakumatsu era could possibly stop Kenshin from becoming the killer again in this situation.  “They aren’t fighting here anymore,” he says.  “They are back in Kyoto, back then.  That’s how it was.”  This poignant statement stuns the viewer into realizing that far from being a children’s parable about why it is important to value human life, this is a historically and psychologically detailed statement about Japanese history and society, and about how humanity can become so determined in their beliefs that they slip into a darkness of death and killing.  The most poignant bit of all of that for me is to realize how intense the struggle for mondernization was for Japan, and for many other countries like Germany and Italy after WWI.  When death and killing is all around you, you do not, you cannot, afford the luxury of valuing life. 

            Far from being a story for adolescents, the first story of the second season the Ruruoni Kensin comes closest to becoming a true sequel for (what was actually made after the series) the “Trust and Betrayal” OVA.  For anybody approaching the OVA after becoming first familiar with the series, the initial reaction is shock at the graphic and adult nature of the OVA.  But this shock quickly turns to complete absorption as “Trust and Betrayal” lures us into its brilliant vision of love and brutality, masterfully utilizing art and music to evoke a distant, romantic sublimity that very much reflects the nature of the subtitle of the film “Tales of Romantic Japan”.  The OVA’s patient attention to detail and inventive artistry are perfectly harmonized to its script, and if at any point the original series comes close to connecting with the vision of the Trust and Betrayal it is, appropriately, in this first story of the second season, where the two sides, Imperial and Shogunate, once again come face to face 10 years into the Meiji era.  But perhaps the most significant emotional trick of all being pulled here is the way in which the second season takes the viewer completely by surprise, shedding the adolescents of the first season and coming full force into its own as an anime for adults. 

            I highly recommend the series Rurioni Kenshin, and very much also the OVA “Trust and Betrayal”.  But I particularly recommend watching “Trust and Betrayal” and the first story of season two of RK: they are perfectly matched and present an almost seemless historical account of the Bokumatsu era and its philosophical underpinnings.      

29-31 May

Date: 31 May 2011

Location of accommodation: Galle, Fort

Activities: watching Rurounin Kenshin: writing up ethics review comments; cleaning room; tai-chi; getting take away for lunch in my scuba mask container.  Talk with Rose on Skype 29 May, chat with Christina on FB 31 May.  Not surprised by my feelings for Christina still, because I think they are foundational for my life, but major butterflies in my stomach chatting with her.  Sat for minutes neither one of us saying anything, just feeling, connecting.  This process of overcoming my fears is a long one. On 30 May went to take photos around Fort, went to nautical museum.    

Money spent: 1000.00 Rs. Room

                          250.00 Rs. Lunch

                          550.00 Rs. Museum

                          125.00 Rs. breakfast

Special experiences:  Found Rurounin Kenshin on 29 May, 2011.  This show is having a decided impact on my life.  Began to feel the pureness of Tai-Chi for the first time.

Insights: the game.

Thought of the day: stay true to your pure heart, ever more true, so that you can move from your belly.

Photo of the day:

Poem of the day:

“To he who walks my shadows:”

In the annals of my extrapersonal history,

The halls of my hyper-catholic soul,

I had to choose between beating you at the game

Or helping you to get over playing it.

I have tried to choose both,

And it has torn me in two moving this way. 

The water, the teams,

The water and the teams.

The water and the teams

And a pure, pure heart. 

Day trip to Colombo

Date: 26 May 2011

Location of accommodation: Galle Fort

Activities:  Day trip with a micro-bus to Colombo, shopping for dongle, new passport pickup at US embassy, attempted extension of visa--too late, return home with big bus.

Money spent: 1000 Rs. room

                          215 Rs. microbus

                         2700 Rs. new watch and old watch repairs

                         6000 Rs. dongle

                           500 Rs.  airtel SIM and minutes

                           500 Rs. tuck-tuck to Sri Lanka immigration office

                           107 Rs. bus return

                            400 Rs.  food

                            200 Rs.  fruit

Special experiences: the dongle setup I have doesn't work, but I think it might be the Airtel Sim. Get to the immigration office before 2:30 pm. 

Also, the watch repair man demanded to have my metal ring.  I can't believe he actually kept it.  I have a half a mind to go and demand it back. 
Lost my temper when I found out that I was going to have to go back to Colombo for the visa extension.  Remained pretty much angry throughout the journey home.    

Insights:  material possessions are not worth breaching the trust between humans over. 

Thought of the day: this is the emotion that occured to me in Colombo, although it took until the day after (while preparing this blog) until I was able to put it into words:
I realized for the first time today when I saw a fence around the Sri Lankan capital building, with it's huge, beautiful (and completely empty) lawn, that I am unwilling to have fences around government buildings in order to provide for the safety of the people inside. If you take public office, you should have to do so knowing that you might become a target. It would give us more responsible and sober-minded representatives. If I can get mugged or shot or hit by a car walking down the street, if I can get blown up by a bomb while visiting a foreign country, my representatives should face the same threats. Am I willing to give up personal liberties for security--you bet your sweet ass I'm not. Protective fences are for cowards.

Photo of the day: 

Writing of the day:
(Of course all of what follows belongs to Lucas's world of Star Wars.  I'm not trying to make any money off of it, it was just fun to write):  "Jedi of the Conch Republic":

            The sound of the island sytar filled the living space as the early morning sun crept in through the windows, filtering through the breeze-blown drapes.  Beer cans littered the ground, the sole survivors of last night’s festivities, the music itself not an inhabitant of the morning but merely an artifact of the night before.  The carpet, once lush and full of soft comfort was not worn hard and scattered upon with the stains of various kinds of droppings, beer, cigarette butts, vomit and more, much more, the fossilized evidence of much full life and hard labor.  And over by the portal leading into the hallway leading out to the courtyard—there, just beside of the air lock hatch which could be secured at a word against the ever present threat of a nitrogen upsurge in the unstable atmosphere of the planet, laying like some tossed away party fair, was a lightsaber.  How it had come to be lying on the floor is lost to the annals of galactic party lore, but it was not so soon forgotten as it had been haphazardly misplaced. 

            A shadow fills the doorway leading to the rooms beyond in the darkened part of the house.  Hanging glass beads part and the shadow breaths heavily, reaching out his hand in a sigh of relief and a beckon.  The lightsaber flies to the open hand and is lit as soon as it touches the golden tanned skin of its master.  The blue flame lights the face of the man behind the weapon, partly concealed by the shadows of the hallway beyond, but the eyes wide with amazement in a still drunken stupor.  It is always amazing, the power of the lightsaber.  They say these are the weapons of Jedi.  I don’t know much about that.  Where I come from there are no true Jedi.  No knights that you hear stories of.  Where I come from the ones who are lucky enough to be able to build lightsabers use them for one thing and one thing only: snorkeling in hyperspace.

Jedi of the Conch Republic

A short story of the Star Wars universe

By nathaniel V. finley

            “The Conch Republic: a water world in the T-2a system.  Once a haven for pirates, smugglers, and bounty hunters of all types, this small planet with an unstable nitrogen-flaring atmosphere was known for centuries as one of the premier tourist destinations for the lower Galactic systems.  It became a designated no-entry zone after Andobin power crystals were discovered in its watery depths and all tourist activity was suspended indefinitely. Plans were laid to relocate the small but staunchly loyal citizenry of the planet. However, when the Galactic government sent a battalion of security guards along with three full Jedi knights to oversea the resettlement of planetary residents to other systems the residents themselves formed a governmental council and declared that they were ceding from the Republic and named themselves “The Conch Republic” (after a similar event recorded in folklore said to have occurred on some obscure planet in a galaxy far, far away…an event some even stipulate has not occurred yet). A short conflict ensued between galactic troops and the residents but upon further investigation the Jedi council in charge of the new power crystal mining facilities realized that the power crystals were in fact only to be found in a relatively small portion of the water world’s surface and a compromise was thereby reached in which residents and tourists alike could remain on all but the small portion of the planet where mining activities occurred. Over the centuries the planet’s population proved to be so hospitable that the mining operations and the residential and tourists districts came in close contact and proximity to one another, and it became part of the Conch Republic’s charm and fame to have live Jedi miners mingling in the same bars and cafes which were popular among the tourists.  More than one retired miner was known to make a living selling Jedi miner wares to the tourist population. 

            Still, you don’t hear much about the Jedi agriculturalists, since they are far overshadowed by their Jedi knight counterparts. The Jedi Agricultural Core (JAC) is formed by Force-sensitive individuals who were not picked up by Jedi masters for further training as padawans after the initial three years of Jedi education. There are actually a number of Force-related jobs that such individuals might become involved with, and in the JAC mining for power crystals is only one such job field. It requires an extra five years of training at the JAC academy on Dantooine, where the extreme outer desert regions serve as a simulation field for mining activities in all types of environments , as the outer desert in Dantooine is an environment without oxygen. Power crystals only form in the absence of oxygen—although the reason for this phenomenon is not yet known—and the nitrogen-thick waters of the Conch Republic are just such places.

            Of course, Force-sensitive individuals who are not picked up to become padawans could opt out of the entire Jedi career field and many do. But programs such as JAC allow Force-sensitives the chance to continue developing their force skills and to learn how to use the force for other-than-combat (OTO) situations.  In the waters of the Conch Republic these workers are power crystal harvesters, or PCHs, popularly known as “pocks”.  It is a great honor to be able to call yourself a pock, as training is extremely arduous and completely voluntary with an over 80% attrition rate. Pock culture is exclusive and well known for its rowdy, drunken, can-do attitude. Pocks are famous for their unofficial motto “nobody owes us nothing, and we don’t owe nobody anything.”  On the Conch Republic the pocks intermingle more with the locals and the tourists then they do in other mining areas, but there are still a number of bars that are exclusively pock bars and no tourist in their right mind would wander in to those places uninvited. It’s not that pocks are violent, but one of their more striking and defining characteristics is a highly attuned use of the Jedi mind trick, which is always at play in any pock interaction even among themselves, and all the more the pleasure when it is turned on some unwitting tourist. Most of the time a tourist would pass a pock bar without even knowing it was a pock bar. If a tourist did happen to wander into a pock bar the first thing a pock would wonder is whether or not that tourist were unknowingly force-sensitive. At least one famous Jedi knight was first “discovered” after he had wandered into a pock bar and saw through the mind games that the pocks there attempted to play on him. 

            Another reason for the hard-edge of pock culture, and the reason why pocks are allowed to carry on as famously as they do was a defensive reason. For example, the Republic first learned of the existence of power crystals in the T2-A system because a Jedi spy had uncovered Sith activity in that region during the first Sith War, whereupon it was uncovered that the Sith were mining dark power crystals from the waters of the Conch Republic. This was actually the reason for the resettlement procedures, but once the secession had begun the Sith War ended, and as the immediate threat of the Sith had been alleviated the compromise agreement was reached and everybody seemed to be happy. It had been over 500 years since any dark side activity had been registered by force-sensors and even though there was a constant watch over the Conch Republic things seemed to be working out all right. The tourists brought in money for the system, the residents were happy and relatively independent of outside oversight, and the well-trained and insulated pock battalions worked peacefully in the waters without much interruption. They harvested both dark side and light side crystals—like all pocks do—which is once again a reason for their intense training since they had to build up an immunity to the power of the dark side crystals. That’s also why it was against the law for pocks to be allowed to have access to lightsaber technology.  Which is why a pock having a lightsaber was a very rare occurrence (in fact, pretty much unheard of), which is why the pock was so relieved to find his lying inside his compartment and not lost somewhere outside in the hands of one of his party guests. 

            “Goddammit why do I insist on showing you off?” the pock, whose name was Coal (after the legendary mineral from miner’s lore), declared as he flipped off the lightsaber and disappeared with it back into his sleeping chamber. 

            Now pocks are given three weeks vacation for every three months of work that they perform. Most pocks take this vacation off planet, which helps keep them from going island crazy. Coal also took his vacation off planet, except not the way you might think. Coal and his buddies had discovered a new pastime, one which was growing famous among the JAC community and the pock community in particular, and which was causing a great deal of concern with the Jedi council. This activity was known as “snorkeling in hyperspace”, and for the last two years it had become the only way to spend your vacation time. 

There are two types of Andobin chrystals—both of which are of the same family as the chrystals used in making laser guns (lightsabers blades are “frozen” laser beams).  One of these types channels the light side of the Force, and the other type channels the dark side—which is why the light of the two types of light sabers are of different colors.

            Light sabers work through a mechanism that focuses the Force from the body of the Jedi through the Andobin chrystals, creating a lazer beam of Force energy.  The mechanism must have some method for controlling the focus so that it freezes and sustains a specific wavelength of Force energy. Each Jedi must construct his or her own light saber, including inventing his or her own mechanism, and so there are multiple variations on this mechanism and no two are exactly alike (thouth mostly each lightsaber is a variation of the Jedi master’s who is training the padawan, because the padawan needs some clues and starting technology to construct the mechanism).

When lightsabers were initially concieved they were only theoretical. The practical problem was not how to create a lazer—that technology had long been in existence. The problem was how to freeze the lazer at a certain height and then to sustain it at that level. 

Most sabers use some sort of a conductive technology that uses the Force to act on the power mechanism that sends energy through the chrystals to produce the lazer.  Some operate on the mere will of the Jedi. If the Jedi is knocked unconscious the saber goes out. Other lightsabers employ a mechanism that actively channels the Force from the Jedi, and these sabers are turned on and off with a power button and can be operated by any force-sensitive being. But all lightsabers must be employed by channelers of the Force—whether they are Jedi or not, even if they are not aware that they channel the force to any small degree. Many Jedis employ evolving technology, which morphs itself to the Force imprint of the specific Jedi so that with use it will eventually only operate in concurence with that Jedi’s touch. The process of building a lightsaber is a process that teaches padawans a great deal about their personal  relationship to the Force. 

            All lightsabers, however, employ the power chrystals that are harvested from, among other places, the nitrogen waters of the Conch Republic. And the Jedi council use Jedi agricultural specialists to harvest the chrystals. Since Coal was not chosen by a Jedi knight to become a padawan, he was sent with five other trainees to become agriculturalists. He got his pick of what kind of agriculture he wanted to specialize in, and he chose chrystal harversting.