The alliterative trinity suggests the grand cosmic joke of existence.
Let me continue this sardonic mix of memories, spirits, souls, and our beastly behaviour.

In the sacred corners of my childhood memory, mother’s “baboes” (servants) would place little food offerings to appease household spirits—a superstition (to us Europeans) that could seem relevant while pondering Myanmar’s paradox.
How can a country so rich in resources be so perpetually embroiled in conflict? Perhaps the spirits are displeased with their offerings?

Meanwhile, our collegiate elite (US FRAT BOYS) treat scandals like minor hairstyling emergencies—brush, comb, and on to the next disaster, the consequences sliding off their perfectly coiffed heads.
Just yesterday, scrolling through the news, I noticed how these fraternity types discuss bombing and, consequently, humanitarian crises with all the depth of a kiddie pool.

The universe delivered a perfect metaphor as I left home today: a pile of muck thrown over my hedge by the pool cleaner. When confronted, he offered the brilliant defence that I didn’t appear wet or dirty, as if that justified his garbage catapult. My suggestion to use the grass instead was met with the profound declaration: “Not on the grass.” I walked away, recognizing that arguing with such wisdom would be futile.

This encounter is oddly connected to Myanmar’s junta with their “rigged election” excuse for seizing power. Isn’t that rather like getting dry buggerd and then being told it is love?
The mental gymnastics would be impressive if they weren’t so devastating.

I continue my day with all the joy of a Sunday stroll in Siberia, wondering how so-called experts with impressive academic credentials keep rigging the system against those trying to make “honest” sense of markets and consumer behaviour.
Their graphics and theories about clothing consumption patterns serve mainly to obscure rather than clarify.

This brings me back to Mother’s rotating cast of seamstresses, each with their own speciality. I detested fittings (the pinching!), but she was right about cheap clothes being a trap for commoners. “Quality pieces must be collected throughout life,” she’d say, a luxury perspective that nonetheless contains wisdom.
One seamstress, Fay, from either Siam or Burma, told five-year-old me: “Never cry for departed loved ones, or their spirits will be trapped between dimensions.” Her exotic name already held magic in my child’s mind; imagine the impact of her metaphysical warnings!

Then there was Inez—Mother’s willowy Dutch makeup artist, a platinum blonde apparition who committed the cardinal sin of bathroom visits during state (mother’s) dinners.
Mother’s fury wasn’t merely about violated etiquette (one must always empty one’s bladder before the soup course!) but rather the knowledge that Inez was purging the very delicacies she had just theatrically enjoyed.
A different kind of offering to different kinds of spirits.
This high priestess of cosmetics once told me that I “needed only mascara” due to my “rare beauty”—a compliment that, like her meals, contained more than met the eye.
What strange worship, this cult of thinness, where transcendence comes through the violent rejection of sustenance rather than its appreciation.

Another maternal friend, Fatima, arrived everywhere with her prayer carpet in tow. Her table manners (deplorable in my subjective vision) once prompted my childish comprehension of the impossible choreography between respecting differences and questioning inconsistency.
I was caught between respecting my upbringing (drilled etiquette) and the taboo of correcting an elder—an early lesson in navigating cultural contradictions.

These memories and present contemplations reveal a simple truth: Our species doesn’t naturally segregate itself into warring factions over theological differences. We must be carefully herded into such productive hatreds by those who profit from our mindless labours.
How much more efficient to have us dragging and carrying while blaming each other rather than looking upward at those holding the reins.

May Harmony find you,

Irena Phaedra

P.S. My harmony today was accompanied by;… Suga, suga, how you get so fly?
Suga, suga, how you get so fly?
Suga, suga, how you get so fly?
Suga, suga, how you get so fly?

… You know it’s leather when we ride wood grain and raw hide
Doing what we do, watching screens getting high
Girl, you keep it so fly with your sweet honeybuns
You was there when the money was gone
You’ll be there when the money comes

… Off top, I can’t lie I love to get blowed
You my lil’ suga, I’m yo’ little chulo
And every time we kick it, it’s off to the groovy
Treat you like my sticky-ickey or my sweet ooey-gooey (for real though)