Does that bird
think of past times
as it flies, singing
over the shade in the spring…
of weeping willows? ~unknown
life’s passages … 4
See and realize
that this world
is not permanent.
Neither late nor early flowers
will remain.
~Ryokan*
*cited:
Sky Above, Great Wind
Trans: K Tanahashi
life’s passages … 3
Spring has its hundred colors,
Autumn its moon,
Summer has its cooling breezes,
Winter its snow.
If you allow no idle concerns
to weight on your heart,
Your whole life will be one
Perennial good season.*
*cited: The Golden Age of Zen, p. 286
life’s passages … 2
Through the years
I’ve become used to sorrow,
There was not one spring
I didn’t leave behind
the flowers.
~Izumi Shikibu*
*cited:
The Ink Dark Moon
Trans: J Hirshfield & M Aratani
life’s passages … 1
Morning haze
jewels of rain, falling
in a dream
monochrome madness – 1/3/24
Leanne Cole’s monochrome madness challenge
tuesday morning with yosano akiko
Purple butterflies
Fly at night through my dreams.
Butterflies, tell me,
have you seen in my village
the falling flowers of the wisteria? ~Yosano Akiko*
*cited: K Rexroth and Ikuko Atsumi
wednesday morning with Wang Wei
Empty mountain, no man is seen.
Only heard are echoes of men’s talk.
Reflected light enters the deep wood
And shines again on blue-green moss. ~Wang Wei*
*cited: Rafal Stepien, Jestor Daily Vol.16, No.2 (2014)
saturday morning with James Hillman
There is more in human life than our theories of it allow. Sooner or later something seems to call us onto a particular path…This what I must do, this is what I’ve got to have. This is who I am…
…the call may have been more like gentle pushings in the stream in which you drifted unknowingly…you sense that fate had a hand in it.*
cited: James Hillman, The Soul’s Code In Search of Character and Calling.
monochrome – morning’s sun
wednesday morning with Eugenia Kim
“… I realized it wasn’t the answers I was seeking all those years that mattered as much as the act of seeing itself. It was incredible, this human capacity for learning, for hope, for love, that persisted like the box of light in my cell, the waters that flowed in my dream. It was beyond my understanding. Tears came as I surrendered to this wonderment of being.”*
*cited: Eugenia Kim, The Calligrapher’s Daughter.
monochrome madness – reflection
early morning reflection submitted in response to Leanne’s monochrome madness challenge
a meditative journey 
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