December 1, 2025, Monday morning … last night’s snow powder left by the season’s first snowfall … mystery creating mist …
First snow! I see it young every winter,
Yet my face grows old
As Winter comes.
~The Diary of Izumi Shikibu (1002-1003 AD)*
just like darkness
it sneaks in…
autumn cold ~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)
Visit The Life of B to join November’s Shadows of Squares
wabi-sabi … the beauty within the transition of summer’s fading light to autumn’s slumbering shadows
“We crossed it in a boat, and it is the Province of Sagami. The mountain range called Nishitomi is like folding screens with good pictures. On the left hand we saw a very beautiful beach with long-drawn curves of white waves. There was a place there called Moro-koshi-ga-Hara (Chinese Field) where sands are wonderfully white. Two or three days we journeyed along that shore. A man said: ‘In Summer pale and deep Japanese pinks bloom there and make the field like brocade. As it is Autumn now we cannot see them.’ But I saw some pinks scattered about blooming pitiably. They said: ‘It is funny that Japanese pinks are blooming in the Chinese field.'” *
*Trans: AS Omori and K Doi. The Sarashina Diary, AD 1009-1059 Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan
Visit The Life of B to join November’s Shadows of Squares
Revisiting contemplative photographs from 2018
2018 Sony DSC-RX100M3: f/5 1/2,000s 9.69mm
It stirs the soul
of even
the most
indifferent person –
first autumn winds ~Saigyo
Journeys with Johnbo takes us back to Patty’s June 2020 lens-artists photo challenge in which she invited artists “… join us … and share your images of this season. What does autumn look like in your part of the world? What does this season mean to you personally?”
Images of autumn, 2020
how I envy maple leafage
which turns beautiful
then falls ~Kagami Shikoo
What is it about autumn that is personal … the joy of a new school year, crunchy sounds of leaves, sights of leaves swirling with autumn winds, memories of burning leaves and jumping into piles of leaves, scents of autumn, promises of snow, desires to fly with geese, and feeling autumn’s unique dryness.
This week’s lens-artists invitation is to share images created in 2024 that either did not meet the criteria for a theme or were created after a specific theme was published.
I can’t recall if there has been a challenge offered this year to photograph using “illumination from behind.”
I enjoy photographing into October’s early morning sun as it seems to give life to the texture and colors of autumn leaves. These two images taken on October 27th were the last two created for the year with a Sony RX 100 3. While both images have a soft blur that initially was a bit of a disappointment, I do enjoy the bokeh and intense yellows and greens,
Within this image I enjoy the soft highlights along the edges of the leaves in the upper right corner.
Within this image, I like how the sun has given a golden glow to the leaves on the stem that moves from the middle of the image to the lower right.
May this year transition to a new year with a global movement towards compassion for all life.
The lotus has wilted, only a faint perfume remains;
On the bamboo mat there’s a touch of autumn chill.
Softly I take off my silk dress
And step on board my orchid skiff alone.
Who is sending me the letter of brocade
From beyond the clouds?
When the wild geese return**
The moon will be flooding the West Chamber.
Flowers fall and drift away,
Water glides on,
After their nature.
Our yearning is the sort
Both sides far apart endure–
A melancholy feeling there there’s no resisting.
As soon as it leaves the eyebrows
It surges up in the breast*.
*cited: Ci-pomes of Li Qingzhao: A New English Translation, Sino-platonic Papers. No 13, October, 1989
**Wild geese were thought to be bearers of letters, especially love messages, because of their regular migrations from north to south and vice versa.
Blow if you will,
fall winds–the flowers
have all faded. ~Gansan*
*cited: Yoel Hoffman, Japanese Death Pomes
A valley and above it forests in autumn colors.
A voyager arrives, a map leads him there.
Or perhaps memory. Once long ago in the sun,
When snow first fell, riding this way
He felt joy, strong, without reason,
Joy of the eyes. Everything was the rhythm
Of shifting trees, of a bird in flight,
Of a train on the viaduct, a feast in motion.
He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I. ~Czeslaw Milosz*
*cited: Trans. Robert Haas. Poetry-Chaikhana.com Sacred Poetry from Around the World
Intentionally, I set my mind upon the engagement of self with the process of reading the words of another with a knowing that I have accepted an invitation to consider an author’s worldview; that is, to place reality upon a shelf or to open a unique window of understanding.
…distraction, from this engagement as I become aware of a shadow presence – a transparent here-ness tinted with memories of you. It is as if you emerged from the printed page calling forth shared memories. I feel you sitting silently beside me. Within this silence, I begin to search for words, sentences that covey meanings and insights that awaken the joy that comes from an easing of longing and I hear myself whisper, “Here, a treasured story of thought that reconnects us, reflects a past time of us together, that validates words, ideas—you—and messages, ‘I have heard you within the sharing of love. I delight in knowing you. I wish to thank you for simply being…you are the joy that accompanies a gift in transit to being received.’”
…awareness, the words on the page have faded, I have disengaged myself from the invitation to consider the worldview of another as I entered imagined moments with you. I miss you. I miss us.
…accepting that what I yearn for can never be for I’m in the autumn of my life while you, my child, have now entered your summer as your children dance within their spring. Seasons flow one into another—their circular, repeating patterns defined by an unseen guiding hand—births expectations, hope and trust created from past consistencies.
History is remembrances re-emerging like the youthful sprout fragile in its newness, in its responding to life’s call. Yet, in time this newness will fade and become fragile as one’s autumn yields to their winter.
First posted on September 26, 2013
a meditative journey 
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