dawn

a day of rest

“… because work implies a stage of change–of war–between man and the world around him, it follows that rest designates peace between him and Nature. One day a week–a day which, by virtue of the analogy between time and cosmic space, corresponds to the idea of the centre implicit in the position of the sun among the planets or the location of the earth according to the geocentric system–must be set aside for experiencing the spontaneous, perfect harmony of man in Nature. By not working, the human being can break away from the order of change which gives rise to history, and thereby free himself from time and space to return to the state of paradise, This symbolism provides the explanation … [of] ‘the fiery restlessness of the rebel’: the instinctive hatred of all forms of rest characteristic of the man of warlike spirit who challenges all Nature and the world as it appears to the senses.”*

*cited: Trans: Jack Sage. JE Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols

dawn

does the red dawn
delight you…
snail? ~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)

Every life is a point of view directed upon the universe. Strictly speaking, what one life sees no other can. Every individual, . . . is an organ, for which there can be no substitute, constructed for the apprehension of truth . . . Without the development, the perpetual change and the inexhaustible series of adventures which constitute life, the universe, or absolutely valid truth, would remain unknown . . . Reality happens to be like a landscape, possessed of an infinite number of perspectives, all equally veracious and authentic. The sole false perspective is that which claims to be the only one there is. ~José Ortega y Gasset

dawn 42423

The sun rose while I slept. I had not yet risen

When I heard an early oriole above the roof of my house.

Suddenly it was like the Royal Park at dawn,

With birds calling from the branches of the ten-thousand-year trees.

I thought of my time as a Court Official

When I was meticulous with my pencil in the Audience Hall.

At the height of Spring, in occasional moments of leisure,

I would look at the grass and growing things,

And at dawn and at dusk I would hear this sound.

Where do I hear it now?

In the lonely solitude of the City of Hsün Yang.

The bird’s song is certainly the same,

The change is in the emotions of the man.

If I could only stop thinking that I am at the ends of the earth,

I wonder, would it be so different from the Palace after all? ~Po Chü-I *

*cited: Trans: F Ayscough & A Lowell, Project Gutenberg eBook of Fir-Flower Tablets: Po Chü-I, “Hearing the Early Oriole” (written in exile).

the dawn is here…

In the summer night
The evening still seems present,
But the dawn is here.
To what region of the clouds
Has the wandering moon come home?

~Kiyohara no Fukayabu

Meditative photography with an iPad, John F Simon’s “Drawing your own Path,” a pair of reading glasses, a fountain pen, and the dawn.  Edited in Lightroom CC.

Seeing Differently: 8th of 15 images

…

It is more important

To see the simplicity

To realize one’s true nature

To cast off selfishness

And temper desire.

                                   ~The Tao-te Ching By Lao-tzu

earlymorningraindrops

a gift from a predawn rainfall…

water drops on the top of a well-waxed automobile…

submitted in response to Robyn’s Seeing Differently challenge