street photography

gaze

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I longed for snow while we were staying there, but just then I had to go home to my parents. Two days after retiring from the Court a great snow came. The old familiar trees of my home reminded me of those melancholy years when I used to gaze upon them musing when the colours of flowers, the voices of birds, the skies of Spring and Autumn, moon shadows, frost and snow, told me nothing but that time was revolving, and that I was menaced with a dreary future. ~The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu (cited: Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan)

Toy Store

“We must look deeply to identify the real suffering of our times and to understand how it has come to be. Our modern way of living brings tension, stress and pain to our body; we are exposed to anger, violence, and fear; we live with the threat of terrorism, the destruction of the ecosystem, war and famine, climate change, the economic crisis, recession, poverty, social injustice, broken families and divorce, and so much more.

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Toy Store…  Nikon D750   f/1.8  1/25s  35m   100 ISO

How are we living? How are we consuming? What violence, fear, and anger are we ingesting every day through the media around us? How is our lifestyle polluting the environment and creating a toxic level atmosphere for our bodies and our minds, for our families and for future generations?  If we can call the suffering, the real ill-being of our times, by its true names and if we an see how it has come to be, we will know exactly what kind of medicine, what kind of healing we need in order to deal with it. The truth of ill-being will reveal the end of ill-being.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh (The Other Shore)