pillow cloud moon at dusk

the golden fish blog was a flurry of activity yesterday with all the excitement of inspiration wednesday.

i met so many people. smart, creative, cool incredible people. i learned so much!

thankyou to all of you for visiting and leaving your kind comments!!

in addition to responding to the many amazing and varied comments i received (and replied to), i continued with my "list of things that can only be done in the summer holidays that must not be left until it is too late."

progress was made with sorting through my clothes closet. it's an amazing place filled with heaps of prints that i have bought from really good young artists, stacks and stacks of end-of-the-year letters and cards from students and their parents, there are even clothes in there!

a "what's in your closet" meme could be ugly and fruitful. all sorts of frightful insightful soul-baring could come out of that!! hmmmmm.

many of the clothes in my closet have great memories (i mean i have great memories of them) - some of them even have a place in history - but apparently some of them embarass my kids.

i've never cared that much about being stylish except for a powerful stretch in grade 7 - 10

when it mattered almost as much as anything could.

when cool clothes equalled attention.

and "attention" was optimally provided by as many girls as possible.

which made it all so very very worthwhile.

both my kids are now in that age group and so they are being washed ashore and back out to the sea on waves of whims and wishes, not the least of which are to have cool and cool looking parents whose coolness almost matches their own incredible cool quotient.

nowadays i buy clothes and wear them to reflect my state of mind, my need for warmth or not, and my affection for the item. i love shopping, but i don't like trying clothes on. i see something, it hums for me, i check the tag to see if i can stand the pain, and if i can then it's up to the checkout, into a bag and it's off to the closet.

but eventually all these items reach that point of no return where there are no justifications big enough or truthful enough for my family. so a big bag of well-loved clothes will be headed back into the world for someone else to wear and perhaps cherish.

so that was my day.

~

and

after a day of rain and sun

the evening spread soft and pink against a deep blue sky

the moon floated on a pillow of clouds

clouds come from time to time -

and bring to men a chance to rest

from looking at the moon.

basho

a peaceful day to everyone out there in blogland!!

just visiting

plants fill my home. each has a special place for me as i tend to them each week. water, food, sometimes moved into the sunlight, sometimes taken outside. each is a small treasure. it helps clean the air of this house, provides colour at times when there is not much colour to be seen, and softens the space. the japanese poet basho knew of their value when he wrote . . .

for a lovely bowl
let us arrange these
flowers...
since there is no rice

basho


coleus are native to tropical africa, asia, australia, the east indies, the malay archipelago, and the philippines. i can't remember a time when there hasn't been one somewhere in my home. what a lucky person!!

the one in the picture above is enjoying summer on my deck. far from its ancestor's home. but very welcome!!!

moments along the narrow road to the interior

i've been reading "narrow road to the interior and other writings" by matsuo basho. basho has shown up before on the golden fish so i won't get too deep into his biography.

rather, i'd like to share some little moments in the book that stand out for me.

"smoke of burning leaves and pine cones drew me on, touching something deep inside. then the moon rose, shining on the sea, day turned suddenly to night. we stayed at an inn on the shore, our second-story windows opening on the bay. drifting with wind and clouds, it was almost like a dream."

all night long
listening to autumn winds
wandering in the mountains kawai sora

all the long night
salt-winds drive
storm-tossed waves
and moonlight drips
through shiogoshi pines. basho

wave after wave
mixes tiny seashells with
bush clover flowers basho

with clear melting dew
i'd try to wash away the dust
of this floating world basho

across a dark sea,
the distant cries of wild ducks
and faintly, traces of white basho

the bee emerging
from deep within the peony
departs reluctantly basho

visit the golden fish sister blog over at flow.

winter days part two

from the beautiful confluence of writer and artist comes this amazing rendering of basho's ranga entitled "winter days" in its animated format.

"the creation of the film followed the traditional collaborative nature of the source material -- the visuals for each of the 36 stanzas were independently created by 35 different animators. as well as many japanese animators, kawamoto assembled leading names of animation from across the world. each animator was asked to contribute at least 30 seconds to illustrate their stanza, and most of the sequences are under a minute (yuriy norshteyn's, though, is nearly two minutes long)."

part seven

part eight

part nine

part ten

part eleven

part twelve


what? you didn't see part one?!!! where've you been?!!! you need to go back in time and watch it right here!

winter days part one

from the beautiful confluence of writer and artist comes this amazing rendering of basho's ranga entitled "winter days" in its animated format.

"the creation of the film followed the traditional collaborative nature of the source material -- the visuals for each of the 36 stanzas were independently created by 35 different animators. as well as many japanese animators, kawamoto assembled leading names of animation from across the world. each animator was asked to contribute at least 30 seconds to illustrate their stanza, and most of the sequences are under a minute (yuriy norshteyn's, though, is nearly two minutes long)."

part 1
part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6

if you enjoyed this then you might like to visit my other blog over at "flow".