Eye, Chrysanthemum said Princess Haiku

While waiting for this years blooms I thought it would be fun to visit ones from the past, said Princess Haiku. After all; we are all ghosts!



The season's beauty has brought forth these divine creatures and harbingers of Autumn's Abyss.

luminous ballerina poppies, said Princess Haiku and a poem

The Poppy
Francis Thompson


'Who know not love from amity,
Nor my reported self from me;
A fair fit gift is this, meseems,
You give--this withering flower of dreams.

'O frankly fickle, and fickly true,
Do you know what the days will do to you?
To your Love and you what the days will do,
O frankly fickle, and fickly true?



'You have loved me, Fair, three lives--or days:
'Twill pass with the passing of my face.
But where I go, your face goes too,
To watch lest I play false to you.

'I am but, my sweet, your foster-lover,
Knowing well when certain years are over
You vanish from me to another;
Yet I know, and love, like the foster-mother.

'So frankly fickle, and fickly true!
For my brief life-while I take from you
This token, fair and fit, meseems,
For me--this withering flower of dreams.'
The sleep-flower sways in the wheat its head,
Heavy with dreams, as that with bread:
The goodly grain and the sun-flush'd sleeper
The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.




I hang 'mid men my needless head,
And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:
The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper
Time shall reap, but after the reaper
The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper!

Love! love! your flower of wither'd dream
In leaved rhyme lies safe, I deem,
Shelter'd and shut in a nook of rhyme,
From the reaper man, and his reaper Time.

Love! I fall into the claws of Time:
But lasts within a leaved rhyme
All that the world of me esteems--
My wither'd dreams, my wither'd dreams.

dance, the flowering trees, said Princess Haiku

Today I saw trees dancing in cherry blossom tutus.

The stunning chrysanthemum's of Nick Fox

I found this artist, Nick Fox via Moon River and his chrysanthemum's are dazzling.

More here

More on Nick Fox here.


Nick Fox’s paintings and objects are a combination of fine art and craft, romantic desire and explicit eroticism, decorative pattern and loaded symbolism. He employs this exploration of the symbiotic relationship between these pairings in a reflection on both the historical contexts of the art object and other artefacts, as well as in the subtle unravelling of systems of pictorial and personal codes of concealment.

the dancing Goddess Dolls of ALTAMIRA

These wonderful dancing Goddess Dolls of Altamira caught my imagination today. I happened upon a display of them at a local crafts fair and really they belong in an art exhibition.




They are made by Gloria Simmonds of ALTAMIRA and were inspired by her love of dance.



There is an article about ALTAMIRA IN THE SUMMER edition 2009 of Art of the Doll magazine. I am going to look online for a back copy.



For more information or to order a doll you can reach Gloria Simmonds at:
glowria99@yahoo.ca



There are days when we walk along expecting to see usual things. Then suddenly our eyes light on something gorgeous like these shamanic dolls and our outlook has been uplifted.

The name Altimira is very intriguing as is the work of this talented doll artist.

The word altamira has fine Spanish meanings. The first half, alta, means "high". The second half is a form of the verb mirar, meaning "to look at, to gaze, to behold, to watch, to value, to think highly of, to regard, to consider, to aim, to have in mind". Thus altamira can mean many things, from "behold on high" or "high things to look at" - such as the paintings on the ceiling of the Cave of Altamira - to "high value", "high aims", and "high regard". Altamira, the company, took it to mean "high quality images".

Even the Indo-European roots are benign. The root for alta is al-, "to grow". From this came the Latin altus, "high", then the Spanish alta and such familiar English derivatives as altimeter, altitude, alto, enhance, exalt, and oboe (from French haut bois, "high wood"). The Indo-European root for mira is smei-, "to smile". From this came Old Latin mir-, "to look at (with wonder or astonishment)", thus causing one to smile, and Latin mirus, "astonishing, strange, wonderful". The Spanish mirar is derived from these as are the English words admire, marvel, mi (as in do-re-mi), miracle, mirage, mirror, and smile. In astronomy, star Mira (the Wonderful) is the protypical variable star.

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belle chrysanthemum in exile

The chrysanthemums of this year have long faded but I have had enough of this drizzling rain and the flowers want to bloom again.






I present the dancers....

Cherry Blossoms is a film of great sensibility

photocredit

I recently viewed the film, Cherry Blossom by Doris Dorrie, an independent German filmmaker. The film touched me so profoundly that I saw it three times and found it to be the equivalent of a "Buddhist slap." While it deals with the tragedy of human relationships and our blundering inability to be present with and for the ones we love, it is not depressing. It's final message is that by entering grief and journeying through it we can find spiritual insight to connect with selfless love. We are all condemned to the sorrows of temporal existence but ultimately aesthetic beauty and acceptance of natural cycles of life and death lead us to transcendence. The film is enhanced by gorgeous cinematography, music and Butoh dance.

After seeing the film I looked for reviews and was disappointed that by and large it's spiritual depth was overlooked and that it was panned as a "feminist" movie perhaps because in this misogynistic era a woman produced it. There were no polemics in what I would call the Buddhist perspective of the film.I saw every character in the film as representing a different aspect of myself. It's really quite remarkable and I encourage all of you to see it. I assure you, you will look more carefully at the ones you love after you see it.

This is a snippet of a review that I did like," With her newest Japan film, “Cherry Blossoms” (which has its New York theatrical premiere on Friday), Ms. Dörrie reconfigures the wrenching parent-child tensions of “Tokyo Story,” the 1953 masterpiece of Yasujiro Ozu. Departing from the formal rigors of Ozu’s postwar reconstruction drama, Ms. Dörrie brings her trademark empathy and humor to the plight of an elderly Bavarian couple. Trudi and Rudi (Hannelore Elsner and Elmar Wepper) visit a son and daughter in Berlin who are too distracted by family and work to give their parents their due. The indignities continue in Tokyo, where Rudi is ignored by an expatriate son and, as consolation, nurtures a surrogate relationship with a teenage Butoh dancer.

Doris Dorrie is a very gifted filmmaker and I look forward to seeing other films she has made and will follow her in the future.

Note: film trailer in my video bar on right side of blog

If you like this post than visit Japonisme.

the blush of Spring, said Princess Haiku

The blush of Spring is a gentle color like no other.

the beauty of a tree, said Princess Haiku

I love trees, said Princess Haiku and all that they evoke.

For example this poem "Tree" by Jane Hirshfield.

It is foolish
to let a young redwood.

Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.

That great calm being
this clutter of soup pots and books-

Already the first branch-tips brush at the window,
Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.

Bridgescape, as I escape into the beauty of a view from the San Francisco Bay Bridge, said Princess Haiku

This is my California world with its astonishing beauty.



I have often wanted to share it with you and today I have the pleasure of being a passenger instead of a driver. Thus I am able to take these photos for everyone.



The view is always different; silvery water, shimmering mother of pearl gray reflections or blue clouds. Always different and always compelling.



Even a rainy day is as captivating as treacherous while driving here...



It's not easy to live in California anymore and our paradise is in peril; drough, real estate bubbles, overpopulation, global warming etc.



But how can one leave this paradise?



I will leave you with this perfect moment of beauty.


This post is dedicated to my friend Stephen who is recovering from surgery.

Dreaming of Moonriver in the Garden of the Taj Mahal, Redux

Yet one solitary tear
Would hang on the cheek of time
In the form
Of this white and gleaming Taj Mahal

Rabindranath Tagore

Statement of Purpose: The white marble tomb of the Taj Mahal stands prominently along the Yamuna riverbank, situated on the northern edge of a classic four-fold Mughal garden built in Agra, India in the 17th century. Although legends of a "Black Taj" across the river had long been dismissed, this research examined the archaeological evidence at the garden opposite the Taj Mahal, known as the Mahtab Bagh or "Moonlight Garden." Working as a collaborative team, we sought to determine the landscape architectural aims, layout, components, and meanings at this historic Mughal garden.

In 1995, the Mahtab Bagh comprised a roughly 24-acre rectangular site buried beneath a meter of flood-deposited soils, with fragments of a riverfront wall and corner tower. Residents of three nearby villages cut grass and scrub around the garden, scavenged brick and sandstone building material from the site, and commuted to work across-the Yamuna River by ferry.








This is a new incarnation of a favorite post, that I viewed on Moonriver long ago, that speaks to my love of poetic beauty.

Zap! A Fabulous Marin Chrysanthemum Show, said Princess Haiku

Today was a beautiful Autumn day, said Princess Haiku and the chrysanthemum show was dazzling.



I chatted with some lovely members of the Marin Chrysanthemum Society and they extended a warm welcome. They informed me that in the early summer they sell chrysanthemum seedlings at the farmer's market and that is a good thing to know



Did you know that there are chrysanthemum bonsai trees as well as many types of chrysanthemums?



The intensity and perfection of the flower was as blinding as white light.







Enjoy, said Princess Haiku as she vanished into a dazzle of rare beauty and flowers that evoke the spirit.





When the winter chrysanthemums go,
there's nothing to write about
but radishes.

Matsuo Basho