little spaces and colours

i've walked by this billboard many times. it's not unique in any way and so (as with so much) i consigned it to the wallpaper of the landscapes that i pass by and ignore.

but today as i passed it, something about it caught my eye.

there were colours inside the little grills. colours in the rusting framework.

so i stopped and really looked at the little spaces and colours.

winter zen

winter . . .



a day of fog and melting snow . . . in the woods a silvered silence . . . the yellow flags of leaves still waving . . . tree trunks like candles reaching into the aether . . . in a time long before this one the haiku master issa saw this and wrote . . .

"i see them now . . . how they were ... bare winter trees"



closer to the ground . . . the tall grasses of summer bow down under the weight of the winter snows . . .



inside a similar moment the japanese haiku master ikkyu wrote . . .

"the world before my eyes is wan and wasted, just like me. the earth is decrepit, the sky stormy, all the grass withered. no spring breeze even at this late date, just winter clouds swallowing up my tiny reed hut."



issa wrote . . . "the mountain hermit's fire is rising... winter rain. "

setting sail

fu hsuan who lived between a.d. 217 and a.d. 278 was born into poverty. he became wealthy through his writing. the world also became wealthy through his writing, but in a different way.

a gentle wind

a gentle wind fans the calm night; a bright moon shines on the high tower. a voice whispers, but no one answers when i call; a shadow stirs, but no one comes when I beckon. the kitchen-man brings in a dish of bean-leaves; wine is there, but i do not fill my cup. contentment with poverty is fortune's best gift; riches and honour are the handmaids of disaster. though gold and gems by the world are sought and prized, to me they seem no more than weeds or chaff.

there are watershed moments in our lives that feel like we're setting sail - the journey unfolds like a carpet rolling out across a floor . . . like a prayer flag unravelling in the wind . . .

emily dickinson knew this moment . . . .

setting sail.

exultation is the going
of an inland soul to sea, --
past the houses, past the headlands,
into deep eternity!
bred as we, among the mountains,
can the sailor understand
the divine intoxication
of the first league out from land?

anne packard knows this moment . . .

"sail"