Helen Keller

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Your success and happiness lie in you.
External conditions are the accidents of life,
its outer trappings.
The great, enduring realities are love of service.
Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm
and our intelligence aglow.

Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you
shall form an invincible host against difficulty.

Helen Keller








resolve to keep happy
resolve to write one haiku each day



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This is a coincidence, read in the Japan Times today:

Picture of Helen Keller as a child
revealed after 120 years

By David Usborne in New York
Friday, 7 March 2008


Photographs of Helen Keller, the world-renowned advocate for the deaf and the blind who suffered from both handicaps herself, are not hard to come by. After all, she only died in 1968, at the age of 87. However, an image of the pioneer which has surfaced this week is a little bit different. Above all, there is its age.

The image, released by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, was taken 120 years ago and shows an eight-year-old Keller holding the hand of Anne Sullivan, whose legacy is almost as important. She was the teacher who first taught Keller how to understand and articulate language. More important still for Keller scholars, the black and white photograph shows her holding in another hand a doll. The word "doll" was the first Keller ever spoke – the fruit of her lessons from Ms Sullivan, whose technique included spelling out words on the palm of the little girl's hand.

The picture, apparently taken at Cape Cod in July 1888, was found in an album by Thaxter Spencer, 87, whose mother was a childhood friend of Keller. Mr Spencer donated the album and other items including diaries and letters to the genealogical society last June. However, the group did not notice the particular photograph until now. Mr Spencer said his mother, Hope Thaxter Parks, used to play with Keller when her family travelled from their home in Tennessee for summer holidays on the Cape. Unaware of who might have wielded the camera that day, he recalls his mother saying that Keller used to explore her young friend's face with her hands.

He admitted he had no idea how much of a stir the photograph would create, saying: "I never thought much about it. It just seemed like something no one would find very interesting."

What he missed were the combined components of the image, probably the first ever taken of Keller and Ms Sullivan together. It shows the strength of their bond, even at that early stage.

The inclusion of the doll is a virtual metaphor for Keller's breakthrough from being a child angered and frustrated at her handicap to becoming a tireless scholar and activist for blind and deaf people everywhere.

"It is really one of the best images I have seen in a long, long time," Helen Selsdon, an archivist at the American Foundation for the Blind, where Keller worked for more than four decades, told the Associated Press news agency. "This is just a huge visual addition to the history of Helen and Annie."

Not that the picture has been entirely unseen until now. After announcing its discovery on Wednesday, the genealogical society, which will continue to hold it, discovered that it had been published in a Cape Cod journal in 1987 and by The Boston Globe newspaper half a century before that. It is not yet clear whether more than one copy may have existed at one time. Nevertheless, scholars and advocates for the deaf-blind will consider the image one of the most important additions to the Keller archive for a generation.

"The way Anne is gazing so intently at Helen, I think it's a beautiful portrait of the devotion that lasted between these two women all of Anne's life," said Jan Seymour-Ford, a research librarian at Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusetts, which both Sullivan and Keller attended. "It is a beautiful composition. It is not even the individual elements. It is the fact it has all of the components."
©　www.independent.co.uk




©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !


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.. More of my quotes with haiku




. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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Tea Ceremony

どうどうと茶をのみなされ　初茶会 doodoo to cha o nominasare drink your tea with great dignity ! first tea ceremony どうどうと句を詠みなされ　初句会 doodoo to ku o yominasare hatsu kukai write your ku with great dignity ! first haiku meeting 那須正丘 .. Nasu Masataka Inspired by the words of a tea master who is 100 years old. He lives in the North of Japan and still teaches more than 20 students weekly.

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新潟県長岡市の那須正丘 (まさたか)
©　www.nhk.or.jp




. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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sunrise

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how perfect !
all the colors of sunrise
in my valley



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. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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Shunryu Suzuki

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If you can just appreciate each thing,
one by one,
then you will have pure gratitude.

Even though you observe just one flower,
that one flower includes everything.


Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
Branching Streams Flowing in the Dark

Shunryu Suzuki (Suzuki Shunryū, dharma name Shogaku Shunryu) (May 18, 1904 - December 4, 1971) was a Soto Zen priest born in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan.
Suzuki was occasionally mistaken for the Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki, to which Suzuki would reply,
"No, he's the big Suzuki, I'm the little Suzuki."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunryu_Suzuki



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. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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sounds of spring

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sounds of my spring -
the call of pheasants
in my valley



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ora ga haru ... (sounds of) my spring


. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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snow and sunshine

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snowflakes
dancing in sunshine -
a change of seasons




steep roof -
the snow melts
before it slips


(Usually, the snow slips down in noisy avalanches from the roof!)



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MORE
. . . SNOW in this winter !



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first crocus

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first crocus - almost overlooked amongst brown wet leaves

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WKD - Tombi, tobi kite

[ . BACK to Worldkigo TOP . ]
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signs of my spring - the tombi high above my roof

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He lives with his family in the nearby forest and when he starts cruising the valley, we know its time for nestbuilding !　The pronounciation of his hame is tobi or tombi.


The motto of my hermitage is:

To live whilst looking at the back of the tombi.
鳶の背中を見てくらす！

when he cruises the valley below us ...


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nest of the black kite, tobi no su 鳶の巣（とびのす)
kigo for all spring


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The name of the bird by itself is not used as a kigo, we observe the bird all year round.

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. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .

- Matsuo Basho told his disciples:

鳶に乗て春を送るに白雲や
tobi ni notte haru o okuru ni shirakumo ya

Riding on a kite
to see the parting spring--
the white clouds


... alludes to the Xiaoyaoyou (carefree wandering) chapter of the Zhuangzi, in which the philosopher Liezi is depicted as soaring to the skies by rinding on the wind.
source : Peipei Qiu: Basho and the Dao


Liezi 列子 Resshi （れっし）
[Liezi] could ride the wind and go soaring around with cool and breezy skill, but after fifteen days he came back to earth.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !



. Chinese background of Japanese kigo .


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The Black Kite, Milan noir

The Black Kite (Milvus migrans) is a medium-sized bird of prey in the family Accipitridae which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as eagles, buzzards, and harriers.
Wikipedia has more !





high autumn sky -
the soaring kite
takes my soul

© Gabi Greve, 2005



The days are getting warmer.
We have started cooking outside in the garden, enjoying the splendid view of the green mountains while food is simmering.
The big kite and his wife are circling slowly over our valley.

summer picknick -
a bird dropping right into
the cooking pot

©　Gabi Greve, Summer 2007


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. tobishoku, tobi-shoku 鳶職 carpenters
who worked in the fire brigade in Edo .


. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008

hawk spring tobi
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orange mist

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early morning -
the shadow of pines
behind orange mist



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. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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diamond morning

morning meditation - the short lifespan of snow patterns day moon light and shadow and here is ME taking photos

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. . . Check my PHOTO ALBUM from here to nr. 22



. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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pink morning

pink morning - what else can I say but THANK YOU ! pink morning what else can I say but NAMU AMIDA ! my neighbour below GokuRakuAn ... the Roof wild fields in pink sunshine pink morning mist - GokuRakuAn at its best 鴇色の朝を迎えて南無阿弥陀

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薄紅の大垪和の朝や言葉なし

pale pink morning in Ohaga
without words

rosaroter Morgen
in Ohaga ...
ohne Worte


Nakamura Sakuo

Thank you, Sakuo san!

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My Photo ALBUM of this morning
Start from here to Nr. 37



. . . Read my SNOW Haiku of this winter 2007/2008


. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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sudden rain

sudden rain - my world reduced to shades of gray

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The gray of this background is called Genji Nezumi Gray
#888084

Grey, Gray (hai-iro, hyaku nezu) and Haiku




Behind the house, all the snow has slipped from the roof and hangs onto the gallery of the outdoor kitchen !






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A note from Larry Bole, Happy Haiku Forum

Gabi san, just a note about gray:

Thanks for the haiku and the haikutopics entry on gray. I like Rikyu, and now I have something new to learn about him and "Rikyu gray."

Recently, in New York City, there was a controversy about plans to renovate the Guggenheim Museum. The designer of the building, Frank Lloyd Wright, hated gray. Originally, the building was painted a buff yellow. But afer 11 coats of paint over the years, the building ended up being light gray. Recently, the Landmarks Preservation Commission here decided that the building will remain light gray. This has disappointed architects and others who decry the graying of our cities.

It makes me think of how garish we would find it if the marble-white sculptures and buildings of antiquity were restored to the original vivid colors they were apparently painted with.

Anyway, hopefully I will be visiting an exhibit of work by the great American artist Jasper Johns at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, titled "Jasper Johns: Gray," which will look at his use of gray throughout his career.

"Johns has worked in gray, at times to evoke a mood, at other times to evoke an intellectual rigor that results from his purging most color from his works."


Here are a couple of gray haiku I like:


dawn–
shades of grey break
into birdsong

Pamela Miller Ness -
The Heron's Nest (Dec. 2000)



storm warning
the watercolorist works
in shades of grey

Tom Painting
from The Heron's Nest


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. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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my own efforts

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One is happy as a result of one's own efforts--
once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness--
simple tastes, a certain degree of courage,
self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all,
a clear conscience.

George Sand





and love of haiku ...


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MORE
QUOTES and HAIKU



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graves in silence

morning prayers - the graves of the ancestors in deep silence

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My Haiku Friend Allison wrote

The only thing that caught my eye and took it away from the graves is the slightly yellow 'thing' to the left of the main tree, by the driveway. I don't know what it is, but if you cloned it out, it wouldn't be there to distract me. I know it's a 'little thing', but I really want to focus on the headstones . . . and the rest of your photo (with the gorgeous lighting) pulls my focus right where it belongs.

So she made this lovely haiga for me !

Dear Allison,
thanks for your great effort.

It looks terrific and it made me think ...

I try to write haiku about WHAT IS without judgement and my photos show WHAT IS without interference and retouching (is that the right word?)

Japanese landscape is full of wires and electricity poles and all that, just this morning (speak of coincidence) was an article in the Japan times about
UGLY JAPAN (see below)

When I take our landscape photos, I try to avoid these wires and poles, but sometimes it just can not be done ... so I guess it my modern haiku reality to live with them.

If I write normal poetry and paint a landscape, I am free to transform it as I please, but with my haiku, there is a difference.
I hang on to external and internal shasei, sketching from nature and the inspiration of moment.

Thanks for bringing this home once again.
And thanks for showing the "joys and dangers" of interferring with a photo.
What is reality? quite a question now for me !


morning prayers ..
the fence poles and the graves
in deep silence


GABI

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©　Japan Times, KEVIN RAFFERTY, Feb.28, 2008

Why's Japan grown so ugly?
By KEVIN RAFFERTY

YUNOMINE, Wakayama Pref. —
My brother wanted to create a new room in the loft of his house in an English provincial city, actually Kingston upon Hull (population 250,000), a place of passing interest to Japanese because two centuries ago it was one of the world's biggest whaling ports. Today, the whales are still present, singing their haunting songs in a museum to the city's maritime history.

The local council refused him permission because the room would have required the insertion of a new window, and that would have ruined the uniform roofline of the avenue where he lives.

I was thinking of this when traveling recently from Osaka to the onsen town of Yunomine, an exhilarating journey along through the mountains of the Kii Peninsula. This is Japan's historic heartland, where the gods had their origins, and these routes have been a place of pilgrimage for a thousand years, through which people have sought self-discovery, purification and healing.

Winter had laid its icy fingers across the land, and the green hillsides were liberally dusted with snow. From time to time we diced with the ice on the narrow old Kumano road and we made several detours on foot along the ancient Kumano way, which meanders up and down the uneven contours of the hills.

But the journey was spoiled by the dreadful depredations that human beings have visited on a beautiful land. Even on the ancient footpath, it is hard to get away from the despoliation of modern life, with the natural shades of green sliced up by silver wires held together by the ugly modern gods of electricity pylons.

On the old road, carefully engineered to follow the twists and turns of the contours of the natural environment, the encroachment of what is termed civilization comes threateningly closer. In places it is hard to hear the birds and insects, let alone the gurgling of mountain streams or the sounds of the wind talking to the grass and trees, above the roar of traffic on the modern road.

That road — and more so the toll roads that go directly through from Osaka to Kumano — shows the contempt that modern Japanese bureaucrats, and their political and corporate construction allies, have for the natural environment. They have bulldozed remorselessly across the countryside and gouged deep wounds through the hills. Where nature has hit back with the threat of landslides, the construction companies have tried to suffocate it by plastering hillsides with concrete.

Alex Kerr in "Dogs and Demons" (2001) documented the grip of the deadly concrete disease on Japan, with 97 percent of rivers dammed and 60 percent of the coastline covered in concrete, not to speak of 43 percent of native forests replanted with allergy-bearing and wildlife-free cedar plantations.

Where is the traditional Japanese love of nature, beauty, gentleness, nuance? All damned and dammed with concrete.

But it gets worse as you venture into remote rural areas, which in other countries offer a refuge from the pressures of hectic modern life. Kerr complained of Japan's "Hello-Kitty-fied" culture. Hello Kitty has a cuteness, but Japan's rural life is plain plug ugly. In every small town, ugliness is rampant: bright signs with mindless slogans; garish advertisements for pachinko parlors; giant banners for used cars; loud screaming posters for every tin-pot business; and of course wires everywhere, as if the spiders are taking over.

Try to take a photograph of what should be a picturesque place. You find wires everywhere, of course: at high and low level, from afar or close to, every view is spoiled. Tasteful traditional wooden houses sit next to tasteless modern monstrosities; exposed metal and plastic pipes scar the scene, some of them leaking; everyone and anyone can put up a banner; concrete is ubiquitous, some of it masquerading as wood; and ugly robotic machines parade the main street dispensing cigarettes or soft drinks. Shops sell over-wrapped over-priced tacky souvenirs (but no bath salts that I could see).

Anyone who has been to Kyoto or Nara or on the road between them is assaulted by the horrors of Japanese town planning.
What is worse is how ugliness has penetrated Japan's historic heartland, and no one seems to care.

Mikako Hayashi, associate professor of restorative dentistry and endodontology at Osaka University, remembers her return to Japan after 16 months doing research at England's Manchester University and exploring the historic spots there. She says: "As the aircraft banked on its final approach, I looked out of the window to see the countryside of my homeland — and it looked as if some demon giant had tipped a huge garbage can over the landscape."

This is surely an appalling thing to say about a country whose people have traditionally taken great pride in being in harmony with nature. But Hayashi believes that there is no point merely in lamenting modern ugliness; she suggests that it is time to do something about it.

In England there is a keenly fought annual competition for the Best Kept Village. It is time for Japan to do something similar, Hayashi suggests: "Japan should be more ambitious: choose the prettiest or most picturesque village and town. Give points for a pleasant skyline, for special features, for good taste or neatness according to a scale: deduct points, say five points off for offensive advertising, 20 points off for a pachinko parlor on main street, 30 or more for ugly buildings that do not blend."

She is being too ambitious. If such a competition were held today on such a basis, the winner would probably be a place with a score of minus several hundred.

You do not have to go all the way of Britain, where one department of a London council insisted that a diseased cherry tree must be chopped down, but another said if it were cut the owner would be fined for altering the skyline.

Hayashi's idea would help develop tourism, both domestic and foreign, and — in a small but important way — teach Japanese to value their precious land and environment. Newly attractive towns and villages may be able to attract back people and jobs. Smothering the land in concrete wastes money and kills ideas, ideals and beauty. Eventually, maybe, the vital message can filter through from the ordinary people of Japan back to the ishiatama bureaucrats and politicians.



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More of my SNOW HAIKU

SNOW in Paradise



　Internal shasei ...
Environment and emotion: keijo (keijoo 景情 けいじょう)



. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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Dragon King Sutra

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spring surprize -
the Dragon King shows me
his secrets







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Dragon King Mantra

. Ocean Dragon King Sutra



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