8/24/2008

eating vegetables

  
  
尺取虫 . . . shakutori mushi








yes, mother said
vegetables
are good for you









Sharing food
with a thousand brothers and sisters !

In just one night
they cleared a huge patch of weeds !


This year, they are especially numerous.








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As the foodchain evolved,
the crows came in hundreds and had a feast !

And left their white splashes all over the road.




 MORE photos are HERE !



. shakutori mushi, the double-headed spanner



. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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8/17/2008

full moon

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満月の影に響くや遠花火
mangetsu no kage ni hibiku ya too hanabi



the shades
of the full moon -
distant fireworks




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. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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ant

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stone patterns -
this ant hurries
in circles



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Quietude and the Galactic Ant  静けさと蟻のクシャミ


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8/13/2008

Begging Monk

  
  



begging monk -
beads of sweat dripping
from his nose











He was standing all alone by the road crossing in Okayama center, mumbling his prayers, standing in the sunshine, sweating, waiting for the evening cool.


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begging monk —
beads of wisdom form
on his forehead


Kumarendra Mallick, Hyderabad, India


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托鉢
Takuhatsu ... Begging Monk


Begging Bowls



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8/10/2008

sleeping doll

  
  





midday heat -
a still life with
my Daruma cat




01 Tsu and Doll till nr 03






midday heat ...
my cat sleeps
with her paper doll













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This is a special papermachee doll of a sleeping cat with a Daruma doll.
It sits on a shelf, where O-Tsu has sneeked in to find some peace.

MORE
Cats and Daruma, Manekineko 招き猫とだるま


CLICK for more photos




. . . OUR CATS in my PHOTO ALBUM


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beneath my desk
my cat sleeps out of reach
of my feet



Jo McInerney, August 2008

Thank you, Jo!


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8/08/2008

Grasshopper

  
  
? ? ?

Try to find the grasshopper on this photo!


....................... !
04 whitish lily




looking closer ...
this grasshopper shits
on the lily







07 grashopper shitting





ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo






my lily laughs
at human follies ...
wha ha ha haa






06 lily big smile




! ! !




ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo




10 lily palace END



another story
not fully told ...
see what I mean







ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo
ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo




about two hours later, same lily


the Wedding Party







grasshoppers
having a wedding party -
come on, come on !


05 two






even doing it upside down

07 upside down clear





who is who ?








Visitor taking a good look !


11 visitor taking a good look





- THE END -






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Start from here with the details

. . . PHOTO ALBUM till Nr. 08
and then WEDDING PARRY till Nr. 13




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My friends carried on for quite a while until dark, so I checked a bit on the mating habits of grasshoppers:


Elaborate courtship routines are performed by males in some species. The American grasshopper Syrbula admirabilis displays 18 individual poses using its wings, legs, and palps. Males of other species may wave brilliantly colored wings when wooing the female, while other species forego courtship altogether.

Mating occurs when the male lights on the female's back and may last anywhere from 45 minutes to well over a day. In the species Extatosoma tiaratum, a female mates with several males. Most of the sperm in her genital tract from the first suitor is replaced by the sperm of her next mate.
Males therefore mate many times with the same partner and other females to gain the maximum opportunity to pass on their genes.
Males of some species die shortly after mating.
The females die after egg-laying, which may last until cold weather begins.
source : Grasshoppers - Courtship And Mating

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oh these humans -
I can only scratch my head
in wonder




source : www.dailymail.co.uk 2011


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long-horned grasshopper (Platyphyllum concavum,
some sources quote: Gampsocleis buergeri)
Grasshopper, a KIGO


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listening to

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sunrise . . .
listening to the smell
of onions


robert d. wilson

I make use of yugen and ma.
.../group/simply_haiku/



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Hi Robert,

been pondering your onions and the notion of "yuugen" ...


Here is my bit on "listening to incense"

The smell of incense can be very subtle and faint, so the act of concentrated smelling it is called "listening to incense" (monkoo, bunkoo 聞香 , koo o kiku 香を聞く ) in Japanese.
Here "LISTENING" means to use all senses to appreciate one thing in its full potential and with all your attention.

Here the verb "KIKU (LISTENING)" in Japanese means to use all senses to appreciate one thing in its full potential and with all your attention. KIKU is maybe the change of the verb 利く, as in "tasting ricewine, kikizake 利き酒", meaning "appreciating" something.


Here is one explanation for this expression.

In the Buddha's world everything is fragrant like incense, including the words of Buddha. Fragrance and incense are synonymous, and Buddha's words of teaching are incense. Therefore Bodhisattvas listen to Buddha's words in the form of incense, instead of smelling them.

quoted from my
. Incense and Haiku .



Greetings from early morning Japan,

where I am "listening" to my sea of clouds bumping into the mountains without a sound ...

GABI

. . .

My husband did this last night, cutting a load for the pickles cooking

sunset . . .
crying to the smell
of onions


GABI

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8/04/2008

Pivot and Aimai

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There is some discussion about PIVOT
in haiku and waka ...




complicated words
complicating haiku ...
write from the heart





Pivot ... its use in waka and haiku
My basic thoughts


Discussing PIVOT
Happy Haiku Forum


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. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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7/29/2008

really rejoice

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Courage begins when we can admit
that there is no life without some pain,
some frustration;
that there is no tragic accident
to which we are immune;
and that beyond the normal exercise of prudence
we can do nothing about it.

But courage goes on to see
that the triumph of life is not in pains avoided,
but in joys lived completely
in the moment of their happening.

Courage lies in never taking so much as a good meal
or a day of health and fair weather for granted.

It lies in learning to be aware
of our moments of happiness
as sharply as our moments of pain.

We need not be afraid to weep
when we have cause to weep,
so long as we can really rejoice
at every cause for rejoicing.

Victoria Lincoln




really rejoice
in the Here and Now ...
write a haiku




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. . . Read my QUOTES with HAIKU . . .


. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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7/27/2008

great heat

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great heat ...
a beetle with six legs
in the air







When it comes to shasei, I rather keep it the way I saw it and do not want him to loose one leg just for the sake of writing a clever haiku :o)

and the rest of the stroy

when I turned him over I could see his beautiful black-blue-spotted back, he was about 5 cm long, and suddenly he flapped his wings and then flew off to new adventures .... he really had me fooled ..


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many people die of heatstroke here in Japan !
and the summer is just beginning !

This morning my bedroom temperature was 30 degrees centigrade ... talking of sauna ...






. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008


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7/26/2008

haiku

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haiku ...
my path is always
NEW





Haiku Doo, my Way of Haiku 俳句道


Road (michi) . Japan


Haiku Day (haiku no hi) August 19 Japan.
Including haiku about "haiku" and "kigo"



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7/24/2008

WKD - Miyazawa Kenji

[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]
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暑さにも負けず遍路の道長き


atsusa ni mo
makezu henro no
michi nagaki



not even yielding
to the great heat ...
pilgrim on the road





Today I visited a temple in Yamaguchi ... online of course ...

. . . 龍蔵寺 . . . Ryuzo-Ji



My daily duty walk along our rural memorial pilgrimage of Shikoku was really HOT, 36 degrees in the shadow ... atsusa ni mo makezu ... kept ringing in my mind all the way ... :o)


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source : Tomikichiro Tokuriki 1902-1999


Miyazawa Kenji wrote this famous poem ...

ame ni mo makezu

ame ni mo makezu
kaze ni mo makezu
yuki ni mo natsu no atsusa ni mo makenu

jōbu na karada wo mochi
yoku wa naku
kesshite ikarazu
itsu mo shizuka ni waratte iru
ichi nichi ni genmai yon gō to
miso to sukoshi no yasai wo tabe
arayuru koto wo
jibun wo kanjō ni irezu ni
yoku mikiki shi wakari
soshite wasurezu
nohara no matsu no hayashi no kage no
chiisa na kayabuki no koya ni ite
higashi ni byōki no kodomo areba
itte kanbyō shite yari
nishi ni tsukareta haha areba
itte sono ine no taba wo oi
minami ni shinisō na hito areba
itte kowagaranakute mo ii to ii
kita ni kenka ya soshō ga areba
tsumaranai kara yamero to ii
hidori no toki wa namida wo nagashi
samusa no natsu wa oro-oro aruki

minna ni deku-no-bō to yobare
homerare mo sezu
ku ni mo sarezu
sō iu mono ni
watashi wa naritai



not losing to the rain
not losing to the wind
not losing to the snow or to the heat of the summer
with a strong body
unfettered by desire
never losing temper
cultivating a quiet joy
every day four bowls of brown rice
miso and some vegetables to eat
in everything
count yourself last and put others before you
watching and listening, and understanding
and never forgetting
in the shade of the woods of the pines of the fields
being in a little thatched hut
if there is a sick child to the east
going and nursing over them
if there is a tired mother to the west
going and shouldering her sheaf of rice
if there is someone near death to the south
going and saying there's no need to be afraid
if there is a quarrel or a suit to the north
telling them to leave off with such waste
when there's drought, shedding tears of sympathy
when the summer's cold, walk in concern and empathy
called a blockhead by everyone
without being praised
without being blamed
such a person
I want to become

© More in the WIKIPEDIA !




kokeshi with this poem

..................................................................................


Bending neither to the rain
Nor to the wind
Nor to snow nor to summer heat,
Firm in body, yet
Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite,
The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse, 1964



Neither rain
nor wind
nor snow nor summer’s heat
will affect his robust body. . . .
Makoto Ueda,
Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature, 1982


Undaunted by the rain,
Undaunted by the wind,
Undaunted by the snow or the summer heat,
With a strong body

Donald Keene,
Dawn to the West, 1984


Strong in the rain
Strong in the wind
Strong against the summer heat and snow
He is healthy and robust

Roger Pulvers,
Kenji Miyazawa: Poems, 1997

source :  japanfocus.org

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CLICK for more photos

Kenji Miyazawa 宮沢 賢治, Miyazawa Kenji

27 August 1896 - 21 September 1933,
Hanamaki, Iwate, Japan
was a poet and author of children's literature in early Shōwa period Japan. He was also known as a devout Buddhist, vegetarian and social activist.

Miyazawa was born in what is now Hanamaki city, Iwate Prefecture as the eldest son of a wealthy pawnbroker. From an early age, he was disturbed by what he perceived to be the social inequity between his well-to-do family, who lived by lending money to the impoverished farmers in the area. In 1918, he graduated from Morioka Agriculture and Forestry College. He was a bright student, so his academic advisor wanted him as an assistant professor. However, differences with his father over religion (he converted to the more activist Nichiren sect), and his repugnance for the family pawnshop business (he yielded his inheritance to his younger brother), created much unhappiness in his early life, and in 1921, he departed Hanamaki for Tokyo.

In Tokyo, while staying with a friend, he was introduced to the works of poet Sakutarō Hagiwara, and was encouraged to start writing. After eight months in Tokyo, during which time he began to write children's stories, he returned to Hanamaki due to the illness and subsequent death of his younger sister.

He found employment as a teacher in agricultural science at Hanamaki Agricultural High School (花巻農学校). Saving his meagre salary, he was able to finance the publication of his first collection of children's stories and fairy tales (Chūmon no Ōi Ryōriten - 注文の多い料理店 - The Restaurant of Many Orders) and a portion of a collection of free-verse poems (Haru to Shura - 春と修羅 - Spring and Asura) in 1924. Although neither work was a commercial success, his writings came to the attention of poets Kotaro Takamura and Shimpei Kusano, who admired his writing greatly and introduced it to the literary world.

...

Miyazawa's works were influenced by contemporary trends of romanticism and the proletarian literature movement, but above all were influenced by his devotion to the Lotus Sutra in particular.
Miyazawa struggled with pleurisy for many years, and was often incapacitated for months at a time. He died in 1933 of pneumonia.

It may also be noted that Miyazawa had at least a passing interest in Esperanto. He loved his native province, and Ihatov (or Ihatovo), the name of the fictional location that appeared in his works, was constructed from the name Iwate (Ihate in the older spelling) in a manner similar to Esperanto.
© More in the WIKIPEDIA !



Gingatetsudō no Yoru
Night on the Galactic Railroad

1996 marked the 100th anniversary year of the birth of Kenji Miyazawa.



Miyazawa's mix of East and West begins with the names of the two young characters of the story: Jovanni (Giovanni) and Kanpanera (Campanella). The story takes place during the imaginary "Centaurus" Festival, a time when lanterns are lit to show deceased ancestors the way home. This imaginary festival occurs in August, and in the story, Miyazawa images children running and scampering, yelling that Centaurus is "dropping dew" [no doubt, a somewhat misplaced reference to the Perseids].

The Milky Way Train: Celebrating Kenji Miyazawa
By: Steve Renshaw and Saori Ihara, 1999


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Miyazawa Kenji wrote a famous book about a bear hunter

なめとこ山の熊 Nametoko yama no kuma
The bears of Nametoko Mountain




It's interesting, that business of the bears on Mt. Nametoko. Nametoko is a large mountain, and the Fuchizawa River starts somewhere inside it. On most days of the year, the mountain breathes in and breathes out cold mists and clouds. The peaks all around it, too, are like blackish green slugs or bald sea goblins..........

Read more here:
WKD : Bears as Kigo


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落し文宛名は風の又三郎
otoshibumi atena wa Kaze no Matasaburoo

a lost letter -
the address is
Kaze no Matasaburo


Satoo Hirokazu 佐藤博一

This needs some explanation.
otoshibumi is the name of the leaf-cut weevil. The pun in Japanese does not go well if I use the name of the animal for the first line.



quote
Kaze no Matasaburô - A Wind Boy
Miyazawa's collection of stories for children, published after his death in 1933, Kaze no Matasaburô contains six stories. This book is in fine binding with illustrations by Koana Ryûichi, and an introduction by Tsubota Jôji, who had already established his position in the world of children's literature. This book was recommended by the Ministry of Education and well read. With Kaze no Matasaburô, Miyazawa became famous as an author for children.

"Kaze no Matasaburô" is about a strange boy named Takada Saburô. On a windy day, he appears in an elementary school at a mountainside. He says he has come from Hokkaido with his father. His new classmates think he might be Matasaburô, a wind boy. He spent twelve days there, studying and playing with the village children. As wind blows when he does something, the boys come to believe he is really Matasaburô. Then, on a windy day, he is gone. Although it is an unfinished work, it is regarded as the best work of Miyazawa, as well as one of the masterpieces in the history of Japanese children's literature. It is widely read today.

Kaze no Matasaburô was dramatized by Gekidan Tôdô, and made into a movie in 1940. The song at the beginning of this story became very popular. A reprint of the original edition was published by Holp Shuppan in 1971.
source : www.iiclo.or.jp


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. Hagiwara Sakutaro 萩原朔太郎 .


I wrote the above haiku whilst researching for this

Shikoku Fudo Pilgrimage

Shikoku Henro Pilgrimage to 88 Temples


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[ . BACK to DARUMA MUSEUM TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]
- #miyazawakenji -
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7/21/2008

Namib Desert Beetle

  
  


morning dew ...
even the desert
comes alive




Photo : Moongateclimber




There are some deserts close to the oceans where they get humidity almost every early morning, when the moisture from the sea is blown toward the land. Animals and plants have special abilities to get the dew from this phenomenon to survive during the day. I remember one beetle standing upside down, wings spread, to catch the dew and lead it into its tiny mouth ...

Mostly in South America, if memory serves right. And some in the sourthern parts of Africa.
Here is a photo from the Namib desert beetle.




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The Namib Desert beetle dwells in one of the most arid areas with only one and half inch (40 mm) of rain per year, and has developed a unique technique to survive by obtaining water from early morning fogs. It drinks by the means of its own bumpy back surface, which provides for accumulation of water droplets of fifteen to twenty micrometers in diameter.
© More in the WIKIPEDIA !



Desert, sand desert WKD



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7/19/2008

barbeque sleepers

  
  




00 full scene



summer heat -
the cats sleep
on the barbeque




02 with tanuki










O-Tsu with the Badger Tanuki ,
her drinking companion


04 O-Tsu with tanuki



siesta time -
sharing a sip
with her best friend





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 LOOK here for some more photos in the Album !


Cats in Paradise ..
O-Tsu and Haiku-Kun お津と俳句くん


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lavender

  
  



15 full lavender




deep in lavender ...
the color of her eyes
in my memory





14 deep in lavender







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THANK YOU, Allison !




source :  AHA


. My Lavender in June 2012 .


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