Excess yin, fresh new yang.

The Winter Solstice...today or yesterday, whenever, is a moment of pause and transition, central to Taoism and other spiritual traditions.  We marked it, as usual with a wedding anniversary dinner at a favorite restaurant, our table.  Perhaps because it was Saturday, the weekend, the place was more crowded than usual. A loud holiday party next to us was a bit of a spoiler.  But it seems like anywhere I go these days there is a loud crowd in the way.  On the highway, in shops, on-line, too many people with too much to say and do.

Does no one appreciate quiet any more?

I've been thinking about snowmen lately. (Not something we really get to make in Hawaii.)  Quiet, ephemeral creatures, somewhat Taoist..."like ice about to melt" and with stable bottoms. With three dantians, they resemble the neijing tu.  I put this little guy on the Christmas tree yesterday, not a moment too soon or too late, along with all the other traditional symbols, whimsical memories, and glittery light-reflecting things, collected over 45 years.

"And I will call him San Dantian."

In a Korean drama I am enjoying right now, the beleaguered young king, when he wants to discreetly leave the palace and travel incognito among his people, often summons his ever-present loyal eunuch to make him a snowman by gathering fresh, untouched new fallen snow. He usually has to climb up on the roof to gather it, giving the king time to escape with his ultra-attractive swordsman/bodyguard (with whom the ministers think he may be having an affair because the king won't sleep with the court-selected queen).

Bodyguard played by Song Jae Rim;
a swordsman who likes cats.

The king is changed into street clothes and out the gate before the eunuch returns with a little snowman on a lacquered tray.  There may be symbolism here that I'm missing in the Korean, or it just may be a whimsical plot device, but it seems like a metaphor to me. (The name of the drama, Moon Embracing the Sun,  seems just right for the solstice.)  The drama actually has a plot about black and white magic performed by shamans and Taoists.  The court wants to abolish the shamans and Taoist office of rites!  Well, wouldn't they, now.  The ministers are manipulating the Confucian scholars to help their own interests along, which are, of course, not the interests of the savvy and benevolent king.

How like the little snowman we are.  Created by unknowable forces for unknowable purposes for a brief moment in time.  The worldly intrigues and disasters occur around us.  Are we made to melt, to only hope to revert to fresh-fallen pure snow, are we countless unique snowflakes coalescing once again into a pattern, the same always, but never to be repeated precisely?

Those in the past who were good at practicing Tao,
Were subtle, mysterious, dark, penetrating (wei miao yüan t'ung),
Deep and unrecognizable.
Because they were unrecognizable,
I am forced to describe their appearance (yung).
Careful, like crossing a river in winter,
Hesitating, like fearing neighbors on four sides,
Reverent, like being guests,
Dissolving, like ice beginning to melt,
Thick, like uncarved wood,
Open, like a valley,
Chaotic (hun), like murky (cho) water.
What can stop the murkiness?
Quieting (ching) down, gradually it clarifies (ch'ing).
What can keep still for long?
Moving, gradually it stirs into life.
Those who keep this Tao,
Do not want to be filled to the full (ying).
Because they are not full,
They can renew (hsin) themselves before being worn out (pi).

(TTC 15, tr: Ellen Chen)

Winding down, again

This morning I woke up, having slept late, which as one ages is not as late as it used to be.  I swam up through my dream state, peeked out from under the little black cloth I use to cover my eyes and pineal gland, and ventured to guess what time it was.

I estimated 8:42 a.m.  I rolled over to squint at the digital clock, which read 8:41. Close, and by the time I actually put feet to floor, it was 8:42.  Why even have a clock?  I never use it as an alarm; my body clock seems to work just fine.

What I was thinking about, before I rose, was that this year has been a deja vu.  Details different, but same travel, same project deadlines, same routines as the previous 12 months. Even the news has a repetitive quality... another election, another school shooting, another mid-east military conflict.  Some people like that routine and focus on world events, despite their relentless sameness.  It makes me itchy.  (Need to start planning next China pilgrimage, which I missed in 2012.  Wanderlust calls.)  Much as I worship cycles, I like a little variety.

Nothing special happened (except that I became officially eligible for Medicare) at my birthday, which was touted as some magical planetary alignment over the pyramids of Giza. Thinking of the pyramids made me feel not that old.  Then nothing special happened on 12/12/12.  (Except perhaps for the children born at that moment who may if they live long enough and assuming nothing happens on 12/21/12, unlike the rest of us, see that date sequence repeat.  (Imagine a 100th birthday on 12/12/2112).

The binary sequences of 12/12/12 made me think of hexagrams, and I decided to interpret the date as #63, water over fire, not a bad one, and perhaps suggesting preparation for the next big date, 12/21/12, at which I expect nothing special to happen (except that it is my wedding anniversary.)  If seen as a hexagram, this is #17, the joyous lake over the arousing thunder.  Also an interesting hexagram, which suggests rest after exertion, a  perfect symbol of the winter solstice, and a lot more encouraging than Mayan calendar hysteria.

This is all completely bogus I-ching-ing, but maybe not.  Why not?  I haven't seen anyone else make these observations.  They kind of work for me.  (I-ching as My-ching.)  Anyway, all these numbers on clocks and calendars mean nothing really, they are just tosses of the coins or yarrow stalks, just putting us at places in the flow of our own time, and reminding us of the cycles, winding up, winding down, with no end in sight.

Flowering of Yin

It was strange that it took a stranger (a Facebook friend)  to remind me of something I usually am very aware of: yesterday's summer solstice, the zenith of yang about to give way to the gathering of yin.  I probably didn't notice the cresting and crashing of this wave because I've been fighting tooth and nail the past week, literally, overcoming an ill-fitting molar crown and an ingrown toenail.

No wonder classic torture involves drilling of teeth sans anesthetic and ripping out of nails.  I was seriously considering the idea of declawing myself, (something I would never do to the bloodthirsty Yellow Emperor who sometimes attacks me in tooth-and-nail kitty kung fu sparring).  And by far the most harrowing scene in Tom Hanks's Castaway is not the plane crash, but knocking out his own tooth with the help of an ice skate blade.  I wonder if he used it to trim his nails.  Eric Weiner says, in Man Seeks God, that he had trouble meditating in Kathmandu because he kept thinking of nail clippers and his possible lack of them. I can relate.

But all that is behind me now, the angry nail is filed, the disturbed tooth is settling,alleviating two of the most annoying and relentless kinds of pain.   So I can now better concentrate on my latest Chinese painting class assignments.  It is a blessing that my teacher returned for a session (even though she is going away again, but leaving us in the talented hands of a Chinese man who does landscape and portraits).

I was pleased to have produced for her a flower or two.  A couple of years ago she (the bird and flower painter teaching me the techniques of landscape painting) said, "Maybe in two years you paint a flower."  And over the past few months, I have been doing that.  My peonies, partly inspired by peonies I photographed a year ago in Beijing, passed muster, although I think the leaves leave something to be desired.

My Pretty Little Peony

Then Laoshi taught us another flower.  Another student had attempted a large flowering tree from a small reproduction, but it was hard to tell just what it was.  Was the profusion of yellow and red a representation of plum blossoms? Peach blossoms? Cherry blossoms?  Bougainvillea?

The note on the reproduction was "Ceiba pentandra" but no one knew what that was.  As I consulted my handy iPad, Laoshi started spontaneously painting a small group of the individual flowers for a sample for the student.

"It's kapok," I announced to the class. A tropical tree, which I always have pronounced, I think correctly, 'kay-pock', it is also known as silk cotton, with which I was familiar from life vests and flotation cushions in my boating childhood. The fluffy stuff from the kapok's seed pods is water resistant and buoyant and used to be the standard filling for such things. (Now a synthetic material is used.)

Like cotton from a tree

"Ah, kah-poke," all the Chinese speakers of the class said as they looked at the Google images of the trees and flowers.  All the while, my teacher was completing her xie yi interpretation of the kapok flowers. Without reference to any photo, she perfectly captured the cup-like blossoms of what I found, on searching, was the flower of the kapok tree.

Laoshi's Kapok Flower

No matter the pronunciation, never mind the images, we still had never seen the real flower.  Names are names and only point to the images, which only represent the real thing.

Kapok, the eponymous city flower of Panzhihua, Sichuan Province, China

"The name that can be named is not the eternal name"...the image that can be painted or photographed is not the eternal image.  I may never see a real kapok tree (although according to the Wikipedia entry there is at least one in Hawaii) but I "know" it now. (And through research, that it is the city flower of a prefecture-level city in southwest China.)  It existed before I knew its name, before I saw its picture.  The kapok's flowers will bloom and fall, its seed material will float away on the wind or stream, possibly saving the life of a bug or a sailor caught in a torrent of water. It doesn't know itself as kaypock or kahpoke, and certainly not Ceiba pentandra. (But perhaps panzhihua.)

Reference to verse 1 of the Dao De Jing is probably appropriate on this first day after the summer solstice, a moment that calls attention to the drama of the cycle of yang and yin, flowering and going to seed.

Hermits and Friends

Sometimes I like to leave my little solitary retreat and venture down the hill.  All the things I like to do alone are precious:  contemplation and meditation, painting, reading and writing. (Notwithstanding some interludes with Korean drama.) I can become quite the hermit when I have the opportunity.

But down around the corner is my friend.  We make tea and conversation,  share medicine and cookies, laugh and tell stories, reminisce and make plans.

But eventually, I return to my hermitage, my solitary silent mind, to think and then not-think, to sleep, and rise again for another day.

En Pointe

En pointe in ballet is when you are nicely poised on the tip, like a fulcrum, and that's how I feel today.  It is the Spring Equinox, the earliest since 1896, that moment when yin and yang are in balance, opposite of the Solstices, and yin is giving way to yang...spring is coming. And tomorrow is the Dark Moon. I have been feeling a little on edge and drained lately, waiting for something, and this must have been it.  I've been spending WAY too much time on Facebook and some other Tao forums, reading novels, watching Korean Drama, and have neglected my own Tao 61s.  Perhaps now is the time to change my focus. I feel...energized.

The kolea are beginning to change into their breeding plumage, in preparation for their annual flight to Alaska to breed.  I noticed several with the beginnings of the definition of stripe on their necks, a little plumper for feeding over the winter, and a little more vivid and alert.  They and the sun and the moon are like clocks for me, they are evidence that time does mean something, forward movement, at least in the spring, maybe retreat in the fall.

Completely not to the point of any of this, here is a little image of my quasi-penzai and mudman fisherman for those of you in regions where spring is still just an idea obscured by snow and rain and chilly grey weather.

My little landscape.

Which reminds me, I must start painting again.  Indeed this must be the moment I've been waiting for. "Spring is sprung, the grass is ris', I wonder where the flowers is," I used to chant as a child.  Sounds like the George W. Bush songbook, no?  Well, at least this child wasn't left behind, and I am grateful.

The Morning After

Beginning to inhale, the Winter Solstice moment has passed. Yang is rising.  I was restless all day yesterday, maybe too much yin. Couldn't work in my office because some ADA-required modification to the building is underway and it is unsafe to walk through the corridor.  How ironic.  I should have taken the free time to do some shopping, but that was just too dreary and depressing.  

At home, after monitoring business email, I succeeded in a technological challenge. I managed to hack the settings of my new alleged all-region DVD player which came ready to read only U.S. region DVDs.  But I watch and acquire a lot of Asian media.  How to correct this is not documented in the manual or officially on-line.   But, you can find anything on the Internet,  and in less than a minute, I discovered instructions on how to accomplish this.  Well, five different methods for the Coby 514; eventually one of them worked.  I am so proud of myself (and grateful to the video geeks who posted the information).  This should probably be a topic for the yin Tao 61, but the activity seemed so yang.  I will not review here the truly awful movie that I used to test the modified region setting.  (How can Andy Lau stoop so low?)

My old Christmas cactus is clearly ready to bloom, the miracle that re-occurs without my intervention, despite my neglect.  I would post a photo of the delicate new buds, but my camera connector is in my office.  I am disabled.

The kolea are busy in the yard and patrolling the street looking confident and at home.   They are not concerned with the discussions I have been over-preoccupied with on several Taoist forums; they are simply Tao manifest.  I watch them the way Zhang San Feng observed the snake and crane.  How can I be more like them, and the cactus, and my cats?

And we honored properly, our solstice wedding anniversary, a true celebration of yin and yang.  Our favorite table, at our favorite neighborhood restaurant, a crisp Bombay martini,  a table-side-constructed Caesar salad, a perfect glass of Cabernet, osso buco, shrimp and scallops, linguine, zabaglione.  But the restaurant was very busy, very crowded, very noisy, waiters were rushed. And the inevitable heartburn at 3 a.m.

But today, the morning after, all is well.  Except I still must go to shop, plunge into the Christmas frenzy.  Why didn't I do more on-line?  If only it was as easy and natural as the kolea snagging bugs in the grass.

Synchrony

Only in My Dreams

I have been restless at night the past couple or three days --that supermoon perhaps disturbing my sleep-- the moon that I wasn't able to observe because the weather is rainy and cloudy, which also makes my arthritic wrist ache, giving me an excuse to avoid housework (not that I need an excuse). They said the moon--like a new and improved product--would be 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than usual, in a display that hasn't been seen since...1993...wow! This is almost as underwhelming as the announcement of the new thinner iPad (way too much like yin hygiene advances) sporting two useless cameras (to me anyway) and nothing else much different. Same old moon. Same old iPad. (I'll wait to upgrade when there's a real USB port and Flash, thank-you. But do I love the one I have. A shame I forgot to take it and its 3G connection with me to the office when the IP network connection went down last week.)

There has been an unusual correlation of full moons with solstices and equinoxes this year. I didn't realize that until I noted that today is the vernal equinox, a moment of perfect (solar) yin/yang balance. The emphasis of the yang full moon must be what has made me itchy and plagued by dramatic dreams. (Surely earthquakes and tsunamis and nuclear disaster and escalating war activities in the Middle East have nothing to do with it!)

Or it is my decision to return to China in May for what seems to be becoming an

annual qi adjustment? Assuming that Japan will not go completely out of control in a nuclear way, I am waitlisted for flights (routing through Korea, home of the ultra-attractive Song Il-Guk, right). My travel agent (not at right) was in hyper-crisis mode, dealing with exit flights out of Japan, refunds for cancellations of tickets. I am confident that my plan will work out...one way or the other. Compared to all that is going on in the world, my ability to get a seat seems quite trivial. Life has its rhythms beyond my control; sometimes, like now, they are more dramatic and jazzy than others. It would be foolish to make a Tao-inspired trip and be anxious about it. Life is just one big waitlist anyway.

Po Me

Feeling very deeply the shift in cycles, I wonder if I will find time to visit a sanctuary of the Catholic variety to have ashes imposed on my forehead today. (I'm supposed to drop off taxes at the accountant's; his office is right next to St. Andrews Episcopal Cathedral; I could have a death and taxes moment, and then visit Dragon Gate bookstore, where there is a Tai Seng sale going on.) Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite of the liturgical events in the traditional Christian calendar, kicking off 40 days of contemplation of what it means to live in the material world. (Miss you, St. George.)

I did not observe Mardi Gras last night, unless watching several episodes of Eagle Shooting Heros counts. (I'm up to number 20 of 50. Should get me through Lent.) I marked the waning moments of carnal indulgence over the weekend, unaware of the new moon that seemed to bring me out of a yin funk I'd been in for two weeks. I dined Saturday night with a Chinese friend, an aficionado of things Japanese, at a fine restaurant, enjoying delicate and tasty homemade tofu and a curious Japanese liquor called shochu. We had planned to go to an Okinawan restaurant which features impromptu folk singing and instrumentals by the owner, but alas, the new moon was being celebrated by a private party and we couldn't get seating. So off to Gazen Izakaya where we drank their shochu and sake, reserving my BYOB of Summer Snow, a nigori ginjo, for the next day. I've become fond of this white unrefined sake, shown here, which looks like the booze my mythical martial arts and wuxia heroes toss back while resting from sword fighting and inner cultivation, in quaint inns and outdoor pubs in various ancient dynasties. An Asian holy water, a milky sacrament brewed from water and rice! (Shochu is distilled.)

Last Friday, I noticed that the kolea, the Pacific Golden Plovers, my animal spirit touchstones for the workings of the Tao, are apparently also in tune with the yin-to-yang moon, beginning to change into their breeding plumage; their white yang stripe is developing, contrasting with new black feathers on their head and neckline. Are they also observing some kind of avian Lent before their return flight to Alaska by the end of April? Perhaps come Easter, I will toast their bon voyage with Red Stripe, the Jamaican beer. The first changing bird I saw was at the post office, the day of the new moon, (also my son's birthday) next to Honolulu International Airport; but last night, I also observed several in my own woodland residential complex.

With a clarity of mind brought on by fasting (mostly abstaining from alcohol and, I intend, the free cello-wrapped carbo-loaded snacks in the company kitchen unfortunately just outside my office), I wake early with thoughts of the pos and huns, the collection of Chinese souls which go their various ways at death. Our po souls --seven, or more, of them--are yin entities, and return to the earth; and our three yang huns make their way off to a celestial realm. The huns may join with new energies in a kind of recombinant reincarnation, or not, becoming immortal, depending on one's own spiritual progress through internal alchemy in the corporeal existence. This is esoteric Taoism. I can't speak for its truth, but the metaphors are appealing. This process of transformation takes 7 weeks, 49 days, a little longer than the Lenten fast of 40 days which culminates in Easter, the Western celebration of the success of the hun to overcome the material po.

At 5 a.m., it's easy to slip over the edge when thinking like this. (This is in fact the time I would be meditating in Wudang retreats; I should be now, but blogging is so compelling, and the sliver of waxing moon is obscured by dense cloud cover.) In the Catholic tradition, Lent is a time of reconciliation and preparation, a time to rise above our corporeal natures. This is traditionally done through prayer (maybe this is a prayer), fasting and self-denial. (I could use a slurp of nigori right about now; must go brew coffee.)

I am advised by a certain socially conscious Roman Catholic Brother that Lent is also properly observed, not merely in the "giving up" of something, but by "taking on" a task, or working on a positive character trait. I will look at those "happy" men--the Asian Jew, the Buddhist monk--about whom I just posted, for modeling behaviors: compassion, a sense of humor, and a long view, which I think I have to a degree, can always be ramped up. How easy it is to forgo the Summer Snow (at least a few days in); how difficult to actually change oneself and the world.

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." This is a warning, from my Anglican Book of Common Prayer, to our po spirits. This is a time to work on our huns. And to remember, it's all metaphor for inner grace. With an outward sign of ash.

Still Hateful, Still Hopeful

Finished two courses-on-the-road, 48 lectures of The Teaching Company's "Comparative Religion" and "Buddhism" CDs. And I didn't even have to write a paper or take a final exam! (I learned about the "Big Vehicle" -- Mahayana -- while driving my little vehicle.)

But at semester's end, so to speak, I was at a loss as to what to feed my CD player. Aha, the Dylan "Witmark Demos" that arrived a couple weeks ago but I hadn't really listened to yet-- I know all those songs --most all of them -- anyway.

Well, this is major nostalgia and confirmation that Dylan was a genius from Day 1. And these raw versions remind me of what my mother said when I made her listen to them when they were first released.

"Why, he sounds just like Robert Frost reading his own poetry," she said. Pretty astute. My mom would have been 87 today, had she lived past 1970. Alas, she (and JFK) never got to get old, like me and both Bob's.

But today I enjoyed howling along in the car, to the other side of the valley like a coyote (not that kind, the doggy wolfish kind), to "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall". Then the next track, "The Death of Emmett Till," kinda somber and not so sing-along-able, made me recall the brief news item I heard on CNN while I was flossing my teeth this morning.

Hate crimes continue, the news reported, with very unattractive statistics. In light of this, some of the old stuff on the Dylan discs sounds as fresh and timely as it did nearly 50 years ago (OMG!) when my mother was only 40.

"This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man...That this kind of thing
still lives today...But if all us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we
could give...We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live. --Death of Emmett Till, Bob Dylan

Hope continues too.

I mean to say Happy Thanksgiving, but I'll save that until Thursday.

Equinox and Full Moon

Even CNN has been reporting on the unusual coincidence of the autumnal equinox with a full moon, occurring more or less together at midnight, tonight. A solar balance accented by the full yang moon, about to change into yin, made me think of gourds, hu lu or wu lu, an important image in Chinese, and particularly Taoist symbolism.

It occurred to me today, in light, so to speak, of this astronomical event, how the hu lu symbolizes sun and moon, or earth and heaven in some kind of full balance. Actually, the heaven and earth unification is exactly what the bottle gourd represents in Taoist legend. When the gourd is opened, it is believed, a cloud comes out of the bottle which can trap demons.

I have always been attracted to the icons, which occur all over the place in Chinese art and architecture, long before I understood their place in the mythology. I have a warm memory of being invited into a back room of a cloisonne warehouse in Hong Kong when I asked if there were any of the gourd-shaped vases -- not the most popular tourist items --and found an attractive pair for a good price.

In 2007, just about exactly three years ago, I bought a brass one in Wudang, later to discover at home a completely preserved cicada, a classic symbol of immortality, in it. Maybe all the brass hu lu were cicada tombs, but, in any case when I got home it felt like a quasi-mystical discovery. I replaced the big bug in its urn and later added the sand from a mandala made the following spring by Bhutanese Tibetan Buddhist monks visiting in Honolulu. They had distributed packets of the sand when they ritually destroyed the intricate design. Their sharing of the sand was not a traditional disposition of the mandala material, but I think the monks might have appreciated my application.

On that same visit to Wudang, when I acquired the brass hu lu, a fellow traveler gave me a small real one that a farmer had given to her; a tiny version of the classic bottle gourd carried by drunken-master types in martial arts and wuxia movies. I still have it. The gourd is actually a symbol of Li- Tie-guai, one of the Eight Taoist Immortals.

A year or so ago, in Honolulu, at a traveling Chinese porcelain sales exhibit, there was a particularly enchanting large hu lu vase I regret having missed purchasing. The proprietors couldn't seem to figure out how much it cost: quoted prices varied from $8,995 to $250 (the good price I missed). It was classic blue and white Ming style, with designs of vines and bats -- a Chinese symbol of good luck, because the word for bat -- fu -- sounds the same as luck --fu. Knowing my disappointment, a friend gave me a similar vase for Christmas, although it had a standard chrysanthemum design, no bats. But not inappropriate for me --the chrysanthemum is the symbol of autumn, and another symbol of long life and duration.

Walking with my friend last May, in Wanfujing, major Beijing shopping district, (perhaps WanFUjing means lucky shopping) I was captivated by this billboard for some Chinese medicine:

And this design, in the sidewalk around West Lake in Hangzhou, gave me pause during my stroll.
I've always felt lucky, safe and healthy when I find these images.

Always Another Side

The other half of this perfect arc of a rainbow can be found over on the Yin Side. I actually stopped my car on the freeway Sept. 1 to take this shot, it was such a nice positive thing to see first thing in the morning. Half-and-half pictures because I don't have a wide angle lens on my little Casio Exilim, which for nearly five years has been faithfully doing duty not only for the everyday snapshots like this, but also on travel to the U.S. Mainland and China, at weddings and funerals, the ordination of an RC Bishop and the destruction of a sand mandala by Buddhist monks, recording my teacher's Chinese painting demonstrations and my own feeble efforts. The pocket digital workhorse is looking kind of beat up, but after all this time I am pretty adept with its controls. Only 5.0 megapixels, it seems obsolete, but, like my 20-year-old car, it still goes the distance. It does the one job it was designed for: no phone calls, no internet access, no calendar, just photography.

I only hope to become so adept with my new car radio...will it take four years? After I shot the rainbow, I managed to tune to the local NPR outlet to hear some news, some things to think about.

I learned from someone who runs some kind of "senior" home health care service that 7 out of 10 deaths in the growing population of folks 60+ are ultimately due to falls. I haven't been aware of being in such a demographic since the last time I was thought to be a "senior," the 45th anniversary of which condition is coming up next month. I won't make the high school reunion on the East Coast, but I have been thinking much about those of us on the leading edge of the Big Boom. I was so excited then to be a "senior," ascending the side of the rainbow leading to a wide open future; how quickly we reach the zenith and slide down the other. This melancholy thinking does remind me that I must step up my qigong exercises, one movement of which is called "past the rainbow." Qigong does promote balance, which I can always use more of, and thus, prevent falls.

Next news item was about affordable housing in Kaneohe. The state has spent $60 million on affordable studios and 2-bedroom units to rent to qualifying (poor) folks for ~$365-$865 a month. For perspective, my condo maintenance fee (which seems to be financing deforestation in my "woodland" complex) is just in the middle of that range.

As I was contemplating this, the next item had to do with affordable hotels in Makena, a Maui resort neighborhood adjacent to the ultra-pricey Wailea. The Makena development will feature rooms in the "affordable" $200-250 range, a value, I guess, if you can't pay the $400 to $500 nightly costs in Wailea. Such contrasts. I do hope that the folks in the cheap studios in Kaneohe have better manners than some of the Wailea guests. I have a friend who works in a dress shop there who has on more than one occasion found urine in the trash cans in the fitting rooms. Which just suggests that money doesn't buy decency.

After these curious news reports, I turned the radio off (having learned how to do that) to drive in silence (not counting the Miata's purr), contemplating the sun rising from behind the mauka cloud banks. Later that night, I watched the same sun set off my lanai. It gave me a sense of balance.

Pivotal Moment

Today is the point of the pivot on a fulcum of the year, Gregorian though it may be...as many days behind as ahead.

Centered

Deng Ming-dao points out that this day, at least in an odd-numbered year, is the center. (Even numbered years --that is a 366-day Leap-Year-- have no center.) It provides a moment of perfect balance.  And how nice to have a long weekend to start of the shift to the second half of the year. Hope you enjoy yours!

Equinox Cactus

They bloomed exuberantly at the winter solstice (making them "Christmas" cactus) and they are blooming again at the spring equinox.  I've never seen them bloom for the summer solstice or the fall equinox; they lie low, dormant, at those points of the cycle. Apparently they are very yang plants, bursting forth when yang is rising.  Wikipedia says there are different seasonal versions of this plant, but mine observe two seasons.  Some say they are hard to grow, but I don't do much with mine.  They pretty much do it all by themselves. 

I just think of them as yin/yang plants.

The Oneness of Balance

I see today in my 365 Tao reading, and a Facebook post by a Tao friend, that today is the Spring Equinox, a moment of nearly perfect balance between the dark and light, night and day, for everyone, everywhere. I don't know if it's auspicious, but seems like a good day to get a haircut, and then, the photo I need for my China visa application.

On this day I had a curious sensation while cat-sitting for my young next-door neighbor, someone I didn't really know until she knocked on my door last week to ask if I could watch her cats for a few days.  "But of course, I love cats," I said, realizing that now I have another option available to me if I need to have MY cats tended. The folks on my floor aren't really social (maybe no one here is) but we do look out for one another. We are good neighbors, not community members. I keep an eye on the apartment on the other side when its older Japanese orchid-fancier makes his annual visit to Tokyo to see the orchid show.  ("If something seems wrong," he says, "just call the police, don't go in...those crack addicts are dangerous.")

So, I am visiting this handsome Siamese tom and a "foster" female that stays outside on the lanai, to feed, water and do litter box duty (which is forcing me to be a little more regular about my own).

So strange to be alone in a stranger's apartment that is the mirror image of your own's floorplan.  The personality of the owner is very evident, and you can't help noticing the books, the kitchen implements, the accoutrements of someone else's life.  I don't poke through cupboards or closets or anything like that, but one does feel another person's presence and personality, almost as if you could just move in and BE that person.  (I'd like to: she is much more tidy and clean than I am.)

So watering her herbs (as opposed to my ornamentals), feeding her noisy-but-friendly Siamese and the little stray Holstein heifer kitten (as opposed to my big yellow tabby and the plump French matron), cleaning her covered litterboxes (as opposed to my wide-open ones), contemplating her framed print of plum blossoms (as opposed to my landscape scroll), observing her large-flat screen TV in the living room (as opposed to my 19" box in the bedroom), I realize that really, in the final analysis, we are exactly the same. It is only "stuff" that makes us different. And not much of a difference at that.  So in caring for her cats, I am really looking after my own.  Everything balances, evens out.

Such is my observation on this Spring Equinox, 2010.

Yin in the Yang

The angelic Christmas cactus continues exuberantly, but I can tell there is yin in the yang; most of the blossoms are weakening, even though there are still buds opening. Still beautiful but beginning to pass its prime. Its red cousin wasn't as prolific this year, likely because I repotted it last spring and I think it is cramped and unhappy in the new pot.

An explanation of the strange red-orange structure at the left is warranted: it's an old broomstick propping up an equally uncomfortable large fig tree in whose pot the cactus also resides.  It reminds me of a tale the Wizard tells.  Visiting a beautiful garden in Kyoto, he observed that the graceful plum tree would look better if it wasn't propped up with a 2X4.  His host informed him, "Japanese people don't see that."  Likewise, I am blind to the broom handle, but not to the blossoms.

The Wizard observed that Westerners might prop up the tree with a thin carbon-fibre rod, painted to match the background, to make it invisible.  For my plants, it is probably soon time to just do a good repotting; I'd like to think they could hold their own.