Thursday, May 30, 2013

Butterfly


Whenever I see butterflies, I remember all the butterfulies 
that spent their whole lives in my tiny garden 
until they fluttered away in to the blue sky.

They had a really big appetite during their caterpillar stage
and it seemed to me that they looked so hard to find places to spend their pupa stage.
One day after a long, long pupa stage, 
they emerged as beautiful butterflies and fluttered away, up into the blue sky.
It was an absolutely amazing scene.

(These are my posts in which I wrote about them.)


Looking at butterflies fluttering in the air,
resting for a moment on flowers,
or consuming nectar from flowers,
I feel a warm, loving affection.


We experience good and bad in our lives, 
and sometimes, it feels both physically and spiritually too tough.
However, one day we come through the hardest times
and eventually, catch the sunshine like those butterflies.

Everything goes round and round.  
We are all connected to each other.
Everything is ONE.
So there is nothing to worry about.


Monday, May 20, 2013

Speaking to flowers


The same flowers as last year are blooming 
at the same place in my tiny garden.

I thought they had died.
So I was delighted when I saw them open their petals and blossom.
It was invisible, but surely there was "life" under the ground.

The flowers are living in "this moment" brightly 
in the warm sunshine,
 swaying in the soft breeze.

*

I had a chance to read an article by the tree doctor, Konami Tsukamoto,
with which I was greatly impressed.
She has poured her love out towards trees and flowers.

She says in the article that she once felt that a tree needing care said to her that
 it didn't want any medical treatment, but wanted to be a part of a natural cycle.
Then she thought it was arrogance to cure the tree.
After that she sincerely went to the tree (dozens of times)
and listened humbly to what she could do for it.

Now the tree bears an abundance of flowers every year in Ashikaga Flower Park.


This Wisteria photo is from Ashikaga Flower Park in Japan. 
 You can read Wisteria Story and see more photos here.

*

 Opening our minds and pouring love, 
 humbly facing it and speaking to it.
It may require a lot of efforts and pain,
but it also teaches us a lot of things
Eventually we recieve ultimate bliss as its response.
  
This may be said for any occasion in our lives, I think:)


Friday, May 10, 2013

"The dandelion has my smile.."



I learn a lot from nature.
Nature shows me everything: 
patience and perseverance, toughness and harshness,
interconnectedness that Val wrote in her post, 
capacity to heal, beautiy and piece..
and wholeness and LOVE.


We have ups and downs in our lives.
But if we truly believe that we are all one, we are wholeness,
whatever may happen, we would be all right;
we would be able to feel peace of mind, I think.


"I have lost my smile,
but don't worry.
The dandelion has it"

"...everything around you is keeping your smile for you.
You don't need to feel isolated. You only have to open yourself
to the support that is all around you, and in you.
Like the friend who saw that her smile was being kept by the dandelion,
you can breathe in awareness, and simle will return."


It is heartening to think that we are all one...


"Peace is every step.
The shining red sun is in my heart.
Each flower smiles with me.
How green, how fresh all that grows.
How cool the wind blows.
Peace is every step."
(also from Peace is Every Step)

We are all children of Mother Nature. 
Maybe we've just come too far away from what we truly are,
and forgotten our innate ability.



Wishing you a beautiful and peaceful day :)
                                                                   Sachi

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

That yin-yang thing

I am not very yin-yang literate. I mean, I don't know too much about it.
But it has fascinated me for ages, this concept of interconnectedness, the fact that opposites are not really opposites. The fact that we need both.
From the experience I've had so far (very recent experience, and older experience too), I have gathered already that from darkness arises light. I've noticed that bad moments, feelings, worries, tend to enhance so beautifully, so vividly the beauties of our life.


The closer hardship gets, the more me value and cling to what's solid and pretty. To the love in our life. We cry, we fight, but how we savour those little drops of happiness.
It's sometimes called resilience. It's sometimes called seeing the silver lining. Cynics would call it brain-washing or wishful thinking, and people of faith would see God out there. Kelly Hampton hosts a blog I've come to love for her ability to see the good, the beauty. Or to look for it. Today she calls it 'service recovery'.

I share all of this. I dig beauty. I dig the search for it. And I dig how days of ugliness bring me closer to it. There is after all so much light. And it's a shame we so often forget to see it or feel it deep inside, for lack of time and for the sake of endless errands. I believe we should spare a minute everyday to stop, stop everything, breathe and remember. Remember to pick up that light.



Friday, May 3, 2013

A place for grief, a place for grace

And that is how a human life evolves with the harmony and balance it needs,
in-between contrasts and extremities, ups and downs.
Always soaking up beauty.


Today I have a day off, and I am sorting out my photographs.



Photography is one of my passions. So is my family. So is true friendship. So is travelling. So is Nature.
So there is a lot to do.




Watching the past photographs, from now back to january, I see moments of sunlight, bathing in the lake, frolicking in the snow, I see grey clouds and dazzling light. I see so much, in such a little time.


I see things lost and things gone, I see the future ahead, wearing the most beautiful smiles possible.


In that very improbable, precarious, transitory place of now, I see beauty.


I see a place for grief, a place for grace
 
And lots of beauty out there.

 

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Little gifts of love


On the consideration of creating a blog revolving around the idea of beauty, I hope I don't sound supercicial.
It could sound like it, yet I swear there is more to it than then 'look good' topic!
And this brings me to a little something I've had in mind...have you ever felt helpless when faced with someone else's hardhip? I have, so many times.
Truth is, many people face hardships much much worse than the little things I have to face. Still, two days ago, while I was at work, I received some news that are kind of 'not so good'. The kind that may be good, or...not. It wil probably be ok, still, I received a blow and I probably had it posted all over my face, in spite of my efforts.
A sweet workmate of mine came into my office and asked if I was ok. Of course I'm fine, said I ;)
Whereupon she came closer and gave me a quick hug and left quietly (actually, we don't hug in my country, we kiss, so she kissed me on the cheek).
And it left me speechless...with a rush of comfort. And it sent me back 10 years ago, when I too had the impulse to do something concrete for a workmate who had to face something hard. Something a thousand times harder than  my own worries, I must say. He lost beloved ones, and that was something I couldn't do anything about. That was the worse that can happen to a human being. And I couldn't tell him anything. What to say? So I had the sudden urge to bake him a cake. From the reaction I received, my foolish impulse seemed to be a good one!
True, words are beautiful. They are my drug. My daily dose of drug! I love them in books, blogs, songs, poems...ah, poems... But in the face of hardship, all those beautiful words seem to fall short of something. In the face of any hardship, any hug, smile, kiss on the cheek, brush of the hand on a shoulder, any little token of love, friendship or help seem to be best.
These concrete moves and gestures are for me things of beauty. That real beauty that shows when a friend does something genuine for you. It might be something a little foolish, unusual, tiny, a little helping deed in an ocean of helplessness. Yet it is much, it is big, it is a tiny drop of that most precious and powerful material of love. It brings relief, comfort, hope.
You know, very much like those little gifts kids give to their parents, a little heart drawn on a scrap of paper, a stranded lego that takes on so much meaning, because it is a GIFT.
It prompts me to write today that when you know someone who's unhappy, you can't change his or her life and destiny. But there is probably a little something that you can do. There is probably a little something I can do too.
And that's for me the true beauty of being human.