Dear Visitor,
Happy New / Bunny Year!!
Wishing you a truly awesome-to-you 2023,
Yuko the webmaster/artist.
I woke in the middle of the night and seen, in my mind’s eye a flock of swans, would be perfect for the New Year’s greeting card I was designing in my head for a few days. It was like 3am on winter solstice, 2022. When I woke again it was 8 in the morning, opened the window and saw, a flock of swans flying away heading south, just as I imagined.
Editions:
09Feb23 – additional text about a flock of swans.
The photo is a rubber stamp print drawn from a picture of a girl cow, who “escaped on way to slaughterhouse, smashed through metal fence, broke arm of man trying to catch her then swam to safety on island in lake” therefore deserves a portrait drawn nice and pretty.
Source: “The Independent”, February 16, 2018 – no link / please copy the above sentence within “” and search engine it.
I added a lily in honor of the “Story of Ferdinand”, a little tale about a cow “they called Ferdinand the Fierce” who, “when he got to the middle of the (bull fight) ring he saw the flowers in all the lovely ladies’ hair and he just sat down quietly and smelled”.
Book: (1936) Munro Leaf (words), Robert Lawson (illustration). Many read-along videos on YTube (req. less than 10 minutes).
News Flash: Ferdinand existed in real life!! His name was Civilon and the bull fight – of no fight – took place in 1936. (Source: “Ferdinand – The True Story (2014)” – no link / please copy the….)
Come to think of it….the girl cow deserves a name, too. Why not call her Civille. Brave Civille.
Wishing you a Beautiful Year ahead,
from Civille and artista.
What is a “father’s day” anyways? All them special dates emerging from somewhere like a circus clown sprinkling magic dust upon us.
And what good would that do to mend our wings if the sky is, in facto may have been, confiscated from us.
We are all alike, and we are all unique. Submit to the latter and you’ll know we are also all alone.
Sky is ours. Future is not set in stone.
When you stand in your own truth withstanding the “uni” of the unique.
And look over there, see another one, and plenty more of us with our wings strong in the sun,
just and only then we will
bring heaven down to earth where it belonged all along.
Above is the first photo I post online in the new decade. Of a leaf I found one day in mid January, on the ground I was walking, lit up with a special Nudge I’ve learned not to ignore.
A moment before that I was dragging my feet lamenting on my photography fatigue, gazed down which turned out to be a good thing because, the Leaf, as the Grade A Plus abstract art, catapulted me out of the enthusiasm desert.
Photographed is the Leaf’s reverse side. The shiny side has the chicest colors but I’m not posting it because, I am pretty certain you can find a leaf at where you are, a Leaf just as potent, even if you live in a most desolate inner city.
And also, much like that: you always have You, under any circumstances. Yes you do, a Leaf and You, and are way more than enough to ignite the unfolding of Your Visions. Your Truth.
P.S.
Special thanks to The Oceana, photographed on my 56th birthday in late January. I now hear you, your Waves, always, even when I am away.
May your pages be filled with what makes your heart swing.
This year, for the first time I bound my daily planner, crafted it in just the way I wanted.
With uneven edges and unfinished stitches, even let the stamped numbers dance, too!
All for the purpose of gifting myself daily, with a reminder that in Creativity there is, inherent, inviolable freedom.
The journal is photographed with dried spider lily blossoms from 2 autumns ago, with overlaid images of the ocean photographed during the first few days of this year.
The Ocean’s been doing its fiery thing since yesterday, attracting a small group of devotees either with photography gears or surf boards. The capture is from today, January 2nd, just after sundown.
Somehow words are failing to express my wishes for the year ahead. The Ocean and my camera kindly bypassed the tongue-tied this evening and spelled them all out on the image above.
Morro Bay, 1995, further north of where the soon-to-be-fully-contained fire is at the moment. Bottom photo was taken by a friend of mine who also did the driving throughout our care-free road trip along the coast line. As you can see, she caught me in the perfect Kodak moment tilting the famous Morro rock.
Images were photographed with a single-use, most probably water resistant camera I used a lot in those days, and casually handed over for processing at local Target. Back then I didn’t think much of my creative inclinations, in fact I thought of them as the source of all my troubles and in most part I treated them accordingly.
Many years later in 2012, I decided to pamper my creativity with a high-end film scanner (rented), and discovered the negatives in progressed decay. Lines, scratches and uneven colors, they hinted at everything that happens only once.
Now, in December 2017, as California finds itself in flames again, I dug up the photos and gave them the suitable “vintage postcard” edit, then messed them up a bit, to near the creative disaster. Why, it’s a play, to be slightly off balance so your foot no choice lands forward. Well I was thinking of California I know, the foreign land always felt like a well worn pair, appreciating every minute I spent, submerged in the air of adventurousness and experimentation the land so eagerly, and effortlessly permits.
About a month ago the year turned. While it was turning I rushed to a close by temple for the once-a-year opportunity to hit a big bronze bell they got there with a rather large log positioned to swing horizontally.
The bell is there year-round but I waited a whole year, for I feel too polite to just walk up there any old time and hit it as I like, the booming resonance it produces.
I had an opportunity to talk with the head monk afterwards, a carefree random chat the first thing in the year. He shared with me what’s been taught to him;
to find “Hotoke” – by whom no words be voiced – listen to the water, the wind…
ALERT:
This video contains flickering lights.
(Sunlight reflections on Sea surface.)
The footage’s of the sea lit with the first sunlight of the year, coupled with the booming bass from the aforementioned bell.
That is what brings everything together really, the boom of the bell, so do make sure to boost the lower frequency.
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