Ka
July 21, 2009
The Ka of the first triad is the most concrete conception of all. It was probably, too, the oldest. The early people appear to have believed that the human personality combined simply the body and the spirit. In those tomb scenes which depict the birth of kings the royal babe is represented by two figures-the visible body and the invisible “double”. The Ka began to be at birth; it continued to live on after death.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/eml/eml10.htm
I have done no evil against any man.
I have never caused my kinsfolk to be put to death,
I have not caused false witnesses to speak in the Hall of justice.
I have not done that which is hated by the gods.
I am not a worker of wickedness.
I have never oppressed a servant with too much work.
I have not caused men to hunger nor to weep.
I have not been devoid of good works, nor have I acted weakly or with meanness.
I am not a murderer.
I have not conspired to have another put to death.
I have not plotted to make another grieve.
I have not taken away temple offerings.
I have not stinted the food offered to the gods.
I have not despoiled the dead.
I have never committed adultery.
I have not failed to keep myself pure as a priest.
I have not lessened the corn measure.
I have not shortened the hand measure.
I have not tampered with the balance.
I have not deprived children of milk.
I have not stolen cattle from the meadows.
I have not snared the birds consecrated to the gods.
I have not taken fish from holy lakes.
I have not prevented (Nile) water from running (in channels).
I have not turned aside the water.
I have not stolen water from a channel.
I have not put out the fire when it should burn.
I have never kept from the Nine Gods what was their due.
I have not prevented the temple cattle from grazing on my land.
I have not obstructed a god (his image) when he came forth (in a festival procession).
Muinasjutu algus
July 21, 2009
Albus Dumbledore: You must be wondering why I brought you here.
Harry Potter: Actually sir, after all these years I just sort of go with it.
Onwards and Upwards
July 17, 2009
Subject: Onwards & Upwards to Fuji 2009
“We choose to go… not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to measure and organize the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win” – JFK
Day and Night
July 10, 2009
Yo sueño con los ojos
Abiertos, y de día
Y noche siempre sueño.
Y sobre las espumas
Del ancho mar revuelto,
Y por las crespas
Arenas del desierto,
Y del león pujante,
Monarca de mi pecho,
Montado alegremente
Sobre el sumiso cuello,—
¡Un niño que me llama
Flotando siempre veo!
José Martí (1853–1895)
Day and night
I always dream with open eyes
And on top of the foaming waves
Of the wide turbulent sea,
And on the rolling
Desert sands,
And merrily riding on the gentle neck
Of a mighty lion,
Monarch of my heart,
I always see a floating child
Who is calling me!
St Martialis
June 30, 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Martialis
Let Me Be Mad
June 29, 2009
O incomparable Giver of life, cut reason loose at last!
Let it wander grey-eyed from vanity to vanity.
Shatter open my skull, pour in it the wine of madness!
Let me be mad, as You; mad with You, with us.
Beyond the sanity of fools is a burning desert
Where Your sun is whirling in every atom:
Beloved, drag me there, let me roast in Perfection!
- Rumi
Poem of the Day
June 26, 2009
These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, ‘How much is that?’ Oh, I’m just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.
What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.
Where did you go? “Nowhere.”
What did you have to eat? “Nothing much.”
Even if you don’t know what you want,
buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.
Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.
Rumi, ‘We Are Three‘, Mathnawi VI, 831-845
Midsummer madness
June 22, 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MidsummerTamashi Shizume
June 22, 2009
Akiko turned the tamagushi so that the stem was towards the himorogi, and placed it carefully on the table, before taking one step back, bowing twice, clapping twice, and bowing again. She felt surprisingly calm again, and glanced at Shiraishi, who nodded.
Akiko walked over to the table at the side, bowing her head as she crossed in front of the himorogi, and picked up the first offering tray, the one with rice on. She handed it to Shiraishi, who took it and placed it on the table in front of the himorogi. Between them, they put the rest of the offerings there, and then Akiko knelt again, on a mat off to one side, while Shiraishi started reading another norito, this one calling on Tamao to be calm and at peace.
As the words continued, Akiko found herself acutely aware of her surroundings. She could feel the uneven ground even through the tatami mat she was kneeling on, pressing into her knees. The heat from the fires fell on the skin of her face, making her cheeks flush red, and her vestments gradually became warmer against her skin. The wind in her hair seemed playful, scattering strands around so that they tickled her forehead, her cheeks, her nose.
The crackling of the fires seemed to fall into time with the cadences of the norito, and the scent of pine sap became stronger, combining with the smell of smoke. The sounds and smells of the city faded away entirely. Akiko glanced up, and the clear sky was studded with thousands of stars, the milky way stretched across it like a belt. She looked down again, at the dancing shadows within the rocks of the iwakura, and then at the shadows of the sakaki on the iwakura, playing across the go-shintai in its bag, making it look as if it was moving.
The mouth of the bag widened, and Tamao’s head, tiny, emerged, swaying in time to a rhythm that Akiko could not hear, but that the flames seemed to take up. He emerged entirely, coiling on the platform and raising his head, still swaying. Akiko could feel the rhythm now, beating gently in her blood, in her bones, making her spine tingle. Tamao looked at her.
And leapt.
The snake came straight towards her face, and then vanished. Akiko could feel something warm and heavy around her neck, though, and the rhythm was stronger now, throbbing in her guts. She suddenly realised that she had begun swaying in time to it, and she tried to stop.
She couldn’t.
“…kashikomikashikomimomosu.” As Shiraishi finished the norito Akiko’s arms reached down, pressing against the floor as she bent down. There was a surge of panic as Akiko realised that she was not moving her own body.
Then the rhythm washed through her, sweeping away all other thought, all other feelings, sweeping her up on to her feet, and then up further into the air, springing and spinning, dancing as the rhythm dictated. She could hear it now, the throb of great drums, the whisper of thousands of small bells, and then, over it all, the thin, pure note of a flute.
She was vaguely aware of leaping in front of Shiraishi and dancing before the himorogi, moving in ways that seemed natural, new, and long-practised, all at once. She spun to take the tamagushi back from the table, holding it up in one hand as she danced.
Her feet pounded the ground, weaving their own rhythm in with that of the drums, and light flashed from her footsteps, brighter and brighter, competing with the firelight, the stars shining ever brighter overhead as she spun round the himorogi, touching the poles holding the shimenawa, shocks coursing up her arms as she did so, the tamagushi now trailing light behind it as she swept it around her, light that hung in the air, shifting, in ribbons, ribbons that became curtains, curtains that surrounded the himorogi, Akiko, and Shiraishi, marking the edge of the sacred space.
Akiko moved even faster, her breathing still calm and unhurried as she swept the tamagushi through the air around the sakaki branch on the platform. It began to tremble and pulse, as if there was something within it, something trying to get out.
A shout burst from her lips as she leapt into the air, spinning, her fingers scattering light as the flute swept ever higher. She landed on the other side of the himorogi and leapt again, spinning through the air to land behind Shiraishi, and then spring up again, to land on the other side, thrusting the tamagushi towards the iwakura. A flare of light from within the rocks answered, visible even through the curtains of light that still flickered around them.
She was singing, she realised. Singing words she did not know, to a tune she had never heard before that was somehow utterly familiar. The tempo of the song got faster and faster, its melody soaring and plunging, but Akiko’s voice never faltered. This was her role.
She stopped, abruptly, sinking to her knees between the himorogi and the iwakura, looking at the table. The exhilaration still coursed through her, but she was entirely still, even her breath bated as she waited. The sakaki branch was pulsing more strongly now, light burning within it as the ripples of the bright curtains fell into step.
An arrow of light swept up through the branch, shattering it and the platform with a crack. In its place was Tamao, coiled within the shimenawa, his scales shining red, green, purple, gold and silver in the light from the curtains, his eyes shining still more brightly than the stars.
Akiko fell forward, bowing her face to the ground once, twice. Sitting straight, she clapped. The first was a roll of thunder, the second the roar of an earthquake. She bowed once more, and straightened up to look Tamao straight in the eyes.
I am not afraid any more.
“Bright Child, hear and speak!”
Tamao.
(http://www.davidchart.com/Novels/Tamao/category/04-commitment/page/4/)
Tamao
June 19, 2009
The shrine in front of my office:
Me in front of my shrine:
View from office window:
Oh, look right, what`s that over there? =)
Akiko knelt on the floor of her room, looking at the miko’s vestments laid out before her. She had practised, of course, but she had borrowed Shiraishi’s priest’s vestments for that, because the types of clothing were the same, even if the colours, and size, were a little different.
Now, looking at the white kimono and red hakama, she found herself intensely nervous. Shiraishi had bought them for her use, and produced them a few hours ago, telling her to have a proper bath and then get changed for the ceremony. She had laid them out then, but had avoided thinking about what they meant until she had finished her bath. But there was no running away from it now.
She didn’t even dare to touch them. That would be to acknowledge the decision. Naoyuki and Akiyama’s criticisms came back to her. What would people think of her? True, she knew that it wasn’t just superstition, and she’d been living at the shrine, but publicly declaring herself a miko; that was different. That was rather final. Did she really want to make such a statement?
If you don’t, why have you been at the shrine all this time, taking all the training?
http://www.davidchart.com/Novels/Tamao/category/04-commitment/page/4/
