it is as though i knew you before i knew you you—like second skin on my soul carried me home before, even, i’d known i was lost you found me heart-splintered and a thousand pieces scattered but you gathered them all one by one like the wayfarer who scours the sandy beaches for seashells and sea glass for an unusual rock, driftwood, or feather
and, with your light with your yellow and gold with your beautiful love you gently pieced all of them back together back into this whole heart and breathing body
it is as though you know me better than i know myself as though you have always known me ever since the sun and the moon first touched the sky
Folding Japanese origami peace cranes is one of my early childhood memories. As as small girl, I watched my mother’s quick and nimble fingers magically fold and crease the single sheet of square paper with a graceful ease that mystified me. In the time that it took me to make one crane, she would have finished several of them, and then she’d laugh with amusement at my little-girl cocktail of envy, frustration, astonishment and admiration. We gave our carefully folded cranes away to friends and neighbors, and to strangers at peace rallies.
Now I am older than my mother was then, and perhaps I’ve made hundreds of peace cranes throughout my life, inspired in part by my mother and in part by the story of Sadako Sasaki—the young girl who folded paper cranes in the hope that her wish to be healed from leukemia would be granted. Sadly, in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in World War II, Sadako died at the age of 12 but her wish for healing and peace symbolized in the act of folding paper cranes lives on. Every year school children from all over Japan, and people from all around the world, make thousands of cranes and hang them up at the children’s peace monument in Hiroshima.
In this time where the world seems to be teetering on edge and everyone seems to be running on empty, I asked myself what I can do to create more peace—for myself and for others. Folding paper cranes is something simple that I know how to do. And an ancient Japanese legend says that if you make one thousand cranes your wish will come true… so I decided to make one thousand cranes for peace. Starting just last month, I have only made 23 cranes so far and have another 977 cranes to go, but I am not concerned about how long it will take. I am folding them one by one and giving them away as I fold them, one by one. Each fold and crease, each crane, and each exchange—is one small moment of peace-making and one small moment of peace itself. The wish becomes reality already—in the folding, in the giving, in the choosing to continue one fold after another fold, one crane after another crane, one day after another… night. Journey and horizon become one prayer, one act of love, one choice for peace, one way of being, one path.
And when I have folded the 1,000th crane maybe I will start on another thousand or on some other peace project… but it doesn’t really matter because in the choosing now, in the folding and creasing and loving now, peace is already my world.
seven thousand miles step by step and side by side this journey of life
as free verse poetry:
in the middle of the journey neither shore can be seen in the middle the deep unknown rises to the surface and stretches seven thousand miles in every direction and becomes horizon
in the middle there is no forwards nor backwards there is only this journey itself step by step and life, like a siren to the soul, is salt and honey and the waves crashing
but even here, in the middle, in the deep endless blue you stay everywhere with me like an angel, or an immortal dragon—guardian of my heart and together, side by side, we see a bright shining light polaris of the night
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu may all beings be peaceful may all beings be happy may all beings be safe may all beings awaken to the light of their true nature may all beings be free
(a Buddhist mantra for metta, loving-kindness, meditation)
Seeing the many images and videos of the Buddhist monks with Aloka, the peace dog, walking 2,300 miles for peace reminded me of the above mantra. Indeed, may we all walk a path of peace in the ritual of our day to day lives—in how we show up for ourselves and for others. Peace, not contained by religion nor political persuasion, is available to all of us.
may you be peaceful may you be happy may you be safe may you awaken to the light of your true nature may you be free 💛
And then she stumbled into an enchanted garden where just ahead on the path sat a little wild rabbit, cute and captivating stone-still but unlike Alice she flew up into worlds with endless sunlight and fields of flowers for as far as she could see Her rabbit, being sometimes a stag or a dragon or a jaguar an angel or polaris itself, holds her hand and together they venture further out and beyond and further still into this garden into this deep well of light where all the paths converge, andwhere only love itself shines in the darkness
(this is something of a sequel to my last post, “rolling stone”)
*photo credit: Kanenori on Pixabay (I slightly altered photo color and light.)
i am a rolling stone mossy messy and deep emerald green
Have you ever tried writing the story of your life in six to ten words? I tried this recently with some of my students, and came up with the following: a rolling stone, mossy, messy, deep emerald green After reflecting on it for a bit, I was pleasantly surprised by how much of me unpacked within just eight words! What story do you read in these words? To me they describe a character who is a little unconventional, even a bit rebellious at times, possibly hard-headed and stubborn, but on the other hand original and unique. She has a deep love and reverence for nature. Like a rolling stone, she is adventurous and has lived in many different places—not however, resulting in loss but in an ever deepening and enriching, moss-gathering journey through life. The journey is sometimes messy and most certainly not without many a mishap, but it is also all together magical, enchanting, and beautiful.
i want to worship here in this temple of the body where love is the altar and where dance is the prayer
All life is sacred. Every-body is an embodiment of the divine. We are how the divine knows itself. We are divinity realizing itself. And what is “the divine”? What is the “divinity” of which we speak? Why, it is love—nothing less and nothing more.
Maybe this is it… This is the awakening… to know this not as conjecture, conviction, philosophy or belief… but to experience this as reality—the same way in which we experience the rain, sunshine, wind and soil. The same way in which we know who we are and in which we know our own names.
walking along the seashore i heard my dragon breathing wave after wave after endless wave of love timeless and boundless infinite like every sun in the dancing blue dazzling its light and there too i saw him in a threaded flight of swans homebound, and, one thousand strong singing all his ballads to me and just waiting for my soul to fly together hand in hand with his all throughout this numinous sky
transplanted in LA i discover delicate sakura and tall palm trees blossoming together
It is now sakura season in Kyoto, Japan. And unexpectedly, to me, sakura are blossoming at the same time here, far away across the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles, where the tall palm trees are emblematic. Am I right to say that sakura will be the last thing to come to mind when thinking of LA? This city conjures three things: Hollywood, beaches, and palm tree lined boulevards. But quietly, sakura are here too, pink and light in this sprawling City of Angels.
When writing Japanese words in romaji, the Roman alphabet, we use the letter R to spell words that include the syllables: ra-ri-ru-re-ro (らりるれろ). For example, cherry blossom or sakura. But the sound is not a straight R-sound, like rah, ree, roo, reh, roe. It’s closer to something of an LR-sound, like lrah, lree, lroo, lreh, lroe… So it would be better to write sakulra, but then it would be mispronounced as sa-kul-ra. So maybe it is actually better to write sakula, and specifically for cherry blossoms in LA, sakuLA! Saku means to blossom. So sakula or sakuLA could have a double meaning: LA cherry blossom, or blossom LA—a unique variety of sakura only to be found in LA!
We are transplanted… in flowers, as peoples and languages, as ever changing and creative expressions of culture brought together by chance or by fate. Perhaps by love. It is something beautiful in the soil and it is something beautiful in the sky. SakuLA and palm trees blossoming together. Holding hands, we dance in the wind, pink and light.
Below is a flower-photo montage created by my phone, magically just on the day I started writing on the theme of being transplanted in LA and blossoming like sakura/sakuLA together with the LA-local palm tree. I did not choose any of the photos nor their sequence, yet the last photo is the same as the featured one above, which I had already selected earlier. Maybe it’s accidental coincidence. Or maybe it’s all the work of an angel—here in LA, in this sprawling city of angels.
all along i thought he was holding my hand, and walking me into the l i g h t but now it seems, rather my angel has been leading me on, and into the darkness deeper, and deeper still and across this river of no return and why i? i have all but disappeared from myself here… here where i am nowhere and my angel is everywhere in me and what then? when the last of twilight deepens into a moonless night will these eyes opened see? blinded no longer by l i g h t
Michiru Adrienne 