MAM Day Ten – Back to Japan

Make the impossible possible, the possible easy, and the easy elegant.” -Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais

Quote for the day! And a good one I think for MAM. Helped me create these posts.

On to the castle…

You have to cross the bridge over the moat to get into the castle – that is if you are a warrior.

Another view of the castle with a reflection in its moat. Such elegant architecture for an edifice built for protection against enemies.

Two guardian warriors, one from the 17th century, the other an actor showing us how the guards protected the castle.

Can you guess which is which? And isn’t it interesting, look closely, they’re both wearing masks.

Outside the castle the shrubs are being protected from the snow by straw like we protect our shrubs with canvas or wood in winter. They look rather ghostly.

Though the shrub protectors are really quite harmless of course.

Outside the castle grounds people and their animal friends.

Time to go into the castle. Take your shoes off please…but be ready to have cold feet. The floors are really cold

A view looking up into the upper floor of the castle

The castle is guarded not only by warriors but by gods. The people have to put offerings – food, flowers, incense, etc. in the castle so the gods will protect them. You can see the offerings in the recesses of the castle.

Here are some prints of warriors and battles hung up in the castle which was designed as a museum of sorts..

View from a castle window. Juxtaposition of modern and ancient.

At first glance I thought this was some kind of Japanese board game, but no, it is ammunition and the box it was stored in.

Now we are strolling out on the street by the castle

What a gnarly old tree festooned with rope and tassels. A survivor of many lopped limbs

Hope you enjoyed the tour through the castle.

Tomorrow maybe a boat trip looking for seabirds.

MAM Day Eight- Egging me on

Taking a break from Japan today. Don’t worry, I’ll get back to the castle and the cranes tomorrow. Just couldn’t resist the prompt for today. EGGS!

I love eggs. Eat ’em for breakfast almost every day, especially poached.

Though sometimes I do get a little bored with them and have to jazz them up a bit. And one day a double yolk appeared. My lucky day!

Especially since I am a fraternal twin and came from one of two
eggs together somewhat like that double yolked egg, I felt a special kinship with it.

Don’t think I ever cooked it. Not sure what I did do with it.

I just found out that Helen of Troy was born from one of the “twin” eggs laid by Leda as a swan. Or that’s how the myth goes. Who would have thought, another twin story! The saying “ab ovo” Latín for “from the egg” meaning from the very beginning comes from that myth of Leda and Helen of Troy.

Eggs in the wild – frogs eggs in the hand, bird egg nestled in a wasp nest (I put it there myself of course), moth eggs laid on a leaf and wasp’s eggs parasitizing a caterpillar.

Waterford crystal egg. my parents liked to collect them. Something about the perfect shape of an egg attracts artists to make art from it.

So as the saying goes “I won’t put all my eggs in one basket“

Did you know that the origin of that saying goes back to Miquel de Cervantes’ quote in 1605 by Don Quixote: “It is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket.”

I wonder if he was talking about his relationship with his prostitute friend Dulcinea?

“Ab ovo ad mala” for my stories of the egg – a saying like from soup to nuts only the Romans started their meal with eggs and ended with apples or other fruit.

Enough ovo-musing for today.

A demain.

MAM Day Seven More on Japan

I promised you a temple and maybe a castle…well maybe save the castle for another day.

One of the temples in Nagano that we visited.

On the left is a rack where cards with wishes written on them for the gods are hung. Kind of like the bits of paper folded and slipped in between the stones in the wailing wall in Jerusalem

Another small building in which to worship.

Airy and light, open to the elements but protected by the gods

Statue guarding the temple with screening guarding the statue

Lions are often found at the entrance of holy grounds to ward off evil spirits

Is that the same reason they’re in front of the New York Public Library?

In front of the temple is a big iron urn to hold incense, with a lion on top.

Here are two young people lighting incense to bring into the temple

On the temple grounds are many Buddha statues representing different aspects of the gods.

They can be symbols of enlightenment,wisdom, compassion, protection and more depending on their pose and what they might be holding

They wear red to scare away evil spirits. Red can also mean good fortune and celebration

Who’s this little one with their animal friend?

Probably a Jizo statue, protector of children and travelers, and maybe lost souls or the souls of children who have died. Yellow is a symbol of enlightenment.

Many beautiful trees on the temple grounds.

I didn’t take this photo but I couldn’t resist. It was taken in Japan -I did see the owl – a great grey owl, and it just seemed to fit in with these temple photos.

With my working on my MAM posts I have definitely become a night owl. So for now good night!

MAM Day Six – On with Japan

Now that my heat pipes are fixed and I don’t have to wear my mittens inside and BaaBaa doesn’t have to keep me warm, I can get on with Day Six and Japan.

We always got up at the crack of dawn. That’s what birders do. “The early worm catches the bird”…Isn’t that how the saying goes?

A walk up to where the snow monkeys are. – Yamanochi-Hirao

Looking way down to where the rushing stream will feed into the hot springs.

Are we really different? Hard to say. Why ask?

Resort in the mountains by the hot springs

The hot springs. I didn’t go in but the monkeys liked bathing in it.

They will come down from there in droves.

Remember Rodin’s sculpture “The Thinker”? I see a resemblance.

Mmmm, I’m getting hungry. Time for a pancake break.

Next time maybe a visit to a temple and a castle. As my mother would say: “We’ll see.”

Until then…

MAM Day Five

Maybe I’ll take you on a little trip to Japan today. Or at least get started. I went to Japan on a North Branch Nature Center Birding trip. With the proviso that I am not an avid birder and I left most of the bird photos to those who are.

Here we go.

First house we saw after we got off the plane.

Gardener in the park. The parks are so well tended.

“Dangerous!!! There’s a swamp up ahead. Let’s not fall in”

“Wild winter birds seen around Tartara Lake”

Here we are looking for birds – specific ones of course.

A nice place to sit and look out at the water.

Oh no I can’t ID these but it was quite a dance they were doing.

Bridge to a memorial park in the afternoon sun.

A stone marker. I love the lettering etched in the stone.

In the Karuizawa National Bird Sanctuary. I also love reflections in puddles.

I ate miso soup with soba noodles for lunch everyday . We stopped at Seven Elevens for lunch to buy ready made food. Pretty good too.

This was a robot serving us lunch in a restaurant. Weird, but the food was good.

Well, a little taste of my trip with more to come.

MAM Day Four – The War With Things

I used to like to fix things – zippers, lamps, appliances. But now they seem to have declared war on me..

Or me on them.

And not only zippers…

Oh no, I forgot to take my wash out of the washing machine. Better get it hung up on the drying rack pronto before it gets all wrinkled.

And then the hot water and heat pipes burst.

I think I need to go meditate now. Wanna come join me?

Maybe this poem and a few photos from a “slow birding” retreat I went on in Averill Vermont in the Northeast Kingdom will help.

Here in my sit spot by the lake

I breathe in slowly, deeply,

The undulating hills,

Sparkling waters,

Wisps of white clouds floating in a bright blue sky.

At the water’s edge

grasses gently sway,

And on the far side of the lake the loons dive, resurface, dive again.

I close my eyes,

Feel the cool breeze,

The sun warm on my cheeks.

I hear water lapping at the shore,

Leaves rustling in the crisp autumn air.

Again and again the loons call out their haunting cries.

I breathe with Nature’s rhythm now.

Hers and mine are one.

And I am at peace.

Ommmm.

MAM Day Three – Home

I don’t know why but for some reason home has been much on my mind. Maybe because I’ve been spending a lot of time there lately.

People’s homes – mine, one in Japan, a neighbor’s, and being carried over the threshold to your new home.

Homes that provide sustenance

Protection

Comfort and warmth

Security.

And then there are people who haven’t got a home.

A friend of mine used to quote I don’t know who: “Home is where the heart is…and wherever I hang my hat is home”.

Sleep tight.

MAM 2025 Day two, Houseplants

A quickie today. The MAM prompt for today was “houseplants” Not what I was planning to post about, but still a good one.

Many years ago when I had just moved into my new home, a friend gave me a jade plant clipping just about the size of this one.

Very nice I thought…maybe in thirty years…

Fast forward almost thirty years…

And that’s not all. Just this past year my plant gave me another gift…

Momo found a patch of sunlight to nap under the flowering jade.

First time it bloomed in all those years.

I was told it flowered because the temperature fluctuations in the house were just right this winter. A jade plant is after all a desert plant and likes those extremes.

I prefer to think of it as a gift, a minor miracle, a blessing; choosing mysticism over science this time around…or maybe a little bit of both. After all they can go hand in hand. Einstein was a scientist who believed in the mystical and Maimonides was a physician, rabbi, and mystic.

I think of this plant like a child who you nurture, care for, and then one day before your very eyes they blossom.