IV

I. 58 bago na ja re na ja

DO not go to the garden of flowers!
O Friend ! go not there;
In your body is the garden of flowers.
Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the Infinite Beauty.

I. 82. <i>pânî vic mîn piyâsî</i>

I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty:
You do not see that the Real is in your home, and you wander from
  forest to forest listlessly!
Here is the truth!  Go where you will, to Benares or to Mathura;
  if you do not find your soul, the world is unreal to you.

I. 104. aisâ lo nahîn taisâ lo

O HOW may I ever express that secret word?
O how can I say He is not like this, and He is like that? {p. 53}
If I say that He is within me, the universe is ashamed:
If I say that He is without me, it is falsehood.
He makes the inner and the outer worlds to be indivisibly one;
The conscious and the unconscious, both are His footstools.
He is neither manifest nor hidden, He is neither revealed nor unrevealed:
There are no words to tell that which He is.

II. 103. <i>nâco re mero man, matta hoy</i>

Dance, my heart!  dance to-day with joy.
The strains of love fill the days and the nights with music, and
  the world is listening to its melodies:
Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music.
  The hills and the sea and the earth dance.  The world of man
  dances in laughter and tears.
Why put on the robe of the monk, and live aloof from the world in
  lonely pride?
Behold!  my heart dances in the delight of a hundred arts; and
  the Creator is well pleased.

 

I. 126. muralî bajat akhand sadâye

THE flute of the Infinite is played without ceasing, and its sound is love:
When love renounces all limits, it reaches truth.
How widely the fragrance spreads! It has no end, nothing stands in its way.
The form of this melody is bright like {p. 97} a million suns: incomparably sounds the vina, the vina of the notes of truth.

Kabir was born in a weaver's family and later adopted by childless Muslim weavers named Niru and Nimma, who found him near Lahara Tara lake, adjacent to the holy city of Varanasi. ^[5]

A Bhakti saint,who sang the ideals of seeing all of humanity as one.

A weaver by profession, Kabir ranks among the world's greatest poets. Back home in India, he is perhaps the most quoted author. The Holy Guru Granth Sahib contains over 500 verses by Kabir. The Sikh community in particular and others who follow the Holy Granth, hold Kabir in the same reverence as the other ten Gurus.

Kabir openly criticized all sects and gave a new direction to the Indian philosophy. This is due to his straight forward approach that has a universal appeal. It is for this reason that Kabir is held in high esteem all over the world. To call Kabir a universal Guru is not an over exaggeration. To me personally, the very name Kabir means Guru's Grace

Kabir is also considered one of the early northern India Sants. One source for modern adaptations of Kabir's poetry is Robert Bly's The Kabir Book: Forty-Four of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir. (from Wikipedia)

There is also the on line, complete text of Rabindranath Tagore's translation.

I had received an email from a friend, who had beautifully described the sights of Veranasi on the banks of the Ganges with its throngs of sadus and thought of Kabir- I did not realize that Kabir was from Varanasi, until looking up more information on him, and looking for his poems. There are no coincidences. The picture above is one of my SVG creations. 

My take on one of my favorite Ukiyo-e prints, The Great Wave by Hokusai- Wave 'o Coffee! Spoon surfing on a wave of frothy cream and espresso, with a Mt. Fuji of whipped cream! Is your coffee cup empty? Ukiyo-e woodblock print masters such as Hokusai, Hiroshige, Kunisada, Eizan, etc., of the Edo (Tokyo) period in Japan (1600-1868) have inspired and influenced numerous European artists (namely Van Gogh, Monet, Dega, and Cassatt), printing techniques, illustration, graphic design, the Art Nouveau movement, and Japonisme ornamental design, Manga (specifically inspired by Hokusai) and Anime, etc., and...me! The Library of Congress has a lovely exhibit of The Floating World of Ukiyo-e, and there is a wonderful site on Edo Picture Books and Japonisme with interactive, page by page views of each book with audio of a speaker telling the stories in English. My favorite resource on Japonisme and Chinoise is a fabulous blog of the same name, the quintessential treasure trove of "eye candy" and commentary on the topic and all things related!

"Once I realised that my life was painting, I looked keenly at that universe, wishing so much to become a part of it. It was a universe studded with male names, exquisitely male names. The painting panorama had two great names of illustrious men who had made the history of painting. But no equally special woman among them.
I got down to some research, and behind those great names, in the undergrowth I might say, I found also women. Not one, not ten, but a thousand paintresses. Ah, what joy! And what anger to realise we have been pushed aside, belittled, shut in, owing to the idea that painting was a 'job not suited to a woman', 'something not quite right for a woman'".

-Tamara De Lempicka (May 16, 1898- March 18, 1980

Tamara De Lempicka IS Art Deco! If you aren't familiar with the name, you are probably familiar with the paintings. Words are inadequate to describe her work. It must be experienced. Read more about her from the link above. Here is a link to Bert Christensen's virtual gallery of Tamara De Lempicka's paintings. Enjoy.

Nick Chisholm's life puts a perspective on what is life, and overcoming insurmountable odds that few others could or have. His very existence since the accident on a soccer field that left him in "Locked-in syndrome" is an amazing example of the will to live, the power of spirit and of consciousness, and courage. For me, having experienced severe depression for over a decade, and some of the adversities that led to it, now thankfully post-depression, I realize, even more so after watching this, how precious my life and everyone else's is, and ashamed of how I was perfectly willing to give in all too easily, wanting to die over something that pales in comparison to what Nick faced. Reminds me of the scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail where the guy is pulling around the wagon of black plague corpses, "Bring out ye dead!", and they put this old guy still walking around on the wagon, and he insists, "I'm not dead yet!".  Nick isn't, and neither are we, still able to change, adapt, overcome, inspire, make a difference, evolve, grow, to fight another day even, and I'm grateful.

Here is an article from a clinical review with Nick's journal entries describing his experience.

 

Ukiyo-e froggies from a detail of a print. Notice the froggies in the background that appear to be "part of the woodwork". The artist is Kunisada Utagawa 1786-1865. I started to just post the detail of the frogs, but the entire print is so nifty and whimsical, and well, there are frogs, so here is the entire print:


Note: I have this linked to my Blogger page, so clicking the above print will open a window showing it in a larger (huge!) resolution.