The Fixations in Osaka

I'm now one of the backup singers for the sixties cover band The Fixations. Here is the flyer for our upcoming show. The next day (Sunday) I will bullet train it up to Tokyo to meet my cousin Mark and his girlfriend and some other people, have a picnic at Yoyogi park at 1:00, and then take a week to see Japan. Let me know if you can come and need details about the show or the picnic.

Puddles and bubbles

Here is the first layer of a new painting. Can you see the crow flying deep inside?



And here are a couple kids from my neighborhood who bombarded me with bubbles yesterday.

Drawing Party

Ma and Takashi drawing on my patio. I miss Charlie.

Taken by others

Mom,
I thought you might like some pictures of me I found on the internet.  Traveler's Cafe, Matsuyama





Niihama Secret Garden Cemetery, Grandbetty's house?, Saijo, Yakushima
Niihama Secret Garden Blue Boat project!
Mt. Koya five-tiered pagodas symbolize the five elements that make up every body.
Mt. Koya Bridge into The Deep
Mt. Koya
Tokyo (Asakusa Shrine, really big deal)
Mt. Koya with random strangers
Taiko Festival with Damien and Niihama
The top Secret Garden in Niihama
Some tiny island, Okinawa. We had that entire beach to ourselves.

Dance

This video is so good (it made me cry).

Look within your own mind. See how deep it is? It goes on and on, layer upon layer, on and on forever, might as well be, since if you look deeply into your mind you can't find an end anywhere. Not one boundary or limit. It’s a boundaryless ocean of awareness, this radiant depth of your interior, and it's you to the core; all the way down, you you you you you.

Since everything is but an apparition,
Perfect in being what it is,
Having nothing to do with good or bad,
Acceptance or rejection,
You might as well burst out laughing!

~ Longchenpa

camping by the river

This weekend I went camping by a river deep in the mountains with some friends. We jumped off big rocks, swam naked in the cold water, got sunburned, had a campfire and sang around it, barbecued, beered, bonded. Something happens to a group of people who go camping together. After all, it's a very, very long party, with continuous conversations with each other and with nature. Friendship, that sacred and mysterious love, is shared and strengthened, and many people report having a kind of mystical experience (feeling of connection and peace) when spending extended periods outside, surrounded by nature. The environmental change is often quite dramatic, providing the individual and group with a prolonged "altered state of consciousness." We feel ecstatic and moved to dance and shout and get dirty. Some of us don't get out much.

The feeling is captured beautifully in this new Sigur Ros video. This is what my camping was like.





We listened to the new Sigur Ros album on repeat the entire 3 hours back, actually. The song in the video is track # 1. If you like Sigur Ros, you will love this album. On our trip to the campsite we listened to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Sleeping beauty, and The Nutcracker. Kind of interesting.
Ma, the guy pictured above, gave me and some friends a ride. He is also a dancer.





I had never seen an orange-red roof like this one. Stunning against that green.