kindergarten

"Sorry to read that you're homesick. Mind you, it's a blessing really... imagine if you grew up somewhere and left it and had never loved it enough to miss it?

It's an honour to have people and places to miss; so I tell myself....

If we are lucky, when we leave Japan we'll miss it too. It's a good, healthy pain."
~Briohny Walker

Yesterday was so wonderful. I woke up with Bri, and together we met up with one of my old, organic farmer friends (and an amazing sculptor), Kuma. Then for breakfast we had this amazing vegan rice-quiche and tempeh sandwich at a little organic cafe called Naturel in Matsuyama. After talking to the owner, who had lived in Australia for ten years, we went to a lecture about Merkaba meditation, whose core mandala, interestingly, is the star of David, or tetrahedron). Our teacher, Kuma, also talked about the shifting poles, 2012, the flower of life, and then gave us some brown rice coffee and home grown goodies. Afterwards he took us to a kindergarten he teaches at, which was, on this beautiful day, having a kind of festival/flea market, and I tell ya, this was the greatest kindergarten I had ever seen! They had log cabins and rock-climbing walls! (Look closely at this picture and you can see what I'm talking about! See the climbing wall!?) Golden leaves falling on our heads, we got to watch hundreds of kids play, great live folk music, amazing art on the walls, sculptures in the playground, and I learned how to make an origami paper airplane from this guy:

who I swear I had met a hundred times before; he was very much like an uncle (and a world champion origami sculptor.) He used simple English to explain very technical origami terms, and I just faithfully followed, mind open like a little boy.
Bri: "I liked the bit where he said 'the top of the mountain becomes down' and inverted the paper."

He was as high on life as we were, eyes twinkling.


Here are a couple small paintings I'm working on. The tree is that sacred, nondenominational tree near the river I took Em, Ty, and Yasuchika to the other day. The one below is called "Climber". I used some really thick paint on the dandelions; 'felt like I was painting with some mayonnaise. I wanted this painting to be kind of sensual, maybe even sexy, while also juxtaposing the two dying, metemorphing forms-the dandelion and the caterpillar, both wonders of the natural world, because in my vision they speak to each other on many levels. I want to start a conversation and I dream, or I think that both stories are powerful metaphors, as well as extraordinary natural processes, that can shine a special light onto the self and what it means to die or transcend. But I shouldn't tell you that, because then the painting won't fit as well into your own world of meaning, so forget what I just said. It's not the only thing the painting is about.

I want to layer, in lay, inject vision with meaning. And it's because, madam, I'm Adam. Capturing a little bit of light in the yellow stalks has been difficult, but necessary. I still have a long way to go. (Another reason for the painting is that I need to practice drawing. Artists never stop practicing and training. They are like musicians, or monks, in this regard.)