Suddenly a bush of yellow flowers is blooming in the garden behind my house.
It occurs to me that I did not invent or make them, I « discovered » them, just as each of us do when we come to them with open eyes and heart.
The blossoms flourish with the rage of life. And like the spring air that carries a tinge of winter and a wisp of summer, both the sea breeze and gritty desert winds, the vibrant yellow petals are laced with death.
Someone reported seeing a lone pink flower in Tokyo as people were fleeing the nuclear threat. She said she stopped to say « I’m sorry » to the blossom, which could not flee. Neither, however, can we: There’s nowhere to go, everything to see.
Discovery in bloom
About the Author: zenscribe
Enseignante Zen et poète, Sensei Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell est née et a grandi à Minneapolis, aux Etats-Unis. Arrivée en France en 1981 pour étudier la littérature et l’histoire, elle y est restée, s’installant à Paris, où elle élève ses deux enfants et gagne sa vie en tant que journaliste.
The Zen teacher and poet Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell Sensei was born and raised in Minneapolis, but came to France in 1981 to study literature and history and has lived in Paris ever since, raising her two children and making a living as a journalist.
ah! thankyou
It’s like the cracks are what let the light in.
thank you little lake……………….and Amy a while ago you wrote –
"There is not a piece missing from that apple on the logo; that bite makes the apple whole."
i’ve been sitting with this since i read it. but i still don’t get it.
more and more this seems to be the essence for me: to know that there is nowhere to go. And i am not talking about nuclear cathastrophe in Japan here. But about acceptance. Acceptance that brings a weard kind of peace in the middle of our personal huricains sometimes…
And trust.
That which is before you is it – in all its fullness – utterly complete…
as well that which is within you is it ?- in all its fullness – utterly complete…
Dear Amy Sensei, the text which touched me most in all those things written about the actual "far away" catastrophes was one of your headlines here from last week: "We are all japanese". Indeed. Japan is not "far away" and the contamination will make its way round the planet with the weather like all the things always do und always did since old. When Tschernobyl happened there was a sunny day with a soft spring rain at first of may in the middle of Europe. I was out taking photos at a nearby harbour and enjoyed even the rain. Soon afterwards my struma started to grow and half of it had been taken away. It is about 20 years now that I manage well to live with that – thanks to modern medecine, but I would have preferred to be unspoiled and more healthy. This planet with all the life on it is such a precious thing, to keep it "unspoiled" is a serious job.
And this precious planet is so small! Japan is not far away. The next earthquake is not far away. "News" either written or filmed create a kind of distance: We see it like a film, read it like a book, but do not really realize that this is not literature or film. It is a picture of reality. About which I do not know much, but it feels like: "We are all japanese", we are only different – permanently changing – forms made out of one basic material and there is no place to run to. There is no happy end in that film: spoiled is spoiled. Where do you want to store all that spoiled stuff? Another planet just to store the unreparable "technical faults which ran out of control"????
In the last days some pictures came up from Tarkowskijs film "Stalker", which I saw in the eighties. In between I forgot about those pictures while creating art and gardens, adding – small – positive visions and their realizations to the planet and its history. Actually it feels like what I did has been not enough. It feels like romantic daydreaming. Can we do anything which makes "sense"? I go and sit. Spring comes, grass grows!