May you be Safe
May you be Happy
May you be Healthy
May you live at Ease with Inner Peace…
Just got back from New York… what a crazy place Manhattan can be but LOVED every minute of my stay there.
Category: Beautiful Places
When I first came to this country, it was only supposed to be temporary, 3 years at most is what I was told. Aside from few greetings and menu words, I did not speak a word of English. I only spoke Japanese. My mother thought language immersion to be the best method to acquire mastery over English …and so that first summer upon arrival, I found myself at a summer camp – a camp by a beautiful lake in the mountains… sink or swim? I had no friends, I knew not a soul at this particularly outdoorsy camp. Yet, somehow I managed to have a nice time, away from home, apart from my family, sleeping on cots in the woods, under the stars with girls I had never met before – and yes, all speaking a foreign language called … English. I still remember the beautiful camp counselors whom I looked up to with great awe as they played the guitar with grace and sang lovely folk songs I had never heard before.
Today, my mother’s method may have raised few eyebrows the way she just threw me into an unfamiliar surrounding but… I owe her my thanks. Out in the wilderness, in mother nature, unlike today – without electronic gadgets, I was left to my own devices. My first summer camp ever in my life with no comprehension of the language spoken there – It was definitely a language immersion at its finest (do I sound a bit cynical?).
Apparently my mother’s method of language acquisition was effective. Yes, it worked as today I am often flattered for being so bilingual & native-like for being accent-free… but I actually would not have minded retaining some Yoko Ono-esque accent to be “cool”.
This month we celebrated Mother’s Day. In their honor, I share this poem – Thank you, Mom – or “Mama”, how I still call her:) Whenever I look back, I am filled with gratitude for you made me find grace under pressure; you allowed me to suffer in order to make me resilient … and this poem with humor says it all.
*** *** ***
The Lanyard
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter (dates this poem doesn’t it? but timeless message) to piano, from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, when I found myself
in the L section of the dictionary where my eyes fell upon the word Lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly –
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing the strand again and again until I made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me my life and mild from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard. Here are thousand of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and good education. And here is your Lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered, and here, I said,
is the lanyard I made at camp. And here, I wish to say to her now, is a smaller gift – not the worn truth that you can never repay your mother, but the rueful admission that when she took the two-tone lanyard from my hand, I was sure as a boy could be that this useless, worthless thing I wove out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
– Billy Collins
Categories
Easter – Return from Mt. Shasta
Drove up to Bunny Flat, the day before Easter to see some snow as suggested by another Bay Area traveler we met at a mineral spring the day before. Without sunglasses, we were blinded by the ultra bright glare of light reflected off that whiter than white snow. The snow glistened below vast azure skies, and in distance stood majestic snow capped peaks of Mt. Shasta. The exhilaration… (ok, maybe thin air:)the sheer sense of awe and wonder.
Walking in the snow, screaming each time our foot sank into the snow the depth of an entire leg almost … we looked with envy at well prepared visitors with skis and sleds wishing we had done the same so we could frolic more… but with a wistful sigh headed back down. No snow shoes, no gloves… does not make a good play in the snow. From Bunny Flat, now a bit like Easter bunnies, hopped back down to the town of Shasta then a short drive over to McCloud river’s three waterfalls…so amazing to feel and touch the snow, then, be hiking in lush green mountain along McCloud river to see 3 waterfalls; all within less than 30 minutes. First, the grander of snow and ice at the base of sacred Mt. Shasta… then to seeing a rainbow at waterfalls it’s amazing that we can go from one to the other in less than 30 minutes. Reminded how we are blessed with so much natural bounty here.
Returned from Mt. Shasta on Easter… It’s almost a 5 hour drive from the Bay Area so an hour more driving than Lake Tahoe… It’s far but not that far – if you know what I mean. This was my second visit. First time was to see where late Ayako-sensei had moved to open an organic restaurant called Vivify at the base of the mountain. Reminded what a disaster of a year 2011 was – Talked to her about admiring the mountain and had her special off-the-menu macrobiotics bento lunch… last memory of her. This time, I found out why some are drawn to that sacred mountain… as for me, it’s because it’s a composite volcano like Mt. Fuji…you feel that certain empowering energy at your very core and at cellular level throughout. The air is clean and crisp… and water… so crystal. Spring water bubbling from the ground and flowing into Sacramento river – isn’t that amazing? This spring water is the source … just amazing.
“Mount Shasta is located 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of the Oregon-California border and midway between the Nevada border and the Pacific Ocean. This huge mountain rises 11,500 feet (3,500 meters) above its base; has a base diameter larger than 17 miles; can be seen from 150 miles away on a clear day; and has a mass of 350 cubic kilometers, comparable in volume to other stratovolcanos like Mount Fuji and Cotopaxi.”
“During the last 10,000 years Shasta has erupted an average of every 800 years but in the past 4500 years the volcano has erupted an average of every 600 years. The last significant eruption on Shasta may have occurred 200 years ago. ” Mount Shasta has two peaks, known as Shasta and Shastina, the duality united and embodied into one solid manifestation. It is said that Shasta represents male energy and Shastina, the female… and together grounded to earth they stand majestically tall reaching up to the stars and moon above – Sometimes doughnut shaped cloud formation that looks like a UFO graces around the peak… allowing us to see, then feel the powerful vortex swirling…
Shadows of Shasta
In the place where the grizzly reposes,
Under peaks where a right is a wrong,
I have memories richer than roses,
Sweet echoes more sweet than a song;
Sounds sweet as the voice of a singer
Made sacred with sorrows unsaid,
And a love that implores me to linger
For the love of dead days and their dead.
But I turn, throwing kisses, returning
To strife and to turbulent men,
As to learn to be wise, as unlearning
All things that were manliest then.– From The Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller, 1923
Given the image of resurrection, Easter symbolizes renewal and hope. May our rituals, whether solar or lunar, bring us that much closer to renewal and rebirth like for those people paying homage to Mother Nature here. Like that of a pilgrimage – wondering what were we seeking at the headwaters of Sacramento river this morning? I felt my soul cleansed as that icy cold spring water opened my third eye, cleared the opaque film that blurred my vision – then felt the cascade from crown of my head flow down down to this earth, grounding me into state of balance – to feel stable and solid like the powerful Mt. Shasta … dripping with that pure water, we were blessed again like a baptized newborn. Cleansed, refreshed and clear minded, we start the new week tomorrow. Rejuvenated and renewed… tension and stress-free… which is what I want all to feel through our yoga practice. It’s my Easter gift from the mountain. Blessed are the newborns.
Credit for photos:
first photo of lenticular clouds over Mt. Shasta – by Dahlia Rudolph – October 5, 2011;
second photo of moon over Mt. Shasta – from Mt. Shasta Fun Guide http://mountshastaguide.com/events/75/full-moon-hike-on-mt-shasta/
