THE CLOUD RESEMBLES A RABBIT

In a previous millennium, not long after I had first come to Japan and seen how different the news was over here from what it had been back home, where Japan was still not quite above suspicion as an ally (and never will be, in some still-living minds), I was experiencing what every traveler senses at every international transit: that borders affect news, and that the "real" news is local. Every seasoned wanderer knows how the truth changes when that juridical interface is passed, how the victims on one side become the perpetrators on the other. But this was all rather subconsciously perceived by me at the time, amid the swarm of new information travel stirs up.

I guess that's why not long after I arrived in Tokyo I had a dream in which as a dream novice monk I asked my dream abbot the koan "What is media?" and he responded: "The cloud resembles a rabbit," which phrase was floating homeless in my newly alien brain as I awoke. I thought it a dubious answer at the time; but then, I was only a novice alien dream monk. Since then I've traveled a lot more, and have seen and heard more news about here and elsewhere - from an increasingly alien perspective - and have observed how difficult it can be for a local to maintain a healthy skepticism while immersed in a sea of information served up by 'trained' and 'qualified' professionals who are 'on the spot.' It seems most people never travel 'far' enough to perceive such a thing and gain such perspective, so never know how profoundly their own borders alter news. General populaces thus tend to believe the reports of their media, that stand between the seeker and the truth.

Once upon a time, when there was nothing between us and reality, when rock or tree or flower or wind or stream was as real as our imagining-- when we were inseparate from the actuality around us-- our hands were easily water, our eyes easily sky, our hearts easily fire. There was nothing in between.

Long before there were media standing dutifully in our light, streaming through the air in disembodied voices or residing on sheets of paper covered with words from other minds, times and places; before we began to accept the addiction of believing even history was true as told to us, of relying on second, third and fourth-hand accounts of events to keep us abreast of things we didn't have a clue about as we bought into the dangerous illusion that bides at the heart of modern society, i. e., that we actually have a handle on what is going on around the world-- as I say, before all these veils came to be (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain), we saw no separation between ourselves and the world around us; we had as yet created no distinction between the world and ourselves: no palisades of faith, no moats of patriotism, no need for better and better weapons and the right to bear them, no seeds of distrust, no doubting the very air.

Environed as we are now by information, with billboards on our eyeballs and tv in our faces, new stars in the sky and radio waves sectoring our very bodies, all we need is the internet. How crucial it has become, then, that we maintain our skepticism, our own intelligence as we carom like corks down the whitewater rapids of data directed by experts. So acquire perspective: look at a tree if you can find one, and remember the roots; or at least look up at a patch of sky and observe what the cloud resembles.

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sun slides
behind mountain
frog city

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SAMIZDAT CITY

If FAUX NEWS and the other news-controlling conglomerates get the FCC to approve this rules change, blogs may be the only source of real news left; how long do you think the infospin managers will let that go on?
For further info and to sign a petition to help counterbalance the entrenched media lobby or make a donation, visit MoveOn.

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US SCHOOLKIDS TO BE GUINEA PIGS FOR MEATMASTERS

Meat is already the most karmically/chemically toxic and environmentally wasteful food you can eat, let alone try to grow healthy, long-lived kids on. As for irradiated meat, no intelligent adult wants it. So the MeatMasters are trying to sneak irradiated meat to the kids, through school lunches. You've got to admit, they sure don't give a damn.

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YOU THINK THE TRADE IMBALANCE IS BIG...

Concise description by Pam of that extreme US/Japan news imbalance that few in either country seem to be aware of.

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THE TIMES, ARE THEY A'CHANGIN?

You may recall the elation-turned-debacle that was the Toyosato mayoral recall a few weeks ago (Hooray for Toyosato! Unhooray for Toyosato!), well that setback doesn't seem to have put a damper on mayoral recalls, which seem to be the going thing around the country. Many folks in Shiga-cho are hoping to bring about a recall too, of the mayor who angered his constituency by selling some forest and okaying the construction of an industrial incinerator without even asking. This morning as I entered the village train station I was handed a leaflet that says they only need 674 more signatures for a recall vote. They have a week to get them, and I just heard yesterday that they still needed over 850 (they need 6000 plus, all told), so it seems they're getting some 200 signatures a day. Let's hope the nasty powers that be can't unify as well as they did in Toyosato, where the recalled mayor was squeaked back into office with a slightly smaller margin than Bush was squeaked in with. I can't vote here myself, being a law-abiding, tax-paying, permanent resident of Shiga Prefecture, but I gave the activist village folk handing out the leaflets a thumbs up for their efforts.

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SO MUCH FOR HISTORY.

USA Today readers displayed their sense of America's history recently when in an April poll that asked who was "the greatest" president, the respondents ranked George W. Bush third (with Bill Clinton!) after Lincoln and Kennedy, followed by Ronald Reagan, Franklin Roosevelt, George Washington, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter. Bush's father tied at the bottom with Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson. To paraphrase George Santayana, those who cannot remember the past don't have one.

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SECOND GRANDFATHER

Kasumi and Kaya the predominantly angelic have arrived for a brief stay at the house before moving into a house across the Lake as Kasumi prepares to give birth to her second child, making me a second grandfather and Kaya a first sister. Perhaps even more than the rest of us, Kaya is very excited at the prospect of having a brother or sister, though she would prefer a brother, since there is obviously no need for another Kaya. When she rubs her little hand on her mother's growing belly, the pride she takes in the eternal mystery of her impending brother-to-be is magically nourishing to us elder folk. The unstinting beauty that shines from complete innocence is of immeasurable importance in our lives.

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SNOWBELL HIGH

Finally the right kind of cool sunny day comes along, so early in the morning I go up on the roof to do some roof spring cleaning, a lot of cedar debris, plus the view is great from there. Emerging from the skylight, I turn and walk right into a pearlescent heaven of snowbells (what a thoughtfully beautiful and observant name, like all the old names) and their perfume. The old Japanese snowbell (Styrax Japonicus) right behind the house is just now at the peak of its bloom, but it's so tall we don't notice from the windows; when walking beneath it we at last notice the falling blossoms and look up, but since it's growing amidst older oak and cedar most of its limbs are spread comfortably out over the roof where the sunlight is best, and where the slower oak and cedar can't go. So there I am, my face and shoulders immersed in the soft whitish blossoms mostly open like soft pale stars but some still looking like perfectly smooth oval ivory beads, at first I withdraw instinctively from this abrupt crowding but right away decide to stay like that for a while because what a wonderful accident, right up there in the tall tree blossoms like a bee could be, or a bird, or a wild tree animal. Up close and everywhere like this the blossoms are very different in their beautiful detail than when I look up at them from the ground way down there where they fall rather quickly. They're meant of course for bee close-ups and their perfume is very subtle, stays close in this yet cool air. Apparently there is some bee in me, that for some time doesn't even try to remember what the rest of me came up here for.

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AVIAN ASSETS

Recent mornings, just at the cusp of dawn, there is this insane bird--sounds like he (must be a he, a female bird wouldn't waste the time) is screaming "What the hell? What the hell? What the hell?" harshly loudly and exactly in that frantically familiar rhythm, as though a hard disc just crashed or two tires just blew out or something equivalently imminent-achievement shattering, over and over dozens of times, and at sunrise, what could be the point, but he's not in a tree he's in the brush, so can't be seen and I wonder what such a frantic call must be meant to convey on a regular dawnly basis, particularly in Spring, is he some kind of avian asset management CEO? If and when I find out, I shall spread the word. Such things must not remain unknown, for all our sakes, in view of possible futures broadly pertaining, as is the natural tendency.

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cat watches
fisherman say
cat ate four today

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JAPAN WANTS TO BE PRE-EMPTIVE TOO

Or at least Koizumi does. He wants to be at the very cutting edge of bellicose fashion and be able to attack whatever country might appear to be about to attack Japan or look at it cross-eyed or whatever the criteria may turn out to be constitutionally. And he wants to have an army that he can call an army; there are few things more frustrating and embarrassing for a top nation than having an army you can't call an army and be ready to strike pre-emptively with, anytime anyone acts--well, however Japan says. Just like the US does. So Koizumi is testing the water with his statements. The question is, will the Japanese now be as malleable as the American public has been?

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This whole excellent thing is antipixel's fault.

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NOW IT'S A SCIENTIFIC FACT! BUDDHISTS REALLY ARE HAPPIER AND CALMER THAN OTHER PEOPLE!!

Of course this isn't news to anyone who has lived in or traveled extensively through the Buddhist parts of the world, but it may come as welcome enlightenment to many who have not. There are several studies whose results all point to the same conclusion, in various ways. Paul Ekman of the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, which carried out one of the studies, nutshelled it best: "The most reasonable hypothesis is that there is something about conscientious Buddhist practice that results in the kind of happiness we all seek." The key is in the religious endorsement of self-awareness through meditation (which isn't exclusively Buddhist, but it's their study...). Much recommended for the current US administration.

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MAJESTY

There is a majesty that is lost in cities, of day and night passing in full savor, of sun and moon and stars, cosmoses entire coming into one, the grand nurturing. I love it when the first cooler breath of evening slides down the mountain on its airy wings and nudges my body, so much older than I, to warm itself enough to stay outdoors, reminding it to savor what is coming of the night, the angelic mutual process that each darkening is in life (how well our practiced bodies know the night) as in the day, ancient familiar returning onward. Where you are should never matter more than who you are, what your history is, the story you carry in the blood and bone, that is told upon your eyes-- this entire world at any moment is but a tiny speck of home...

OLD BUDDIES

Kasumi and Kaya are coming to stay with us for about 10 days starting this weekend, before they and husband/father Tatsuya move to their new abode across the Lake. While Kasumi gets an occasional bit of a rest from the unrelenting intensities of motherhood, I will get the chance to take a new Kaya (a quarter of her lifetime older!) out to make the rounds and visit all her old buddies from earlier childhood, the turtles and frogs and blueberries and little fishes and wildflowers, and maybe even some fireflies will be here, though it's a bit early, and then the long bamboos she likes to drag around on our slow and finely detailed walks (right down to the pebble) by her very big blue and wavey friend the Lake-- she may be too grown up for bamboo-dragging now, but I doubt it-- and of course she will still love to stand right at the very edge of daring and throw into the water the biggest stones possible, with very satisfactory results. And the manic warbler tends to hang around the house a lot while Kaya is here, not to mention the mama ferret, who may come by with her taffy babies, so much will be happening...

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E-DIMENSION RESTORED

Happily, one of the few all-around great blogs has resurrected, returning the web to its deserved richness: Speckled Paint has returned under a new name, Solipsistic, with the same always-new quality. Here's hoping for the continued presence of this valued font of creativity and e-dimension... With many thanks to lil of esthet!

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CAN THAI DRAGONS PROTECT MY TOMATOS?

Transplanted some yellow peppers and some paprika this evening, maybe for the monkeys, I planted them right where the onions were that the monkeys took a few weeks ago. I don't know whether those furry impecunious gourmands will go for these unusual pepper varieties as much as I do, so just in case I also interspersed some jalapenos, tabascos and Thai Dragons. The latter three are small plants compared to the former, and look absolutely innocent beside them: cute little dollhouse peppers. (I have a story that I will dredge up one of these days, about yours truly and an incident involving three peppers I suspect might have been Thai Dragons.) Later I'll add some taka-no-tsume (hawk's claws), the standard Japanese hot pepper that I use for my garlic-red pepper-olive oil pasta, a summer dish that makes August heat seem deliciously cool. If a very influential monkey bites into a Thai dragon, the whole clan may never return, is my hopeful idea.

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DR. ANDREW WEIL KNOWS WHERE THE HEALTH IS: OKINAWA, JAPAN'S UNSUNG PARADISE.

Plans healing centers using integrative medicine in the nation renowned for health and longevity.

THE MAN WITHOUT A YUZU

It's not what you're thinking. It's not that either. I have all those. However, if you're a gourmetish person residing in the gourmet hotbeds of the US like the Bay Area and New York, to name a few, you know all about yuzu (Citrus junos siebold), though nothing of why I don't have a tree thereof. If you are such a person, you know that yuzu, specifically the rind and the juice, is a very hot item, the hot item, in the gourmet world these days.

Used traditionally in Japan pretty much only for the peel, a bit of which imparts to akadashi (and boy do they have it perfected, akadashi) that unforgettable, indescribable completion that all great things achieve. Strangely, though, yuzu isn't used for much other than that modicum of flavor genius for that particular application, you don't here encounter yuzu much outside of that, but I've always loved to the depths that magic essence added most perfectly, as I've indicated, to akadashi (can you get akadashi in NY?), and with that you are already well on your way to gustatory bliss.

But only in akadashi season, generally winter, of which akadashi is the very heart. Anyway, yuzu is now the hot thing in the aforementioned hotbeds, its uniquely (and I do mean uniquely) flavored peel and juice is used in high-priced sauces and sine-qua-non dressings and beyond-the-horizon cocktails and superbeautifying facials, you name it. If you don't believe me, just Google yuzu.

Here in Japan, though, yuzu is still pretty much just yuzu. There is a point to this ramble. I went out looking for a yuzu tree for a conveniently empty space in my garden; I also wanted a few tea plants (Camellia sinensis), for another sunny spot just right in the way things tend to become just right if you wait long enough.

I went to the usual nurseries where I get all the plants I don't want to wait for, life is short, but growing seasons are shorter-- after seven years I 'm beginning to get a few plums and apricots and peaches-- so I welcome a shortcut when one is available, and I asked the lady if they had any yuzu plants. She looked at me long, the way service personnel in puzzlement have a way of doing. Was my request so strange, so exotic?

They had fig trees, apple trees, even granny apple trees, plum, peach, apricot, kiwi, grapes, loquat, natsume, persimmon, four varieties of blueberry, you name it. We looked at each other till the answer forthcame, and it was No. Why? I asked. Because there's no demand, she responded. No demand? Yes, no demand. Everybody has them. No one buys them. Everyone except me, I forebore to say.

So it appears that I'll just have to cozy up to someone who has an extra yuzu growing around, and while you're at it, could you throw in a couple of unwanted tea plants? Without sounding too strange. That's a bigger challenge than you might think, for the only guy around without a yuzu.

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flower seeds
holding tight
their secrets