Tuesday 6 July 2010

七夕
Tanabata Star Festival, the 7th day of the 7th month
Traditionally the seventh day of the seventh lunar month

Orihime 織姫 the weaving princess, daughter of the Universe 天帝, wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the heavenly river, the Milky Way, Amanogawa 天の川. Her father loved the cloth she wove, so she worked very hard everyday to weave it. But Orihime was sad because her hard work meant she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, her father arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi 彦星 (the cow herder star), who lived and worked on the other side of Amanogawa 天の川. They fell instantly in love. However, once married 織姫 would no longer weave cloth and 彦星 allowed his cows to stray all over heaven. In anger, 天帝 separated the two lovers across the 天の川 and forbade them to meet. 織姫 became so sad that, moved by his daughters tears, 天帝 allowed them to meet once a year on the 7th day of the 7th month. But, the first time they tried to meet, they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. 織姫 cried so much that a flock of magpies came and made a bridge with their wings. It is said that if it rains on 七夕, the magpies cannot come and the lovers must wait another year to meet.

Write a wish and hang it from the bamboo
At midnight send it down the river or set it alight.

笹の葉 さらさら
ささのはさらさら       
the bamboo leaves rustle

軒端にゆれる
のきばにゆれる
shaking away in the eaves

お星様キラキラ
おほしさまきらきら
the stars twinkle

金銀砂子
きんぎんすなご
gold and silver grains of sand

Friday 2 July 2010

Tuesday 15 June 2010

RBMA Radio - Carl Craig, Francesco Tristano & Moritz von Oswald (Detroit, Barcelona, Berlin) - Live from London - Royal Festival Hall

Can: Mother Sky (Soundtracks 1970 Krautrock classic)

sakura rain

It is said that the time of falling cherry blossom brings on deep melancholy at the realisation of the fleeting fragile beauty and ever changing nature of life. It is a time to cherish and contemplate that we can never grasp or hold on to a moment of time, only flow with it in the continual cycles of birth, growth and death.

Thursday 27 May 2010

せい       聖       sacred

せい       精       energy, vigour, a spirit, a nymph, an echo
 
せい       姓       a family name

せい       生  (enjoy) life, living

せい       性  nature, sex, gender

せい       正       right, justice

せい       所為      consequences

せいい      誠意      in good faith, sincerity

せいいき     聖域      a sanctuary

せいいく     成育 生育   growth

せいしん     精神      spirit, mind, soul

せいしん     清新      new, fresh

せいしんせいい  誠心誠意    sincerely, in all sincerity, work

せいてき     性的  な   sexual appeal

せいてん     青天      like a bolt out of the blue

せいてん     晴天      a long spell of fine weather

せいてん     聖典      a scared book

せいぞん     生存      existence, life

せいりよく            influence, power, force, energy

せいりつ     成立      come into existence

せいよく     性欲      sexual desire

せいらい     生来      by birth, innate

せかい      世界      the world, the earth, the universe

せつしよく            personal contact、touch

せつする     接     come in contact with
  
ぜつする     絶する     be beyond words

ぜんぶ      全部      all, the whole, total, everything