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Movement number 4: dragon seeks path - dragon whips tail. Bruce Lee, Way of the Dragon
Hard by the lilied Nile I saw
A duskish river-dragon stretched along,
The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled
With sanguine alamandines and rainy pear: Thomas Lovell Beddoes, A Crocodile
In this altar-piece the knight,
Who grips his long spear so to push
That dragon through the fading light,
Loved the lady; and it's plain
The half-dead dragon was her thought,
That every morning rose again
And dug its claws and shrieked and fought. W B Yeats, Michael Robartes and the Dancer
But each day brings its petty dust
Our soon-chok'd souls to fill,
And we forget because we must,
And not because we will. Matthew Arnold, Absence
I had to spend many years losing my spirit, to unlearn thinking again, to forget the oneness. Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
Well, but something sure is wrong
'Cause I'm so blue and lonely
I forgot to remember to forget Elvis Presley, I Forgot to Remember to Forget
Japan in December is the time for parties for the end of the year. In Japanese they are called bonenkai. Parties to forget the year. Companies have them. Neighbourhoods have them. And of course dojos have them. Many people have to go to several.
So the bonenkai is the chance to forget all the bad things of the last year. It's a nice idea. If you forget all the bad things that happened during the year
...More
You better cross over
You better walk humble
Or you're gonna stumble
And Satan is waitin' to take your hand
You walk on the wild side Brook Benton, Walk on the Wild Side
Hey babe
Take a walk on the wild side Lou Reed, Walk on the Wild Side
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform
into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street Denise Levertov, O Taste and See
He wore but a thin
Wind-thridded suit,
Yet well-shaped shoes for walking in,
Artistic beaver, cane gold-topped.
"Alas, my friend," he said with a smile,
"I am daily bound to foot ten mile -
Wet, dry, or dark - before I rest. Thomas Hardy, The Pedestrian
You meet him on the corners,
in bus stations, on the blind avenues
leading neither in
nor out of hell, you meet him
and with him you walk. Thomas Lux, Pedestrian
And we'll start the driving lessons when you've mastered the walking bit. Gregory's Girl
Japanese samurai used to walk in a special way. It's not a natural movement. You have to learn it. As you walk you swing your arm forward on the same side as your foot. It's called namba walking. I'll write about it in more detail another time.
I ride a bicycle most days. Today a young woman stepped into the road in front of me without looking. Yesterday a woman on a bicycle rode out in front of me without looking. Some Japanese people are perhaps a little vague about the rules of the road. ...More
It is the light
At the end of the tunnel as it might be seen
By him looking out somberly at the shower,
The picture of hope a dying man might turn away from,
Realizing that hope is something else, something concrete
You can't have. John Ashbery, Houseboat Days
Leaves and bark, leaves and bark,
To lean against and hear in the dark.
Petals I may have once pursued.
Leaves are all my darker mood. Robert Frost, Leaves Compared to Flowers
In the umbra, the tunnel, when the mind went wombtomb, then it was real thought and real living, living thought. Samuel Beckett, Dream of Fair to Middling Women
Parting is a trailing streamer,
Lingering like leaves in autumn. Philip Larkin, As a War in Years of Peace
Rain. Dirt. Tunnel. Problem. Michael Scofield, Prison Break
Autumn leaves are important in the Japanese year. The beauty of the changing colours of the leaves represents the coming of winter. Kevin Short writes a cool regular nature column in the Daily Yomiuri newspaper. This week he wrote an interesting explanation of the science of autumn leaves.
In my column Eyes in the Martial Arts I talked about a gaze like autumn leaves. It was used in traditional budo as advice on where to look. Another phrase from the Japanese sword is to look at the far mountains. Both of these mean roughly that you should look at everything at once. You have to absorb the whole scene without becoming fixed on any single point.
12-30-2012 10:22 PM 
