Welcome to AikiWeb Aikido Information
AikiWeb: The Source for Aikido Information
AikiWeb's principal purpose is to serve the Internet community as a repository and dissemination point for aikido information.

Sections
home
aikido articles
columns

Discussions
forums
aikiblogs

Databases
dojo search
seminars
image gallery
supplies
links directory

Reviews
book reviews
video reviews
dvd reviews
equip. reviews

News
submit
archive

Miscellaneous
newsletter
rss feeds
polls
about

Follow us on



Home > AikiWeb Aikido
Go Back   AikiWeb Aikido Forums > AikiWeb AikiBlogs > moon in the water

Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history, humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.

If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced features available, you will need to register first. Registration is absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!

moon in the water Blog Tools Rating: Rate This Blog
Creation Date: 04-26-2010 10:46 PM
niall
Offline
rss2
the water does not try
to reflect the moon
and the moon has no desire
to be reflected
but when the clouds clear
there is the moon in the water
Blog Info
Status: Public
Entries: 155
Comments: 1,111
Views: 1,924,247

Search

Entries for the Month of September 2012

In General ovo-lacto-pesco-vegetarianism Entry Tools Rate This Entry
  #134 New 09-29-2012 11:23 AM
ovo-lacto-pesco-vegetarianism
a good sandwich by Shannalee



Scultz: I always thought of you as an Aryan.
The Barber: I'm a vegetarian.
Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator


Strolling, I yammered metaphysics with Abramowitz,
a jaundice-yellow ("it's really tan")
and fly-weight pacifist,
so vegetarian,
he wore rope shoes and preferred fallen fruit.
Robert Lowell, Memories of West Street and Lepke


"Don't you know that meat is murder?",
The dippy hippy cried.
So, I hit him with a leg of lamb -
And sure enough,
he died.
Other Theresa, Vegetarian Poem


who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht
& tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom,

who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg,
Allen Ginsberg, Howl


Let me confess!
A languid love for Lilies does not blight me!
Lank limbs and haggard cheeks do not delight me!
I do not care for dirty greens
By any means.
I do not long for all one sees
That's Japanese.

Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite
your languid spleen,
An attachment à la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a not-
too-French French bean!
Gilbert and Sullivan, Patience


A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.
Gertrude Stein, Wars I Have Seen



I seem to have talked a lot about f ...More Read More
Views: 4540


In Teaching secret transmission Entry Tools Rate This Entry
  #133 New 09-23-2012 04:18 AM
secret transmission
matsutake mushroom by Daisuke Matsumura



I, a virgin, can make my frank boast that I communicate to no mortal man my secret counsels except to such as I have chosen on account of their taciturnity; then, if these secrets are later discovered, I know whom to accuse.
Elizabeth I


Unknown to trade, to travel, almost to geography, the manner of life they harbour is an unsolved secret.
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer

Music and mushrooms:
two words next to one
another in many dictionaries.
Where did he
write The Three-Penny Opera?
Now he's
buried below the grass at the
foot of High Tor.
Once the season changes
from summer to fall,
given sufficient rain,
or just the
mysterious dampness that's in the
earth, mushrooms
grow there,
carrying on, I
am sure, his
business of working with
sounds.
That we
have no ears to hear the
music the spores shot off
from basidia make obliges us
to busy ourselves microphonically.
John Cage, Indeterminacy

All aikido arts are secret in nature and are not to be revealed publicly nor taught to rogues who will use them for evil purposes.
Morihei Ueshiba, Budo



Matsutake are a type of Japanese mushroom. They are quite rare. They have a special fragrance. They are very, very expensive. Domestic Japanese matsutake are about $100 for 100g now. A dollar a gram. Imported ones are much cheaper. Japan now imports many products traditionally thought of as Japanese from other countries. Especially from other Asian ...More Read More
Views: 2441


In Weapons weary of blades | a riddle Entry Tools Rate This Entry
  #132 New 09-19-2012 04:36 AM
weary of blades | a riddle
Anglo-Saxon Crystal Ball by Paul Walker


I live alone, wounded by iron,
Struck by a sword, tired of battle-work,
Weary of blades. Often I see war,
Fight a fearsome foe. I crave no comfort,
That safety might come to me out of the war-strife
Before I among men perish completely.
But the forged brands strike me,
Hard-edged and fiercely sharp, the handwork of smiths,
They bite me in the strongholds. I must wait for
A more murderous meeting. Never a physician
In the battlefield could I find
One of those who with herbs healed wounds
But my sword slashes grow greater
Through death blows day and night.
impressions

An extra post this week about weapons. It is one of the riddles from The Exeter Book put into modern English. There is only one surviving manuscript. It contains 94 riddles. It's a simple, powerful poem. Those adjectives are both from Latin. It's also short, stark and blunt. Those adjectives are all from Old English.

This is the answer to the riddle.

Niall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_Book

The riddles of the Exeter Book

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_riddles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_literature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_language


photo: Anglo-Saxon Crystal Ball by Paul Walker


my home page with a mirror of these blog posts plus other stuff: mooninthewater.net/aikido


my columns on aikiweb



© niall matthews 2012
Views: 3285


In General turning kaiten sushi dreams Entry Tools Rate This Entry
  #131 New 09-16-2012 10:07 AM
turning kaiten sushi dreams
Sushi Zanmai by George Reed



I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning
Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld,
If the street were time and he at the end of the street
T S Eliot, The Boston Evening Transcript


It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.
Dylan Thomas, Poem in October


To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U turn, I have only one thing to say. You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning.
Margaret Thatcher, speech to the Conservative Party Conference, 10 October 1980


Revenge is a dish best served raw
Tagline for the movie Sushi Girl


Well done boys, looks like ice-cold sushi for breakfast
Skipper the Penguin, Madagascar


One minute you're on top, the next you're sushi.
Morgana, Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea



We use the word kaiten in the martial arts. It means turning or rotation. One of the basic techniques in aikido is kaiten nage - turning throw.

Kaiten zushi is the sushi that goes around on a conveyor belt.

The apprenticeship of a sushi chef takes many years. The fish must be of very good quality so that it can be eaten raw. So sushi in a traditional restaurant can be very, very expensive.

There was a national holiday this weekend and like a lot of families in Japan we went ...More Read More
Views: 3791 | Comments: 4


In General shadow Entry Tools Rate This Entry
  #130 New 09-08-2012 10:22 AM
shadow
Tozando by Design 1st



And so it has come to be that the beauty of a Japanese room depends on a variation of shadows,
heavy shadows against light shadows - it has nothing else
Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows


We lingered wordless while a tall
Shade enclouded the shadow's cast.
Allen Tate, Shadow and Shade


The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow.
Frank Lloyd Wright (architect), Night is but a Shadow Cast by the Sun


The shadow of the Venetian blind on the painted wall,
Shadows of the snake-plant and cacti, the plaster animals,
Focus the tragic melancholy of the bright stare
Into nowhere, a hole like the black holes in space.
John Ashbery, Forties Flick


Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
T S Eliot, The Hollow Men



Recently I saw an interesting profile of an American architect. He lives and works in Kyoto. His name is Geoffrey P Moussas. One of his interests is renovating machiya. Machiya are traditional Japanese town houses. The results are very beautiful. Check out the Design 1st site.

He became interested in Japanese architecture after reading In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki. He said that in his architecture studies he had been learning how to use light. But after reading the book he realized that there was another approach. In Japan people used shadow.

I thought it was very interesting. Looking at the same thing f ...More Read More
Views: 3910


In General koreatown Entry Tools Rate This Entry
  #129 New 09-02-2012 03:50 AM
koreatown
Okubo, Tokyo by Shinya Ichinohe



Where's the mountain I 've just come down?
Where am I?
Ko Un, Walking Down a Mountain


Even if you know the way, ask one more time.
Korean proverb



There has been a Korean boom in Japan for a few years. It started with a TV drama series called Winter Sonata in 2002. Then one or two Korean pop artists released songs in Japanese. Now there are many, many popular Korean singers and groups.

There are a lot of Korean restaurants and shops selling Korean music and related goods near Shin-Okubo station in Tokyo. It used to be a dying area. Especially during the day. At night it was perhaps a little busier because it is close to some of the Shinjuku entertainment areas. But in the last couple of years it has become a bustling shopping area. Most of the people who go there now are very, very young. They are fans of Korean pop idols and actors. I have to say that Korean movies are usually much more realistic than Japanese movies.

Shin-Okubo is quite near the Aikikai hombu dojo. And it's the closest station to the Iwata budo supply store. I wrote about the store in Iwata. It's where I get all my aikido uniforms: aikidogi and hakama.

It's nice to see an old decaying area become revitalized.

When I went to Korea years ago there was no aikido. Not even one dojo. I think there are a few there now. But I did go to a hapkido dojo. Hapkido is written with the same three Chinese characters as aikido. 合気道. It' ...More Read More
Views: 2572 | Comments: 1




All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:01 PM.



vBulletin Copyright © 2000-2024 Jelsoft Enterprises Limited
----------
Copyright 1997-2024 AikiWeb and its Authors, All Rights Reserved.
----------
For questions and comments about this website:
Send E-mail
plainlaid-picaresque outchasing-protistan explicantia-altarage seaford-stellionate