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Insulin may be required: http://www.flickr.com/photos/70104978@N00/sets/72157632055936348/

As I may have mentioned previously, my sister's dachsund, Jackpot is, as her friend Patty once put it, "so cute you wanna puke." He also fits quite neatly in the kitchen sink when he gets stanky. And the light from the kitchen sink was sorta Vermeer-like....

A bold stroke of cloud
Slashes across a sky of
Watered purple silk.
Pausing to watch a sunset
Is never a waste of time.

It's the waiting in
Places I'd never visit
When I could be home.
Here I sit in another
Anonymous way station.

Musicians play while
Guests chat, sip festive wines and
Sing "Happy Birthday."
Mother's Eightieth was an
Auspicious celebration.

His attack is fierce,
A flurry of slashing blows
And hard to evade thrusts.
Nothing is so serious
As mock sword fights with my nephew.

As my tea steeps, I
Let my sister's dog outside
To do what he does.
Cardinals explode from the
Feeder in a crimson burst.

If only I could
Wish myself from here to there
As in the old tales.
Instead it's all connections,
Crying children and elbows.

Wood blocks keep tempo,
Shime-daiko lend accents
To growing thunder.
Tonight we made the walls quake
With the roar of our drumming.

It's one of those nights,
I sit, hoping for an idea
Or a good image.
Inspiration does not strike,
Only the living room clock.

11/11/12

As I walk downhill
I glimpse a huntress goddess
Between the old trees.
Reaching for a stone arrow
To aim at the sea below.

(I had to take a different bus to rapier practice today and ended up on the cliff above Sutro Park. Kicking myself I didn't have a camera as my glimpse of the Diana would have made a beautiful shot. Maybe next time.)

The first (of hopefully many, many more) Ocha Zanmai conference on Japanese Tea Ceremony and Tea Cultures was well attended. The Humanities Auditorium at San Francisco State University was more or less full and if I had to guess that room probably seats 100 easily.

Presentations included:

Melissa Rinne of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco on bamboo flower baskets and tea utensils in the museum's collection.

Nobu Kurashige of the Ikenobo Ikebana Society of America on tea gatherings and flower arrangements recorded in Abbot Shosho Horin's Kakumeiki during the Kanei era (1624=1644). (About a third of the way through, Kurashige-sensei's English and/or nerve failed her completely and she completed the bilingual presentation entirely in Japanese).

Professor Tamaki Yano, Doshisha University, on the historical study and categorization of tea utensils as meibutsu ('named things'). (In Japanese with bilingual Powerpoint slides and handout).

Professor Asao Kuzu, Tezukayama Univrsity on the evolution of Sen Rikyu's development of wabi-cha. (In Japanese with bilingual Powerpoint slides and the best lecture abstract of the bunch). I am going to have to COMPLETELY re-do my "traditions in tea" class based on his assessment of the development of wabi-cha out of a commoner tea tradition.

Graduate student Yoshiyuki Miyatake, Doshisha University on calligraphic hanging scrolls catalogued in records of formal tea gatherings in rapid fire Japanese with Powerpoint slides and a handout that would have benefited greatly by the contribution of a translator with better English skills.) I regret I almost nodded off through this one several times. I blame the excellent bento lunch.

Professor Jennifer Anderson, San Jose State on "Japanese Tea Ritual, Dynamic Mythology and National Identity," examining the practice from an anthropologist's point of view.

Professor Jae Sup Pak, currently at UC Berkeley, on Korean Tea Ceremony. Good overview of tea in Korea (in English). I did not stay in the jam packed seminar room for the demo as it was impossible to see anything by kneeling demonstrators if one was not in the first row or two.

Despite my lack of Japanese, the use of bilingual abstracts and Powerpoint made most of the presentations comprehensible. Dr. Kuzu's lecture alone was worth the trip across the bay.

You bet your favorite tea bowl I had them put "Society For Creative Anachronism" on my name badge. No one sneered. Ended up having a nice chat over our bento lunches with a couple of ladies from the Bay area and an instructor from the University of Kansas. And knocked off the two tanka in the preceding entry after lunch.

If

yolsgaard's friend was in attendance, I never ran into him.

The drive home, however, sucked greatly, by virtue of someone doing something stupid on the lower deck of the Bay Bridge which backed traffic up almost all the way to where I got on 280. I picked up James when I got back and we hit the Pasta Pomodoro in Albany for dinner.

11/10/12, inspired by a marathon of lectures at the 2012 San Francisco International Conference on Chanoyu and Tea Culture

Eight hours surrounded
By esoteric knowledge
and learned scholars:
I'll lament my ignorance
Once I've digested it all.

Didn't the Master
say: one prepares the tea and
then one drinks the tea?
Would he be pleased or bemused
by such a pedantic fuss?

The house is chilly
After a long day at work
And a simple meal.
Let us now mark the blessing
Of a steaming cup of tea.

The scent of rain strikes
An instant before the wind
Lobs its wet barrage.
Blinded, I know better than
To try to run through puddles.

The island seems to
Burrow beneath a heavy
Quilt of silent fog.
I reach for the tea kettle:
At last it seems like autumn

Unseasonable
Are these warm afternoons and
Cloudless azure skies.
The truth is revealed in the
Slanting light of afternoon.

Caitlin (Lady James) shot these at Cynagua Coronet while I was helping marshal the Prima Spada tourney.

The red and white striped obi was an eBay find - the motif is actually bamboo stems. I have hand painted some subtle gold laurel wreaths on the ends.

The street is quiet.
A dog barks somewhere outside
But for a moment.
I shut a window against
Silence, both inside and out.

Somehow, "good night" turned
Into a conversation
We needed to have.
At last, though, we parted with
Smiles and friendly embraces.

A low hanging moon
Supervises as I wend
My way slowly home.
It was a good evening,
Already I miss my friends.

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