Daffodils

Go here first. Image above shows King Alfred-type daffodils (Narcissus sp.) in the front yard.  I love it when it works... 

Happy Birthday

The birthday of Prince Siddhartha Guatama, aka the Buddha, is traditionally celebrated on the eighth day of the 4th month in the Gregorian calendar, i.e. today.

Legend has it that his mother, Queen Maya Devi, gave birth to him in 642 BC while resting under a sal tree (Shorea robusta Roth) in the gardens of Lumbini. Both mother and child were then showered with perfumed blossoms, and two streams of sparkling water poured from the sky to bathe them. The infant stood, took seven steps, and proclaimed “I alone am the World-Honored One!"

Happy birthday, World-Honored One. [NOTES: The baby Buddha's seven steps are said to represent the seven directions: north, south, east, west, up, down, and here. The lovely Buddha head shown above is from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, sandstone, Cambodia (1000 - 1100C.E.)].

Is That a Pyramid?

The forests of Quintana Roo contain hundreds of unexcavated Mayan pyramids (see The Pyramid at Tres Garantias). The image above shows what these pyramids look like when you are walking through the forest reading tree bands (see Reading the Bands) and look over and see some abrupt topography in what is essentially a flat, limestone shield.

If you stop what you are doing and climb to the top of this little mountain (highly recommended), noticing all of the precisely-cut, square stones during the ascent, when you get to the top  and look out toward Guatemala, what you see - is a flat limestone shield and hundreds and hundreds of hectares of tropical forest. [NOTE: The Selva Maya is the second largest expanse of tropical forest in the New World after Amazonia].

Dance

I invest a lot of time studying the ecology of rattan in the wild (see Hukaung Valley Rattan Survey, An Unusual Rattan, and Glimpses of Transects, for example), and I'm also a big fan of art (see Folk Art, Spirit Money, and Museé d'Ethnographie du Vietnam, for example) and spend hours wandering through museums. This post nicely integrates both obsessions. Shown above, "Dance" (rattan and split bamboo) by Honda Shōryū at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Beautiful.

Jukai 2011

In most years, a select group of Zen students at the Empty Hand Zen Center participate in a lay ordination ceremony, known as jukai in Japanese, where they formally accept the sixteen Bodhisattva precepts and vow to take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

The 2011 Jukai Ceremony was held last Sunday at EHZC for three students (shown below, l - r): Carolyn Fuchs, Bernard Rowen, and Fran Shalom. All are artists, dedicated Zen practitioners, and dear friends. The beautiful new rakusus (see Rakasu) they are wearing are inscribed on the back with the Dharma name they have just been given by their teacher, Susan Ji-on Postal. Which may be why they are smiling. I mean, really, how often do you get a new name?

Machines

Various moving parts filmed at the Franklin Institute's Science Museum in Philadelphia. Beautiful machines functioning with crisp precision are undoubtedly a metaphor for something. Or maybe not. [NOTE: Music by Max Richter].

Ledo Road

This shot was taken somewhere along the Ledo Road in Kachin State, Myanmar in the early morning before the fog had lifted as we were heading out for a day of running inventory transects and collecting rattan specimens (see Hukaung Valley Rattan Survey). Thought this was a fitting image to illustrate starting the weekend, or starting the Spring Practice Period, or starting a new project on rattans in Laos, or starting to read Wolf Totem by Lü Jiamin (thx, Jeff), or any of the other beginnings in my life right now.