beauty

Beauty (Hózhó)

by taohobo

Beauty, I’ve been meaning to explain my frequent use of “beauty” as a category or tag in my posts. I knew I needed to do this almost as soon as I started posting more frequently. Why? you ask. Because I just as quickly began to have a number of young women view, like my posts and begin following me. I AM NOT complaining.

I just couldn’t figure out why. Until I would get a enough time to visit their blogs, many of which were focused on beauty as well. Except it was beauty in a different, certainly more common, sense. They were interested in, blogging about, beauty, cosmetics, fashion, etc.

Before I go any further I need to tell you that I am not Dineh (Navajo), I was not raised by the people, not have I been schooled or trained in their ways or customs. My understanding, what I am about to say, is solely my own interpretation of my readings in English about the Dineh concept and practice of walking in beauty. Any errors are mine and I would appreciate feedback/correction from those who wish to provide it.

Beauty, when I use it as a category or tag, is in the Dineh sense of hózhó náhásdlii (to walk in beauty). That sense, quite literally, that all around us and about us is in harmony. That nature, my person, my spirit, are all vibrating to the same harmonic. Let me give you an example.

It was a hike a few years ago. A day hike of about 10 or 12 miles along a blazed trail through one of the state forests where I live. I’d been on the trail about an hour, a little more maybe, working along one ridge line that was slightly lower than the one to the west which I was paralleling. The trail turned west and then back to the north and suddenly I was in a little glade, a stream burbling through it, the tempeture dropped 10 degrees, there was a massive yew streamside in the middle of the glade, and I cannot describe adequately the complete sense of peace, tranquility, rightness… My Irish self would probably call it a thin place, those secret spots where the barrier between worlds is nearly non-existent. I spent an hour in that place, in hózhó.

I’ve hiked that trail twice since. It’s not been the same in the glade. Me, or the universe, one of us was out of synch those days, not hózhó náhásdlii.

Fridays Art: Winter Pool

by taohobo

Winter painting is always a challenge so most of this was done back in the studio. Colors can be a surprising thing in nature. The black roof that’s white in bright sunlight, this pool of water that is so cold it’s black. Sketch book and camera, back to warm truck, finish in studio. And here we are the end of March, into Spring, and the weather peeps are predicting snow.

Winter Pool © Ray Hasson
Winter Pool © Ray Hasson

The poetry of life

by taohobo

Life has its own meter and rhythm…
composing itself into haiku, and odes
pacing itself, stately and oh so slow,
then childishly ignoring what bodes.

Rushing at times without apology
or angry, weeping, open heart bleeding,
painful moments expressed in eulogy,
changing tempo, closing crescendo.

Life in its own meter and rhythm…

Fridays Art: Sunday’s Child

by taohobo
Sunday's Child © Ray Hasson
Sunday’s Child © Ray Hasson

Sunday’s Child, watercolor, private collection, was one of those serendipitous moments on a sketching day in early spring when I was exploring an old mansion and its grounds. There were two formal walled gardens. I turned into one and there was the perfect picture. A moment of life frozen in time.

On ‘night embrace’ and slipping away…

by taohobo

Again this morning, yesterday while driving, on waking, in the middle of a meeting… How often do the perfect words form? At the most inappropriate times. Leaving you waking to their evaporating memory.

Do you leave it, swirled into mist, unsharable, only a fleeting memory of what might have been? Or, do we hastily make some notes, never capturing the whole, and later spend hours trying to hammer it back into shape. It still looks like the front end of a ’58 Ford, slightly dented, hammer marked, and badly painted.

‘night embrace…’ is not the poem that formed in the night. It’s only the frustration that replaced that captured, then lost, image.

Sunday guests: Basho

by taohobo

Matsuo Basho (1644 – 1694) was born during into a Samurai family during a tranquil period in the area of Iga (present day Mie Prefecture) and entered service as a Samurai to the son of a local noble. When Basho was about 22 his master died and shortly thereafter Basho entered Koyasan monastery. Poetry had been a leisure activity of the Samurai class and Basho had begun writing at an early age and continued to study and develop his art. He is today considered one of the major forces in the development and shaping of Haiku. Here are a couple of examples:

         A withered branch,
                  at a crow's alighting,
               nearly winter.

The Japanese for this is: Kare eda ni karasu no tomari keri aki no kure – note that there is not punctuation to help define this. And, ‘keri’ can either be an indicator of past tense or poetic emphasis. Please also consider that these are translations – Basho might be laughing at every one of these feeble attempts, especially mine.

         Now the New Year,
           two liters of old rice,
             to begin. Spring!

Look for more from Basho, and many of the other classic Haiku poets as future Sunday guests.