The sun was being chased away by the clouds. It would peek out for a moment lighting up all below, and the next moment it would disappear into a haze of shade.

I thought a great day to go out and pedal around the neighborhood.  A moving mediation came over me.  A rhythmic beat by beat meditation. Pedal pedal, I went, and every so often the neighborhood would force me to pause.  Take in the surroundings at a slower pace.

Between to states, being at rest and being in motion.  Up the bridge stretching over the road below, I decided to turn around.  Where did I come from?  I am so far away from home.  But, this has become my adopted home.  Looking over my neighborhood I thought about where I would go, and this quickly melted into the now.  A moment in the now.  Over the buildings wires, of where I pedal my physical body.

Home is never really that far away.  A brief pause will bring you forward to the now.  Pedal pedal pause, reflect, meditate.

This was an odd day.  Like I wrote about yesterday I had some unexpected time off from the usual hustle in the middle of the day.  On my way back I paused in front of the walk way up to the buildings.  There they were, just shining clearly in the winter sunlight.  I paused.

I melted into the moment and then squeezed the shutter button. It was only a moment.  But it was more than sufficient to soothe my soul and make my day a little bit better.  A mediation on seeing.  Seeing what is right in front of our eyes.

The interesting point is i usually walk away from these buildings.  I have never walked towards them before.  That in itself was a new way of seeing the usual in a new way.  All it took was a 180 degree turnaround.  And, poof, there it was, as if I had never seen it before.

In a way, I really hadn’t.  That is the challenge I seek on a daily basis.  How do I take what I see day after day and process it into something that I haven’t seen before.

A lot of it has to do with letting go of all of my preconceived images, and just to be in that moment of time with myself and my camera.  We work in harmony with each other with in the boundless area of the environment.  Just be.

There are so many moments that make up our days.  These days quickly become years, and suddenly we look at the life we have lived.  For me, life is not like a movie, it is a series of moments, or frames of moments that create my life.

They are blocks of time.  These blocks are completely adjustable.  They can stretch into years, or be as fleeting as butterflies’ flapping wings.  We must make the choice to savor the moment.  To pause, breathe, take it all in, and become connected to the world that we all inhabit.

I took advantage of some extra time today to take a walk to a little Nepali curry spot for lunch.  I noticed as I was walking to the station that there is a small road on the opposite side of the tracks from where I usually trod.  I knew that I would take that road on the way back.

I had the curry, a nice surprise as to my usual bento lunch on Fridays, and headed back on the street that I had never walked.  The sun was shining, the air was wintery crisp.  I walked past a temple, and then came to a tiny playground.  There was a fence separating the playground from the temple, yet there was this gigantic multiple pronged tree on the playground side.

The shadow cast by the tree effortless connected with my spirit.  I wasn’t trying to make a photograph happen, it just happened.  I felt the hues, the charcoaled hues of the shadow, snaking in front of me and leading my eye back to the trunk of the tree.

A brief moment.  A moment of mediation where I completely melted into my subject.  The shadow, the tree chose me, to photograph them.  A beautiful moment of stillness, and clarity.

A perfect way to welcome the sabbath.

Shabbat Shalom, may you all have a beautiful day of rest.

There is something so beautiful and so sad about the industrial gardens I came across on the other side of Urayasu yesterday.  Here I was with the noise of pounding, grinding, and torching which could be beard just above the nearly typhoon strength wind.  Concrete to my left, and steel to my right.

But wait, there was more.  Each factory had a small garden.  Some where quite small and only consisted of a few potted plants.  Others were lavishly landscaped yards.  My own aesthetic tastes sides on the more haphazardly designed gardens.  Those gardens where no thought was really given to the organization to placement of the plants.

All the plants somehow work together in this land of disharmony in order to create a more perfect patch of living greenery.

The Japanese have a desire to beautify their drab surroundings even among the industrial backroads of society.  Sometimes these gardens even have vegetables and fruit being grown.  It always amazes me the connection that many try to make back to their agricultural roots.

So, this is where I want to be.  I want to be in a garden.  I want to be among the green, the fruit, the veggies. Those spaces within the urban environment where I can feel at home.  Where I can gaze out onto green patches even if there are sparse and are smack in the middle of concrete and iron.