It has happened again.  A lone masked fighter for the underdogs has fallen by the wayside.  He once stood for justice, now he only hopes to be found once again.

He championed for those that has no where else to turn.  For the motherless children, for the those that have fallen through the cracks of society, he was there for them.

Who will be there for him now that he has been forgotten?  Who will be there to say his eulogy as he is buried in his grave. 

He was a hero.  He will forever be a hero to me.  Let us not forget the mortality of our heroes.  We shouldn’t forget their humanness. Raise your glasses high and say a toast to the fallen masked hero of Kasai.

Asakusa is a great part of Tokyo.  It is one of those spots that all foreigners and domestic tourists make their way to when they visit Tokyo.  I never really liked Asakusa that much.  There is the famous Sensoji Temple located there, but it was rebuilt after the war.  There are some touristy shops that line the way to the temple.  The shops that line the main thoroughfare reminds me of the story of Yeshua (Jesus) and driving the sellers from the temple.  Different faith, but got to get your amulets, and kitsch to take back with you.

However, once you get off the main streets of Asakusa, and wander around the backstreets, there are plenty of quality shops, restaurants, and little pockets of the Tokyo of old.  Buildings still stand that have been build of corrugated metal.  Shop signs crack with age.  In Japnese they say aji ga aru (it has character).  I dig those characteristics immensely.

These are the streets that I love to wander around.  I like to wander until I don’t see tourists walking around.  There is where I can loose my self in the moment.  I can just become one with the streets.  I take it all in.  And from time to time I am compelled to photograph a scene.

People always ask me where is your favorite spot to photograph in Tokyo.  I like to reply that I don’t have one.  Wherever I go it is a chance to become one with the surroundings.  To explore neighborhoods for the first or the hundredth time.  That is what it is all about.  But, I am really drawn to the old neighborhoods in Tokyo.  They have so much character, and I feel that they won’t be with us much longer.

Tokyo seems endless to me.  I can hop on the train and ride from one end of town to the other with out every seeing a break in the concrete landscape.  It just never seems to end.  The only time I can every view a break in the constructions is when I come to the river’s edge.

There is finally a break in the land.  A momentary pause before the maddening pace of construction continues on the other side of the river.  There are many rivers in Tokyo.  There are many bridges that traverse these water highways.  They were the lifeline of the city before the modern age.

But I transgress.

As I reached the Sumidagawa River and gave up at the recently complete Tokyo Skytree, I was amazed to be in the city.  The bustle of the nearby Sensoji Temple seemed miles away, as only a few humans made their way down to the riverside.  Up into the tree of iron and steel.  A tower into the sky.  A tower that pops up from just about anywhere you stand in Tokyo.

Standing on the bridge looking out over Tokyo. There was the past that is.  There is the future that is to be, but now, a pause, a moment of quiet to be in Today.

The image with the pigeon is levicated to Catfords32 and JJC, my pigeon photographing family.

The bridge is levicated to my wife, whose earth day was yesterday.

The garden is alive and well in Japan.  They might not be the perfectly manicured gardens that surround the Emperor’s Palace in the center of Tokyo, but they are no less beautiful.  They also adhere to the principals of wabi-sabi, and the Japanese aesthetic.

This aloe jungle was directly to the right of the guard kitty from yesterday.  This wild bunch of aloe had taken over the side of the house.  Even more unusual was that the aloe plants were in full bloom.  I love the aloe blossoms.  They are unusual and from what I understand they do not bloom very often.

The gardens are often cramped.  Wedge into spaces that would have been abandoned elsewhere.  The Japanese have a knack for using all available space.  There never really seems to be any wasted space.

Keep your eyes open, and you’ll see gardens in the most unusual of places.

The kitty and I.  For real.  I almost missed this one on my pedal and meditative journey on Sunday.  I had taken a picture just to the right of this window that was full of a huge blooming aloe plant.  I had jumped back on my bicycle when I noticed this little one keeping a watchful eye on me.

I got off and moved in to get a closer look.  Kitty let out a huge hiss as i got close, but then relaxed, and just struck a pose.  Sweet, and brought a smile to my face.

A dutiful feline keeping its home safe from the wandering photographers like myself.

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.

I have spied my lady again in MinamiKasai sporting a freshly cut flower.  I have spotted her many times in all seasons.  She has been bundled up with a scarf.  Kept her head covered in the blasting heat of summer with a hat.

I enjoy keeping an eye on her.  She represents the changes in the seasons by what she holds in her hands, and what is wrapped around her body.  Her copper-hued skin burnished in the winter light, is a beautiful sight for my eyes.

Keep your eyes open and see what she’ll be holding in the future.

It was a cold day.  In fact it was the day that snow had fallen across the Kanto plain.  I was out on my stroll looking at the snow, and snapping some pictures along the way.  I headed to one of my favorite spots in my neighborhood.

That space is on the riverside that tucks under the Maihama Bridge.  A place that is visited by graffiti writers, punks, and fisherman.  I am never quite sure what they are catching in the murky green waters, but they do come.

Today I spied a few people in the water.  They were all carrying large u-shaped fishing nets.  They were rather large and the men were scooping up the water and looking for something.  What were they looking for?  They were looking for life.  Isn’t that what we all are looking for?

We all are digging in the dirt.  Sifting through the dust, searching for those nuggets of life that sustain us all.  Separating the chaff from the kernel.  Life is a stubble, yet it is so beautiful.  Wading on through the muck we will find the beautiful sustaining nutrition of life.

Cast out nets and search!

Beautification takes many forms in Japan.  By definition beautification is the attempt to make something that is not beautiful more beautiful by altering the environment.  I come across these beautification projects on my wanderings though out Japan.

The two images in today’s post are from the bicycle parking attendant’s hut at Mimomi Station in Chiba.  It is really a bare bones kind of station.  Not much to be seen or make itself special in anyway.  It is obvious that the attendants take pride in their location and have tried to spruce up the grays with plants, posters, and reflectors.  All of these elements are the beautification of the simple bicycle parking.

My favorite is the laminated picture that has been adhered to the wall under an empty window.  It is a pleasant setting of somewhere in the countryside in Japan.  Autumn trees are blowing gently in the breeze.  It does seem ironic to gaze onto a concrete wall to have a picture of the countryside there.  But then again this is Japan, and anything, just about anything is possible.

The ice fungi has again sprung again in Japan.  I have never seen them before coming to Japan.  In reality they have a a given name of ice needles or ice columns, but I still prefer my given word of ice fungi.  They seemingly sprout over night when the conditions are just right.  In fact there are so many creative names given to this phenomenon:  ice castles, frost castles, ice fringes, ice filaments, ice flowers, ice ribbons, frost flowers,  and rabbit ice.  All so beautiful, but again I got to go with my my heart and I just love the sound of ice fungi.

Those conditions are the ground is not frozen, but the surrounding air is below the freezing point.  The water is quickly crystalized out of the ground and freeze in the air.  Leaving behind stunning patterns of ice that sprout forth out the ground.  They often have little earthen heads, which agains leads me to call them ice fungi.

They are tiny.  So tiny most people shuffle on by with out paying them any notice.  For me, they freeze me in my tracks, and I have to get down on my hands and knees to peep them in their frozen beauty.  The patterns, and variations are endless.

The mysteries of the world are sometimes right there in our field of vision.  The choice is ours if we choose to see what is right there.  Or, are we just going to pass them on by like the sleeping masses.

The winter snow was quickly melted into a memory.  there are still a few patches of snow here and there, but for the most part on the Eastern side of Tokyo the snow has vanished.

I am not one who wants to live in a place with a blistering cold weather.  My Miami blood is too unaccustomed to that kind of weather.  But I do enjoy the beauty of the snow.  The white crystals that form on the leaves.  The powered that drops from the skies.  They are all so gorgeous to me.

Since the March 11th earthquake and tsunami I have been reconnected with the natural world around me.  I am syncing with nature, and noticing the habits and life of the plant life around me.  It wasn’t that I never noticed before, it is more of that I never payed close attention.

All the changes from one season to the next.  How flowers bud, blossom, and shrivel in due time.  It is all a matter of time between the birth, death and rebirth of the natural world.

I plan to keep in sync with the world around me.  At least the best as I can.

The snow began to fall last night around 9pm.  It continued to about 1 in the morning.  It was the first snow to fall and stick around in the Tokyo area.  I missed the snow last year when I was in Miami, so I was excited to see some fall.

Watching the clumps of snow fall seems like magic to me.  They tumble out of the darkened skies and drift until they find a cozy spot to settle.  It calms, and excited me.

I woke up in the middle of the night and peeked out the window to see if the snow was still there.  There was some, but I was beginning to melt.  That was a bit disappointing, but I went for a stroll around the neighborhood just to see what there is to be seen.

The streets might not have had much snow, but lots of the snow melted and iced over during the night.  I could see more clearly that the night before, but it still seems like another world.

Get our and appreciate the changed that happen in your part of the world.  You never know what changes you may find.