This lost and found object really caught my eye today.  I haven’t taken many of the lost and found images over that last nine months or so as I have been exploring other subjects.  This little caught me by surprise.  He was just there.  Perched on the edge of a high brick wall in Ichikawa.  He was laying on his side, with a house key attached to him.  Even though he was lost, on his side and out and the cold, he still managed to smile.  His smiling made me smile.  Because of these chain reaction of events I knew I needed to take his portrait.

We need to never loose our sense of humor.  The unique human quality to laugh and refresh ourselves though our laughter.  I needed a good laugh today.  And this little guy gave it to me.  Even though he is made of plastic, he does not have a plastic smile to me.  His smile was genuine.  His smile was from the heart.

Laugh and smile.

The clock moved from one year to the next.  I am not sure what it really means.  If we think in geological time there is no difference between 2011 and 2012.  There is not much to the change other than our calendars we use to tick off the time.  This line has been drawn.

The Japanese used to celebrate the new year according to the phases of the moon, but in the Meiji period they decided to follow the Gregorian calendar.  Why?  Did they want to be more like the west, or less like the other asian nations?

It is just a point we use to attempt changes in our lives. In that respect it is a positive, however, we should be striving for these changes for frequently.  The process of observation, reflection, and change should be ongoing, and not decided by a date on the wall.

Look out into the known unknown and see what there is to be seen.

The day was beautiful out.  The skies were so clear it felt as if I could see clear across the ocean all the way to San Francisco.  It is one of the amazing things about being in Tokyo in the winter time, is that the air becomes so clear that the skies are boundless.  On a day like today I had to just get out on my mountain bike and just pedal around to see what could be seen.  I needed to get out and breathe in the cool dry air, and fill my heart with better tomorrows.

Eventually I made it all the way to the edge of Tokyo bay.  The end of the road in Urayasu, and just gazed off into the curve of Chiba peninsula as it makes its way down to Tateyama.  I could even see bits of Kanegawa that borders on Tokyo, that is just how clear it was.

Now, if only I could make my mind as clear as the skies.  At times it seems like all the clouds flood my brain and heart.  I try hard to stay focused on what really matters in this crazy world.  There is so much nonsense we all have to go through that distracts us from what really matters.  It is times like this that I am so thankful to have family that I can reason with, and for the Creator to watch over us all.

I have faith that tomorrow will be better.  That tomorrow might be far off, but it might not.  I prepare for the worst, and pray for the best.  I know that the path I am on is the right one, and if it isn’t that I will be wise in my choices to keep on the path that I am suppose to be on.

Stare off into the boundless horizon.  Follow those curves.  Breathe deeply and let that brain fog clear away.

Winter is here with a vengeance.  Even though as I type this blog, my window is slightly ajar to let in some fresh air and that amazing yellow light.  I know the light will not last to much longer as the days are short.  The cold air comes quickly and I will be bundled up and headed for my homemade kotatsu (heated table).

These weeds on the concrete embankment of a small river is Ichikawa caught my eye the other day.  Their roots had managed to edge themselves into the cracks in the cement and had been able to grow strong and powerful.  They were reaching for that winter sunlight that makes me marvel.  They are survivors.  They have managed to eek out an existence in the inhospitable of places.  Actually they aren’t really struggling, they are thriving in this urban environment.

To be a weed.  To grow strong in the sunshine and make its home where ever its seed shall land.

I try to keep these writings as positive as possible because to live negatively just induces more stress.  However, there are some issues that I need to address in this post.  I hope you will indulge me for a moment.  There is a madness to my method.  I promise.

These are some crazy times we are all living in.  Sometimes I feel like I have been hauled away in captivity to Babylon.  I am truly a stranger in a strange land.  I am surrounded by the ultra consumerism of Christmas in Japan.  It is so devoid of any real emotion that it makes me feel ill.  I have no problem with people wanting to celebrate a holiday, but here it makes absolutely no sense.  I ride the trains and women clutch bags of presents, with brightly colored packaging.  The shelves are lined with the Christmas boots that parents will give their children on Christmas day.  I am at a moment where I don’t think I can take it any longer.

I have tried to address the issue with fellow Japanese how strange it is to celebrate a holiday that you know just about nothing about.  I have compared it to how would the Japanese feel if Americans suddenly adopted the Obon holiday because it looked cool.  And most cannot make the connection that by doing so is ultimately strange.

Growing up Jewish in America was always strange around this time of year, but here in Japan it ups that emotional to a whole other level that can only be expressed in the images that I have selected to accompany today’s blog posting.  It is assumed by most I encounter that I am Christian, and that I celebrate Christmas.  I have to school people I come in contact with that NOT all Americans are Christians, and not all Americans celebrate Christmas (even if you might be Christian).  This is difficult for many to comprehend.

That is why today’s post is titled, Dreaming of Zion, While Exiled in Babylon.

I hope you forgive me for going off a little bit today, but I do feel so much better for doing so.

I do not mean to offend anyone by this, I am just expressing some bottled up emotions in a positive and constructive manner.  I levitate this post to all Jews, Christians, and Muslims trying to make sense of this time of year in Japan. Peace to all!

Dwelling 02 (Dreaming of Zion)

Dwelling 01 (Exiled in Babylon)

I know I have Miami blood.  I can get used to the cold weather here, even if that weather is never that cold, but I don’t really love the weather in the winter time.  I dress fro it.  Wrap my neck in a scarf, pull gloves over my fingers, and double up on socks.  It helps, but I still feel cold.

I spotted this little one the other day as I was walking through a quiet Chiba neighborhood.  Still amazed at how many flowers are actually in bloom, considering it is just about the end of December.  Here she was rolling its tint petals in on themselves trying to keep warm just like me.  Turning its head towards the sunshine to keep all of its petals warm, just as I love it as I ride the train and the sunlight flickers as we zoom past the concrete shapes of Tokyo.

Just being myself, trying to keep warm.  Bundle up everyone.

I love geometry.  Now you might think that to be a little crazy.  Even if you are thinking about the geometry that we all have to study in school, but honestly out of all the math that I studied in school geometry was the only one that made any sense to me.  My reasoning behind that is I am without any doubt am a visual person.  I think visually.  I approach the world and how I relate back to the world though how I visually experience the world.  Now, I would never really go back and study geometry again.  I’m pretty sure the boat has sailed on that part of my life, but the lines, tangents, and bisecting lines have become part of my visual vocabulary.

The cubists did it the best.  They oversimplified the world that they were apart of into line, shapes, and tone.  A world that is visually experienced through shapes.  I have learned to see the world very mush though these same lenses.  I cannot help but look out into Tokyo, where I live, and see the world sometimes reduced to nothing more than lines and cubes.  I, however, know in my heart that the world is far more complicated than that.  There are shapes that cannot so easy be reduced to just a square.  The natural world, even though, it is full of repeating fractal patterns they are never quite as straight as a line of hewn stone.

This is where my lens comes in to help me navigate my way through the visual world.  Trying to bridge the two ways to seeing the world together.  That world of the straight hard edge lines that follow the rules of geometry and composition.  Then there are the rulers of the plant and natural kingdom.  The ways in which a branch grows divides and multiplies as it reached out to the sun.  I am a part of both worlds.  My physical form comes from nature.  There are now straight lines to be found on my person.  Yet I love to see a rectangular door, meeting a window at just the right moment in space and forming can conforming to our geometric rules.

The door in todays group of images is a geometric homecoming.  There are no plants visible.  There is only the hint of the natural world by the shadows that are being cast on the image.  A piece of my inner mind has left its imprint on this image.

Welcome home.  Welcome to lucid communication with myself.

Even though it is winter here in Tokyo, the autumn leaves are still coming. It seems that they arrived so late that the gingko leaves are carpeting the ground in their warm yellow hues.  The leaves are splattering over the land and bringing some much needed color to the often dreary grays of the urban life.

It is rather simple, isn’t it?

Leaves change and in do time they fall from their branches and drift down to the earth.  They will blow this way or that way for a while before some one comes along and sweeps them all into a plastic garbage bag.  But I have chosen to see them in their glory.  As they stick closely to the ground.  They cover, changes, and become part of my urban landscape, intermingled with those yellow hues that only the gingko tree can bring.

The lack of sleep is catching up with me.  The wandering back to the station seemed like a dream.  I was jut floating on snow the road, being pulled this way of that way by something that caught my eye.  I am not sure the path I took, but i do know that it was the right path for today because I came upon this tree that was shedding violet tears.

Those patches of colors fell from a small street side shrine in Ichikawa.  Violet teardrops on the cold cement side of the road.  There they were just lining up to catch my dream state that I was in.  I just lost myself in the violet bokeh softness as I wandered back to the station.

Shedding those violet tears again.  For a autumn that was too short?  For a winter that will be too long?  I do not know, but there are these purple drops to comfort me in my waking dream.

The autumn colors have been super late arriving this year in and around where I live.  I has very happy to have found that the Japanese Maple trees around are finally displaying their explosive colors.  These five-pointed leaves are alive rich hues that bound from the deep wine burgundies to multicolored mix and matched colors of yellows and reds.  The hues awaken my senses and I am always amazed at how vibrant these colors can be.

I found these all at a little temple complex on top of a small hill in Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan.  There were all amazing hues that teased my Ricoh GR IV out of my pocket and into my hand.  I searched out those hues that pulled me like a magnet towards them.   I wasn’t the only one wandering around this small complex looking at the autumn leaves.  There were several groups of mainly older Japanese looking at the trees.

Just another reason to be thankful.  I am thankful to the Creator for splashing my cold gray day with the explosions of color from the Mimoji trees.

We still seem to be in the yo-yo throws of the weather.  Cold, wet, and rainy is followed by cool and sunny.  I really don’t mind so much because it allows me to still enjoy the cool clean air without having to be all bundled up.  Not only being reminded of the complete changeability of the the weather, at 5:59 a.m. on Saturday morning a 5.2 earthquake shook us awake.  It wasn’t that powerful of a quake, but its epicenter was not far from where we lay our heads to rest.  As a friend mentioned this morning that with all the shaking it must be like living in a war zone, when you never know when the enemy is going to strike.

I try my hardest to put all of these things into perspective and not let them to disrupt my mediations and focus.  They are more reminders of the delicate nature of life that we have been granted here on the earth.  We need to make the most of it and devote our energies to what really matters.  Reaching out our hands to help others in needs.  Using our time to explore ourselves and the world that we all inhabit.  Looking for those vibrations that speak to our souls.

Sometimes the language being spoken to us is confusing and needs to be translated.  In my case it is my camera that helps me to interpret the world around me.  The lens acts as a mechanism to filter the world, and allows me to see the positivity in the world.  Those positive vibrations might be hidden in plain view, but with my mediation and focus I am blessed to be able to see that beauty.  Those concrete steps, which for some are just concrete steps, take on new meaning to me.  They are an integral part of my worldview.  The plants and life that inhabit the tiny spaces, sometime being taken care of with tenderness, and others being left to the elements to thrive on their own.

These are the images an objects that merge in my lens and allow me to approach the world.  I am open to change.  I look forward to seeing the world through a unique perspective.  These are the gardens of life that are sowed in the streets of my soul.

The calendar now tells me it is winter.  Only two days ago the temperature peaked at 20 degrees celsius, however, the Creator must have looked at the calendar too because the temperature dipped down to 4 degrees celsius last night.  I am up and out of my house the earliest on Friday, which is a good thing.  It is like the sooner I can get my day over with, the sooner I can sit back and be thankful for the allotted time of the Sabbath.

I have to journey out to the boonies of Chiba prefecture, which entails using a train and a local bus.  On rainy days, like today, the bus is always jammed pack.  Today it was especially packed with junior high school students.  They are certainly a noisy bunch.  I got on the bus a bit late, but luckily I could find a seat.  Usually, I am in the back of the bus, today I was in the front sitting in the section that is reserved for elderly, moms, injured and the like.  After I took my seat an elderly man and woman also got on the bus.  I got up, tapped the elderly woman on the shoulder, and offered up my seat.  She, being the polite Japanese woman didn’t want to accept the seat, saying that she was going to get off the bus soon.  Eventually after some back and forth pleading, she took the seat.  I was amazed, but not surprised that none of the kids offered up their seats to the the elderly gentleman.  They all absorbed themselves with studying, or staring into their cellphones.  Quite a lack of respect for their elders.  It was me, the gaijin (foreigner) that set the example, that was ignored by the youth.

After taking care of what I needed to do for the day in Chiba I always take a leisurely walk back to the station to unwind, and to begin my mediations on the Sabbath.  It is the time to change those gears that grind away in my mind, and let them start to ease into a mode where I am able to give thanks, and recoup my mind, body and spirit.  The wind was whipping around my scarf as I wandered down the backstreets.  My eyes taking it all in.  I am on the lookout for that next perfect square to shoot.  I am amazed at how many flowers are still in bloom.  I am not sure if it is because of the late warm weather, or it is just that I never really pains close attention to the changing seasons and the changes in the blossoms that it brings.

Since returning to Japan post the March 11th earthquake disasters, I have been much more in tune with the seasons.  I notice how the blossoms hit their peak one week, then the next begin to whiter away, or change into green fruit.  I am thoroughly enjoying watching the seasons change.  I am fascinated in catching those changes with my camera.  The images are a visual diary of the intersection of my world with the the natural world.

As I continued on I came across an elderly man and woman.  The man had fallen down on the slippery slope and the woman, from what I could gather, was trying to help him.  The mans hand had gotten beaten up and was bleeding.  The woman to had blood on her hand from trying to help the gentleman.  I took the man by the arm and helped get him to his feet.  I rummaged though by bag and found a pack of tissues I had been handed at the station sometime before.  The man just kind of stumbled off. He pretty much refused our help.  The last thing the woman said to me was he probably was drunk.

I am thankful for these vignettes in disguise as life’s lessons.  They are the 24 frames per second that make up our lives.  I am thankful to pause and ponder my place in it all.  If I had taken another way back to the station, I would have missed the man that had fallen, yet I was pulled in that direction.

We should all take the time to respect our elders.  They have been here before us.  They have stories etched into the lines on their faces.  It is just one more piece of the life puzzle that I am thankful for.

May you all enjoy a beautiful day of rest.  Enjoy the time given to regenerate the spirit.

He is out there in the wilds of Chiba prefecture.  Ok, so the wilds aren’t that wild, but he is there lurking in the shadows.  Darting under the bushes.  Trying his hardest to stay out of sight.  The Stray Jungle Cat of Chiba is there.  Somewhere among the long bladed grasses he stalks its prey.  The Stray Jungle Cat of Chiba is there.

If you are lucky you might be able to catch a glimpse of the cat as he slinks around through the countryside. Will it be able to catch the mouse that he has been stalking?  I am not sure.  But  I do know that the being a stray is a hard life.  They are the ultimate strugglers out there.  Scavenging for their next meal.  They are opportunist that need to make the best of a sometimes desperate situation.

Hopefully the Stray Jungle Cat of Chiba will survive another day among in the semi-wilds of Chiba prefecture.

I seem to be a bit obsessed myself these days.  I am be drawn into the highly packed world of the Japanese home gardens.  These are not the elegant gardens that can be found in Tokyo like Rikugien Gardens in the center of Tokyo.  No, these are the tightly packed neighborhood gardens that I find on my wanderings.

These gardens sometimes occupy the smallest spaces imaginable.  The might feature a row of potted plants sitting atop a cinderblock wall.  They could also be found in the tiniest of spaces that most foreigners wouldn’t even recognize as a backyard.  However, this is where the Japanese show amazing skill in how they use what ever space they have in order to be able to bring some greenery into their lives and in those that pass by on the street.  I would argue that there is more greenery, and green spaces to be found here in Tokyo that that of New York City’s green spaces.

There is so little space, and at times the concrete, glass, and steel seem oppressive, but all I have to do is to turn a corner and find a small contemplative oasis of green.  It might only be some herbs that occupy a windowsill, but that green is better than no green at all.

The light is in a transitional phase now.  As the sun grows more distant, the temperature begins to drop the quality of the light changes.  The light of this early winter in the late afternoon shifts towards yellow.  I really am attracted to that yellowing light.  Even in the full glare of the sun colors are rich.  Hues pop out and speak to me though my senses.  Even as my throat ached I couldn’t help but reach for my Ricoh GR IV and capture some of that light.

The use of space is amazing in Japan.  The Japanese aesthetic manifests itself in sometimes the most unlikely places like small roadside gardens that are wedged into spaces that would just be discarded in other countries.  Here the space, any space, goes to some use.  I am always amazed how the zig zags of a home are often loaded with potted plants in a tightly manicured gardens.  Actually, they might not be so manicured.  Some of them go rather wild and free.  To my eye they represent the to dichotomies of Japanese aesthetics.  The reverence of nature, and the attempt to tame nature.  I see both in the way the Japanese create their personal gardens.  These are not the Japanese gardens that are listed as national treasures. They are the homeowner’s personal treasure.  A tiny space that reflects their love and interest in the natural world even if it may be surrounded by concrete and asphalt.  The flowers rise to greet the sun, and I stop and pause to admire their beauty.

The simple elegance of (your) neighbors friendly garden.