Flowers know no boundaries.  They do not get caught up with the artificial borders that humans set up against each other.  The flowers know whats really up. Boundaries are only lines that are drawn on a map.  We humans give them meaning, but to the fauna world they might as well be invisible.  Well, in fact they usually are, unless, walls, fences, or barbed wire has been laid.

The wind know no boundaries too.  The wind scoops the tiny flowers of next spring in its arms and blows them across the world.  Fences never stand in their way.  Wall are overcome by simply going up and over.

The flowers instinct to survive and lay seeds for the next generation is an amazing force of nature.  Nothing can stop them from seeking the warmth of the ground to seep their roots.

They know no boundaries.  They are flowers.  They are all powerful in their simple exquisite perfection.

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At one time all looked up with the blue skies behind him.  They all came to admire his strength and eloquence.  The way he could peer into the soul of a crowd.  The way in which he would happily sway in the springtime breeze.  Dancing in the trees while those celebrated below.  Some would come from far around to listen to him speak.  People were always moved when he revealed his heart.

It all ended too soon.  There were many more hearts that he wanted to open.  So many more inspirations that he wanted to give.

But he knew it was his time.  There would be no more moving prophecies.  He wanted to deliver so much more, but he knew that he would be departing this earth.

This is where I found him.  On a concrete wall in a small neighborhood in Tokyo.  Momentarily motionless, until a stiff breeze would pick him up and return him to where he came.

I was the only one to pause and pay homage to the prophet.  I saw the works that he accomplished in his short life.  A life to be memorialized.  The words spoken to be remembered.

All bow their heads for a moment of silence for the fallen prophet.

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 is sometimes hard to view myself as a survivor, but being part of life is a struggle.  Being able to maintain, strive and hopefully thrive is surviving.  I may have not have gone through some of what life’s more terrible dishing outs, but that doesn’t mean that our own personal troubles are any less real to us.

I think of this flower here on the edge of Tokyo bay.  It has somehow manages to wiggle its roots between the cracks in the concrete.  Not only was it able to get its roots in where there is no soil, but it has managed to be whipped by the winds, battered by the storms, and somehow bloomed in the middle of winter.  Now that is what I call a survivor.  If this weed can do it, so can we all.

First step survive, second step, learn to thrive.

This little kitty was out enjoying the clear winter sunlight the other day, just like me.  The kitten was peeking out at me through the parking lot’s garden.  His/her eyes met my lens, as I pressed the shutter button. I hope that one day he/she will find a home.  Someone out there will take care of this kitten.  However, for now he’ll just continue to take advantage of winter’s sunny skies.

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.

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 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.

The weather continues to be changeable.  I never quite know what to expect from day to day.  The skies in Japan are so clear this time of year that I can often see all the way to Mt. Fuji.  Sometimes it is just a lofty silhouette in the setting sun.  It is a reminder that I am in the land of the rising sun, and not anywhere else on this planet.

Strolling back to the station in the afternoon sun I came across a pomegranate tree with its fruit so ripe that the pomegranates were bursting open and spilling their juicy arils on to the ground.  These succulent red hues were filled with the potential to bring forth another life.  They all have the chance, under the right conditions, to grow into a lovely mature tree.  As I looked up at the fruit still hanging from its branches I wondered what will happen to them.  Will the owner come out and harvest them to feed his family and others?  Or, will they just be left to rot on the branch?  What about the seeds that fell onto the asphalt?  Surely, they won’t be able to sprout into a new tree.  Will the local wildlife in this quite suburb on the outskirts of metropolitan Tokyo come along for a juicy snack.

I find myself thinking about these issues these days and how they relate to my life.  How I try, and many people I know, go out into the world trying to spread goodness.  How much of that goodness will find the fertile soil to be able to grow into a fully formed accomplishment.  Will our labors of love be able to bring forward fruit from the tiny seeds that they came from.  It always feels good to know that the seeds one has planted gathers the water and nutrients to return with fruit.

Just some issues, topics that are wandering around in my lucidly communicating mind.

The rain came down in heavy sheets on Friday.  It continued on into the early afternoon as I made my way back to Mimomi train station.  All of the plants were dripping with water.  Droplets rolled off the leaves and petals and onto the ground below.  It got me thinking about preparing for the sabbath, and the mikvahs, or ritual Jewish/Israelite bathing.  The bath is to wash away spiritual impurities and allow the self to become ritually clean.  The ritual bathing was of upmost importance to the ancient Israelites.  It is still done by many today, but for most reformed Jews it has become a ritual of the past.

I myself like to feel refreshed after the immersion in a bath.  The feeling not only that comes from being physically clean, but that sensation that the impurities that are collected in the world can be washed way too.  I may never have been to an official mikvah, but that doesn’t mean that I cannot become clean.

Consider the flowers in this images.  They can never go to a ritual bath.  They can only become ritual clean by letting the droplets wash over their petals.  For me it is about the spirit of the the law not the semantics of it.

Therefore, allow time to cleanse yourself.  Not only the dirt and grime of daily life, but the negative energies that we accumulate from being part of the world.  Let those droplets wash over your.  Let the immersion in water cleanse your soul.

Still feel like I’m in recovery mode so I decided to take a little stroll in my neighborhood.  Minamikasai is a quiet little neighborhood.  At one end lies the high rise development built in the 1970s called Nagisa New Town.  A mix of small houses, small apartments and a few large mansion condo types.  It is where I wander around peeping out the use of green spaces in the neighborhood.

This one was a tiny garden planted in about 30 centimeters of space with two beautifully manicured bushes racing towards the sky.  Making good use of the little green spaces we have here in Tokyo.

Finally, after spending nearly two weeks shut in I awoke without a sore throat today.  Such a relief to finally have gotten rid of that worst symptom of my never ending cold.  Since I had been shut in for so long I decided I needed to take a stroll.

The weather feels a lot more like spring that it does for mid-November.  I could actually wear a t-shirt walking around my hood.  Now my hood is like other hoods around the world.  Whether it is Brooklyn Heights, Kendall, West Baltimore, Temple Terrace, Ueno or anywhere else.  It might not be dangerous like some, but it is where I now call home.  I know where the corner stores all are.  I know which houses have the beautiful gardens, or where to avoid a run in with parent patrols.  It is my home.  It is Minamikasai (Southern Kasai) on the edge of eastern Tokyo wedged in between Tokyo Disneyland, which is actually in Chiba Prefecture, and Tokyo Bay.

I was surprised that there are still just bout no autumn leaves in the hood.  Again it is hard to believe that it is almost to weeks into November but there are no colors.  Most of the leaves are dirty brown rather than vibrant hues.

I am thankful for all of you that asked about my well being and my absence from the web over the last week or so.  Here are some still blooming flowers from my hood, to your hood, where ever that may be.

The weather is still in a state of an ever changing mind.  Today is gorgeous out.  The sun is rising high the temperatures are too.  I can sit comfortably on my patio as I write this blog.  All in all it a beautiful day to be resting in Tokyo.

Yesterday the light and the skies were as beautiful.  And all the weather patterns continue to have the plants confused.  I saw this dandelion in full bloom yesterday.  I was a bit surprised since the last time I saw them was back in July.  But who knows?  This crazy weather coupled with the typhoon that roared through 6 weeks ago and nature is dealing with those changes the best they can.

Mentioning change, there will be some upcoming changes to the postings here at Lucid Communication.  I won’t go into detail at the moment, but stay posted and I hope you all will follow and become intrigued by the changes.

Peace from the sunnyside of life!

An interesting phenomenon has been happening this autumn.  Flowering plants have bloomed multiple times and some plants have even been tricked into blooming early.  There have been some cases reported in Japan of cherry blossom trees blooming in October.  This is pretty insane.  Anyone who thinks that there isn’t any climate change should take a peep at the cherry blossoms that traditionally bloom in late March or early April, are now blooming in October.

I have even noticed it on my own little patio garden.  My pomegranate tree has sprouted blossoms three times this year.  The most recent blossoms appeared about two weeks ago.  Even with some golfball sized fruit on its branches the pomegranate tree has been coerced into blooming again.

Also, as I was making my way back to the station on Friday afternoon, I noticed that along the tracks the false dandelion,  have bloomed again.  We are living in some strange times.  However, I am happy to see the lovelies in my wanders.  They are a constant reminder of the fragile state of our ecosystem.  The flowers also help to through some color on some otherwise drab concrete surroundings.