Future Japanese--our children

Artwork by myself.

My daughter and her kids (two boys, 5 and 2) are visiting us now. They reside near Tokyo, where living has become a bit inconvenient for a young family after the disaster in the north. There are aftershocks, too, It is in the spring break for kindergarten now so I suggested her to come over to have a little break.

I made this artwork from a photograph of the older kid in a hope that his life would be blessed with a lot of good fruits.
It is difficult to foresee what this land, where he lives, is going to be like. It will not be the same as before. The downsides in every aspects of life will continue for a while. For the future Japanese, our children, we grown-ups need to exert our utmost effort to rebuild the stage so they will be able to exert their effort to make this land even a better place to live.


When I visited Nairobi slum, Kenya, I wrote this haiku:

Kenyan stars glitter
in the sky
in children's eyes

Haiga 556 Sakura haiga

Haiku and photo by myself.

In the area where I live, sakura flowers have begun to bloom. The photos are taken from about the same spot. The one below was taken in February. These sakura trees are the first ones that bloom in my town, Tenri.

In the northern area affected by the disaster will have to wait a little longer, perhaps a couple weeks, before their sakura blossoms. The area will be still in mess then, but the sakura will certainly brighten the mind of people in distress.

New sakura -
always a symbol and
a hope for Japan

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I'm a priest of Tenrikyo, and here is what our church is doing now for the disaster response. (Quotation from CNN Blief Blog: http://bit.ly/gXPQWh)

"Since the March 11 earthquake and the resulting tsunami, many new religions have mounted extensive aid campaigns. Tenrikyo, one of the oldest organizations of this kind, was founded in 1838. From the late nineteenth century, the group was integrated into state-sanctioned Sectarian Shinto, but it rejected this affiliation after World War II to become independent.

Tenrikyo has established a disaster response center at its headquarters in Tenri City. The group’s long history of volunteering is rooted in its religious practice of hinokishin, a contribution of voluntary labor through which adherents express their gratitude toward the divine.

Tenrikyo Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps is equipped to work with local governmental agencies and provide assistance in emergencies. A division from Niigata Prefecture is now at work in quake-ravaged Sendai to repair broken water lines. In addition, Tenrikyo has organized a vast, multinational fundraising campaign through its branch churches in Japan and around the world."

Haiga 555 Natsume Soseki haiku

Haiku by Natsume, Soseki. Artwork by myself.

Soseki was a well known and popular novelist in Meiji era, and also a good friend of Masaoka Shiki.

I begin to hear stories of those who were actually engulfed by the recent tsunami, but miraculously survived. Their stories are all very powerful and keep the heart up for the rest of us. Yes, it is great to be alive. The land is still in mess, but if you are alive, you can act on it, and walk toward restoration.

Haiga 554 Garry Gay haiku --New direction

Haiku by Garry Gay. Artwork by myself.

The magnitude of the disaster this time is forcing many to reconsider the way things has been done in Japan. I am hoping the reconsideration will lead to good changes in the society.

What we should remind ourselves is that Japan archipelago, after all, rests on an unstable earth surface, like on soft tofu, or on fluffy bed. Whatever measures we have taken to avoid natural forces are basically "guessing". Forces that maintain the earth is so enormous that sometimes they exert power far beyond our guessing, however intelligent it is. And the earth does not have mind like us. When the earth needs to move, it just moves, without any consideration for those who live on it. Based on these premises, we need to review the way we have done in government, politics, industry, commerce, agriculture, energy, distribution, communication, transportation, and many others.

Haiga 553 Funeral haiga

Haiku and artwork by myself.

Lots and lots of death, lots and lots of missing.
Though the numbers climbing every day, there is great sorrow for each case.
Sorrow deepens by the fact that there is not enough proper ways to send the deceased; no place to hold funeal, no flowers to solace the deceased and survived, not enough cremation facility.

Two weeks, and there are still more than 17,000 unaccounted for, more than 10,000 deceased.

His life, and then
her life gone . . .
distant fireworks

I believe in rebirth. It may not be a thought of comfort for now, but people will reborn, and will begin new life on this land. So, those survived must stand firm to reconstruct this land for the new lives to come.

Tanka+photograph #tsunami

Tanka by Alexis Rotella.
Ever since the tsunami, I had been wondering what was the sea look like, but could not find pertaining photographs or news. Now, here is one photo I found at an U.S. Navy website. There are some more photos there but this one hit me the most, it is visually powerful and almost surreal, and seem to have many layers of meaning. I posted it on my twitter yesterday, and Alexis wrote a tanka on it.

Initially, I was going to add Yamaguchi Seishi's haiku to this photo.

海に出て木枯帰るところなし
Once over the sea,
winter winds can no longer
return home again

Yamaguchi wrote this haiku, thinking of Kamikaze pilots during WW2.

Haiga 552 Suzuki Masajo haiku

Haiku by Suzuki, Masajo. Artwrok by myself.

The earthquake related activities continue on and on.
I would like to take a moment now to offer a bouquet of flowers to those who lost life.

Haiga 551 Golden Hall--then and now

Haiku by Matsuo Basho. Artwork by myself.

Basho once cited a Chinese poet in describing the northern reaches: “Countries may fall, but their rivers and mountains remain. When spring comes to the ruined castle, the grass is green again.” He probably had this in mind when he wrote this haiku at Hiraizumi:

mounds of summer grass –
the place where noble soldiers
one time dreamed a dream

When something destructive, like war, fire, natural disaster, happens, there are things that remain, and that do not. Chusonji-Temple survived the earthquake; the main hall has minor damage, and the Kondo (Golden Hall) is intact.

Basho wrote in his Narrow Road to the Deep North:
“……The two halls we had heard so much about were both open. In the Sutra Hall stood the statues of the three generals of Hiraisumi; in the Golden Hall, their coffins and three sacred images. The Golden Hall’s seven precious things had been scattered and lost, the gem-studded doors ravaged by the winds, the gold-fretted pillars rotted by the frosts and snow. The temple would certainly have collapsed and turned to nothing more than grass, had not new walls been built around, and a tiled roof put on against the wind and rain. A memorial of a thousand years has, for a little time, been preserved….”

The Kondo has survived many ordeals that befell on it in the past, and now this time again, it remained.

Haiga 550 Sendai--then and now

Then:


Now:

Haiku by Matsuo Basho. Artwork by Kuniharu Shimizu.
Here is a passage on Sendai and vicinity in the "Narrow Road to the Deep North"
------
[Sendai] We crossed the river Natori and went into Sendai. It was the day when people hang blue irises beneath the eaves. We found an inn where we stayed for four or five days.
In the town, there was a painter called Kaemon. I had heard he was a man of truly artistic taste, and I got to know him. He told me he had spent several years tracing places mentioned in poetry that had become hard to locate; and one day, he took us to see some of them. The fields of Miyagino were thick with bush clover, and I could imagine the sight in autumn. It was the season when the pieris flowered around Tamada, Yokono and Tsutsuji-ga-oka. We walked through a pine forest so thick that sunlight could not penetrate at all, and were told its name, Konoshita [Under-the-Trees]. The dripping dew must have been heavy there even in ancient times, for in one poem, a servant is asked to tell his lord to take an straw hat. We offered prayers at Yakushidō Shrine and the Shrine at Tenjin before the day drew to a close. As parting gifts, Kaemon presented us with sketches of Matsushima and Shiogama and various other local places. He also gave us two pairs of straw sandals, with straps deep iris-blue. These presents showed how much a man of cultivated taste he was:

I will bind iris
blossoms round about my feet –
straps for my sandals
------
The photo below is the area around Natori River. The Sendai Airport situates near by. This area is considerably flat and was a good farming land. The earthquake, however, lowered the entire area by about 70cm (about 2.5ft), and then tsunami rushed in and sea water remained there. As the tsunami proceeeded, it engulfed oil tanks, cars with gasoline, so the sea water turned into the burning liquid, hence the fire here and there amid the expanse of water.

There is an news article about Natori: http://bit.ly/gDTz3l

Haiga 549 Matsushima, then and now

Then:


Now, after the earthquake and tsunami

Matsushima islands are known as one of three best scenic spots in Japan, and also have been the inspiration for many poets and artist through out the history of Japan.

Basho was one of them. When he visited the islands during his journey of the "Narrow Road to the Deep North", Basho did not write haiku there, but Sora, his travel companion did. Basho included it in his journal. Reason why Basho did not write haiku is not known. Some say that he was too overwhelmed by their beauty to find words of haiku.

Matsushima isles are a bit north of Sendai city, and could not escape the attack of the earthquake and tsunami. I did some web-search to find out the extent of the damage. Though there is limited news about it, it is clear that the damage is pretty extensive. Many islands were bathed by the tsunami, lost beautiful pine trees, Island rocks collapsed.

I happened to find a tweet by a person living in Sendai. She says that despite the damage, Matsushima will recover soon, and is a beautiful place so please visit there.

Haiga 548 Tsunami haiku

Haiku and artwork by myself.
I made a Boson haiga about spring sea before (Haiga 508 http://p.tl/5kdB ).

Slow, endless motion
of spring sea -
all day long
(Buson)

The same spring sea brought huge disaster this time. The earthquake has changed the shape of the ground, container of the sea: raising the sea bottom, and lowering the coast lines. Water, by nature, faithfully follow any changes and its movement is always from high to low. The sudden, big change turned the nature of water into something horrible.
This haiga is almost the same as Boson's, but I changed colors, and made small addition to show the different face of the sea.

Well, the sea has returned to Boson's sea now, slow and calm. The land, however, still shakes, many times a day.

Aftershocks -
sudden fly-ups of sparrows
from budding trees

Haiga 547 Mirsad Denjo haiku--Children in disaster

Haiku by Mirsad Denjo (Bostonia). Artwork by myself.

I see children in the news coverage of the disaster areas. So many of them, some lucky enough to be with parents, some without, and many with tremendous stress. I see smiles and laughter, but they are prone to act like that even in time of great difficulty. It is their instictive behavior to protect their lives.

I hear that there have been more than 250 aftershocks of over M5. It is like one feels strong shake almost all the time. Plus that is the constant fear from radiation. This situation will certainly cause great damage to children's mind. Children are not aware of it now, but that's what I worry the most.
What they need is the rainbow of hope.

ーーーーー
I'll be out of town tomorrow, hence no new blog posting.

Haiga 546 Carol Purington haiku 3--hot nuke rods

Haiku by Carol Purington. Artwork by myself.

I made this haiga long time ago. Now as I look at it again, this hot tomato reminds me of the hot nuke bars at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. I learned that the rods would takes long long time to cool down, something like more than a year, under the normal circumstances.

The irony at Fukushima is that there is no electricity at the power plant to cool the brods after the tunami. Unbelievably high tunami (14m high, or about 45ft) killed all the electric devices, including water pump motors and other backup cooling and venting devices. Courageous crews are handling the situation manually now, and we are all watching closely.(Latest news is, the electricity will come back on this Friday)

If you are using twitter, try @W7VOA. He is near the site and tweeting constantly.
Ryu Murakami (not Murakami Haruki), a very popular Japanese novelist, wrote for NY Times about the present situation in general. According the the article, it seems he was in the same area as I when the earthquake hit.
http://nyti.ms/dYu9nA

Basho's journey and Nuclear Plant

This is a map I made for haiga ebook of "Narrow Road to the Deep North" by Matsuo Basho. I added a blue square to the map, indicating where the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant is. Blue line along the Pacific coast indicated where tunami struck. This line extends farther north, double the length.
(BTW: I live near Osaka and Kyoto. My wife is presently at a town near "Muro-no-Yashima" to check on her old mother)

In the area near here, Basho wrote haiku like:

one whole field of rice
had all been sown- before I
left the willow-tree
(Saigyo's willow at Ashino)

Basho wrote on:
[The Shirakawa Barrier] "Day after day had passed in vague uneasiness; but now we approached the Barrier at Shirakawa, and, for the first time, I felt that our journey had truly begun. I could understand why the poet had felt at this spot that he wanted to send word to the people in the capital that he had crossed the Barrier.
As one of the Three Barriers to the north, Shirakawa has always appealed to poets and writers. Yet even as I delighted in the green leaves of the trees, an autumn wind seemed to sound in my ears, and crimson leaves danced in my mind’s eye.

[Sukagawa] "We passed the Barrier and crossed the Abukuma River. On our left, the peak of Aizu soared up high; on our right, the districts of Iwaki, Sōma and Miharu stretched out; behind us, the range of hills that separated the provinces of Hitachi and Shimotsuke. We passed Kagenuma [Shadow Pond], but the sky was overcast that day, and so there were no reflections.
At the post town of Sukagawa, we visited a poet called Tōkyū, who put us up for four or five days. The first thing he asked was, ‘How did you feel as you crossed the Barrier at Shirakawa?’ I replied that the hardships of our long journey had exhausted me in body and spirit. Enchanted by the beauty of the landscape, and so much moved by the memories of the past that it awakened, I had not been able to compose a decent poem. Yet it would be a shame to let the crossing go unrecorded. So I wrote:

imagination’s birth!
a song for planting rice
in the deep far north

Where we are going--visually expressed 3

Artwork by myself.
When calamity happens, the only direction we can head is front. There is no use sticking to the backward thinking and lamenting what happened. Reflecting on how we came along will provide a guide for our future path. Though there are uncertainties ahead of us, we will move forward, uniting minds, helping one another. It will be slow move, and will require perseverance, but we will come through for we are always on a great hand after all, during the time of calamity as well as time of normal days.

How we normally are--visually expressed 2

My artwork, done also sometime ago, and again, the interpretations are up to you.

The earthquake this time was caused by the sudden movements of earth's plates under the sea. The earth is constantly accumulating stress and time to time the stress must be released to maintain the healthy state. In this sense, the earth is a living thing just as we are. Disaster from our point of view, and recovery from the earth's point of view.

When the earth moves, our balance is disrupted. That is how the bigger system works, and we human just have to accept it.

Tsunami swells...
how I wish
I were a bird

How we are now--visually expressed 1

This is my artwork. I made it sometime ago but it seems to show visually how we Japanese are now. Interpretations are up to you.

Among countless numbers of tweets, I found one saying a man was rescued more than 10 miles (15km) offshore. He had been pulled so far out to sea by the tsunami.

Haiga 545 Tada Chimako haiku 1

Haiku by Tada, Chimako. Artwork by myself.
I made this haiga before i left for Tokyo four days ago. It is about wind, but now, after seeing the video of tunami that hit northern coast line of Japan (about 400km　long), I feel that it could be about the tunami waves. Where do the waves take Japan from now? The damage is only beginning to show, and it will surely be huge, especially the human loss.

At the time of earthquakes, I was at a train station near Shinjyuku. The train came in, stopped, doors opened, and just as I stepped in the car, the shakes began. The shakes were the strongest ones I had experienced and lasted long minutes. The annouce said the epicenter was somewhere near Sendai, and I knew right way that the damage was huge. All the trains in Tokyo stopped and we were shooed away from the train station. There were already long lines for bus, taxi, and land telephone (mobile did not go through). I finally found someone who gave me a ride back to my lodging. All the streets, major and side, were packed with cars, and it took us about 4 hours to move 10 miles to the lodging.

Though I was within a big confusion in Tokyo, I was able to return home in on piece. I am fine now, but I cannot whole heartedly feel happy because of so much damage and so many people under tremendous suffering.

Haiga 544 Mizuhara Shuoshi haiku 3

Haiku by Mizuhara, Shuoshi. Artwork by myself.
After reading the haiku, you might think "So what?". Well, I thought the same, too, at first. After a while, however, I returned to the haiku again and again, and came to like it. I guess you do not really　need to dig into its meaning, but rather let yourself relax, like looking at the sky with blank face and just feel the scene.

As for this haiga, I drew with crayons like a kid, not contemplating anything philosophical, simply enjoyed the act of drawing and coloring. Later I did some digital manipulations to make the haiga look like a fresco painting.

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I will be out of town for a few days, starting tomorrow--my monthly visit to Tokyo. The next posting on this blog will be after my leave so stay tuned, folks.

Haiga 533 Mizuhara Shuoshi haiku 2

Haiku by Mizuhara, Shuoshi. Artwork by myself.
Kiku is chrysanthemum in English, but English name is too long so I used the Japanese name. There are many variety of kiku, in size, shape, and color. I picked the kiku with round shaped, with a fullness, because it seems to really glow itself.
The literal translation of the original haiku is something like this: winter kiku / wearing on it / its own light. I was not sure about word "wear", if suitable or not, so I did not use this version.

Haiga 532 Mizuhara Shuoshi haiku 1

Haiku by Mizuhara, Shuoshi. Artwork by myself. English translation by Mark Brooks.
Mark san sent to me this haiku the other day. I got intrigued and looked into the author, Shuoshi, who once was one of four key members of Hototogisu under Takahama Kyoshi. Shuoshi later left Hototogisu and formed a group called "Ashibi(staggerbsuh)".

This haiku reminded me of a painting done by Soichiro Tomioka, in which he painted a famous waterfall in Japan in a very simple manner. One of my favorite paintings. So, here in this haiga, I tried to create my own version of waterfall in a similar manner, emphasizing on the feel rather than the actual waterfall.

Haiga 531 Alan Summers haiku 4

Haiku by Alan Summers. Artwork by myself.

I am rather surprised to find that my blog received over 150 page views yesterday. A part of the reason probably has something to do with the gorilla. The comment Alan san wrote for gorilla haiga is interesting. I did not know that, but the haiga turned out to be suitable for the haiku and Alan's information on Koko, the gorilla.

For this haiga today, I assembled parts (bird and flower) that I had done previously for other painting, and made change in size and colors. This is what I often do, and it is made possible by the software I am using, Adobe Illustrator. Whatever parts you make with the software remain as stock treasure. I have made more than 1000 haiga and many paintings so you can imagine the size of my stock

Haiga 530 Alan Summers haiku 3

Senryu by Alan Summers(UK). Artwork by myself.

Haiga 529 Claire Everett haiku 3

Haiku by Claire Everett. Artwork by myself.

In the first reading of this haiku, I was not sure what it was about. Then I web-searched the word "lamplighter". There was an webpage about Victorian Lamplighter. Now I see, the mother is that old to still remember the lamplighter.
When working with haiku from different culture and country, the web-searching is indispensable. Working with such haiku is thus a good chance to widen my understanding of the world. Now that so many people of diverse backgrounds are writing haiku these days, such understanding becomes also indispensable.

In this haiku, there are two time zones; "autumn sunset" is present, and "lamplighter" is past. In the haiga, the present is the background with gradation, and the past is the drawing of lamplighter, enclosed with blueish blur, by which i tried to show something out of the memory. I used crayon to do the drawing.

Haiga 528 Claire Everett haiku 2

Haiku by Claire Everett. Artwork by myself.
I was not familiar with foxgloves so I did web-search and found photographs. I did sketch from them, emphasizing more of the rhythm that I perceive from the contours of the flowers than the actual looks.

Haiku 527 Claire Everett haiku 1

Haiku by Claire Everett. Artwork by myself.

Claire sent me a batch of haiku the other day for haiku+artwork collaboration.
Somehow all these years, I thought the blackbird as a kind of crow, but my web-search revealed otherwise. Different bird.
I got a photo of the bird, cut it out and made it transparent and add blue blur because the haiku is about its sound, not the bird itself, and I wanted to make the point visualized. The sound is represented in the reddish blur line above, which also imply twilight.

Today, March 3, is the Girls' Day. A young woman in my office showed up this morning, her hair's been dyed slightly toward "chapatsu", meaning light brownish color popular among the fashionable young.

Girls' Day,
a whole big strawberry
in her small mouth

Haiga 526 Mark Brooks haiku 4

Haiku by Mark Brooks. Artwork by myself.
We find lizards almost everywhere, but in place like Hawaii, it is geckos. The room I had in Hawaii was a basement of a big old house. At middle of night my sleep was interrupted by the little creature, sometimes by landing right on my face from the ceiling, other times by tickling my feet. I did not mind for it ate little bugs in my room, a caretaker so to speak.

This haiga is the last of Mark+Kuni collaboration. Thank you, Mark san, for sharing your haiku with me and all the visitors to this blog.

Haiga 525 Mark Brooks haiku 3

Haiku by Mark Brooks. Artwork by myself.

When I was a kid, I used to flip through books of Ukiyoe, admiring dynamic composition, beautiful scenery with wonderful gradations in the background, elegant flowing lines of of women in kimono, flat vivid decorative colors. Above all, I was simply amazed by the craftsmanship of woodblock prints. I received formanl art training in the US, but I think there is the under current of influences in me from the Ukiyoe.

In this haiga, I was repeating the word "ghost" in my head as I made it. There is a webpage about Yoshitoshi's Eager ( http://www.fujiarts.com/cgi-bin/item.pl?item=142502 ), where I got this particular Ukiyoe image.
There is a link to the song lyric. http://www.lyricsvip.com/Jeff-Tweedy/Theologians-Lyrics.html

Haiga 524 Mark Brooks haiku 2

Haiku by Mark Brooks. Artwork by myself.

This haiku won the 1st. Prize in 5th Mainichi Contest International Section (2001). I remember it well for it was during the time I was involved with Haijinx, where Mark san was acting as a key person.

For this haiga, the use of brush strokes came to my mind first. I do not know why, I just thought that would be suitable for this hiaku. I made the strokes, and also drew a nail to go with. After a while however, I decided to use actual photograph of a nail. I thought the contrast of the graphic (strokes) and photograph (nail) would be interesting.

As for the haiku text, I tried to express the feel of "withering" by slanting the text a little, applying light color, and making partially fadded