It's 9AM and our housekeeper Gabby has arrived. Ricky has had breakfast and his travel bag is all packed for his 16 day puppy camp holiday. Off we go. Thankfully, Ricky loves puppy camp and the staff all make a big fuss that my happy-go-lucky, wiggly-squiggly Boxer has arrived. After a brief kiss and no looking back, Ricky is ready to play with puppies! Next up ... a mani-pedi, then home to pack. |
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The more I read about Japan, the more certain I am that this will be an important adventure. From my narrow lens, it seems that Buddhist and Shinto beliefs are in alignment with my own, which have been forged through my relationship with sacred mountains in Peru, and the animistic belief system of the Andes known as Tiwantinesuyu. Both traditions subscribe to a direct connection to nature; encourage right-relationship; embrace the intentional practice of kindness, compassion, simplicity, self-awareness, and living and loving unconditionally; and to be present to everything along our path. Both cultures, too, are deeply layered, and filled with ceremony and tradition. I sense this will be a journey to scratch the surface.
For all of the reasons mentioned above, I am eager to experience Japanese culture and learn about the ways they celebrate the changing of seasons, what foods they eat seasonally, and how they honor nature through their beautifully landscaped gardens, wildlands and practices of forest bathing. A culture that understands, too, the incomplete understanding of life that duality describes, and embraces both ancestral traditions and high speed trains. Where finding stillness in the midst of fast paced cities is becomes a practice in mindfulness.
Some of the Japanese principles that I especially look forward to experiencing from another perspective are:
For all of the reasons mentioned above, I am eager to experience Japanese culture and learn about the ways they celebrate the changing of seasons, what foods they eat seasonally, and how they honor nature through their beautifully landscaped gardens, wildlands and practices of forest bathing. A culture that understands, too, the incomplete understanding of life that duality describes, and embraces both ancestral traditions and high speed trains. Where finding stillness in the midst of fast paced cities is becomes a practice in mindfulness.
Some of the Japanese principles that I especially look forward to experiencing from another perspective are:
- Wabi-sabi — finding beauty in life’s imperfections; the transient nature of NOW. This beautiful teaching reminds us that life is not this or that. Meaning needs to be dynamic — grow and evolve. Accepting that light and dark are two expressions of the same — just with different bandwidth.
- Zen proverbs such as: “No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place …”
- Ma — the space in-between what can be “seen” — physical, emotional, mental or energetic — that gives more complete understanding of form and meaning.
- Mono No Aware — the knowingness of impermanence that leads one to more availability and a relationship that “all things must pass” and the cyclical nature of life.
- Ukiyo — being present; living in the moment; not being seduced by the past or the future; just being.
- Ichi-go Ichie-e — the imprinting of an experience, exchange or understanding that has profound impact to shape or change one. For instance the tone of a temple bell, the scent of a particular type of incense that imprints like an Aboriginal songline or an Andean ceke (luminous thread) that in an instant connects you with a seminal experience, understanding or encounter.
- Yügen — the knowingness that real beauty is in subtlety and suggestion, and Truth is revealed not through the obvious, but in the essence.