Into Another New Year.......

This Sunday January 29th marks the year 4704 in the Chinese calendar...the Year of the Dog. This year will last 385 days...reportedly only the 12th time in the last 2300 years that the variable Chinese lunar/solar year has seen so many days...occurring the last time in 1944. Seems auspicious enough a beginning.......and provides an alternative view to the western...or gregorian...notion of time.......which is too often accepted as being the absolute and only way to view time......in disregard for calendars developed and used by native peoples of this earth for milleniums.
My kung fu school...a non-profit...survives in large part due to funds received from our performances...and Chinese New Year is the time when a good percentage of the performances are held. This year...somewhere in the vicinity of ...42...are scheduled over the span of the next 3-4 weeks...lion dances...kung fu...and banner...demonstrations...and the invitations will take us to Indian Country...South Dakota. What was our Shifu thinking??? I'm sure I don't know the answer to that one...but I do know that endurance and resilience testing... and pushing...are an integral part of being a kung fu-er...so the lesson will be there somewhere....along with the good experiences this time will bring...
Must admit that the most interesting and enticing aspect of it for me this year will be going...once again...to the sacred territory of the Lakota...and since the 1880's also home to many Chinese people.... But more about that...as it unfolds.......

Sun Sets Over Eagles' Home

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Home awaits the return of the eagles..............

Winter Seen

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Tree Coral

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Into The Great Divide

Heart of Mountain
is beating strong
as her blackened veins
carry the human cargo
like corpuscles
through her blood...

We journey into her heart
to the rhythm
of her thumping blood

and come out
on the other side
where
the peaks grow higher
rise taller...and...

white caps...glistened
by the sun...
stretch to touch
the welcoming sky...

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It seems
I am...in heaven...
mountains...circumference me......

Sun's Hues

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Bloggin' In the Wee Hours......

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Love Poem 3 * Ancestral Path

I have been
to this place before
this place in the heart
buried...forgotten...
in the longing for calm
long ago
your voice
deep and familiar
found its way to this place
and awakened a cautious heart
pulsing
with the possibility
of two ancestral lives meeting
once again
finding the path
to each other
despite
time passed
distances travelled
to this present journey
leading
once more
to this place
in my heart.......................

City Abstract

©mltainolegends

Gatherings

Two raven sit on a lampost
watching the day go by...
nothing worth ruffling a feather about
below
just an endless stream of cars
rushing and gushing
to somewhere
human...
Musing together
they seem
comfortable in their silence...
and look
as if they are taking it all in.....
...........................gatherings
for the time of sharing sight...........

More Peeks

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Peeks at the breath taking view which greeted me one recent morning........


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Hawaiian Beauties

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Before Christmas
unexpectedly came into my life
an array of exotic...beautiful...
flowers and foliage from an isle of Hawaii...
place which draws me
more than any other
to come...see her...
black sands...black pearls...
and volcanoes...ancient sleepers...
waiting patiently...to erupt...


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Beautiful blooms...hues of green...
cut from life
for the journey
to radiate
a tropical land's warmth
many miles
through the grasp
of a winter land's cold...
to a grateful stranger...


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Paradise's delicate birds...
purple plummage regal atop orange...
pink and flaming...heliconia...ginger...sprays of orchid...
framed by mostera...green ti...hala and bamboo
feast my senses with
brilliant bursts of colour...
scents...sweet...sensual...and calming....
creation's ever present beauty.....
.....amidst us.................

(flower arrangement....klte)