Here's one for the teachers

Why did the principal fire the cross-eyed teacher?

Because he couldn't control his pupils.

John of the Mountains

I am reading again. Seems like when I have a good balance in life I have time to read. I also have time to do Aikido, and some work too. I have been interested in Aikido for many years and am happy to get back 'on the mat'. The physical aspect of Aikido is just a framework for an energy based art. From what I can tell, the goal of Aikido is many fold, but some of the largest bits are learning how to interact with and channel energy. In a martial framework this can be anger or force. In the office this can be tension or responsibilities. In a relationship, this is all things, emotions, desires, responsibilities, tensions, you name it. We are physical beings, animals. But there is energy all around us. People who we usually call crazy can see it, and I mean SEE it, with their eyes. That is their gift and their burden. Most of us don't realize it's there. Few sense it, and even fewer can work with it. The amazing thing about this is that there is physical proof of energy. Back to the physical level, which is what we are most comfortable with, when someone punches you, you react. Your body receives the blow. This is you recieving the energy of another being. When someone hugs you, you can FEEL the energy from the other person. You don't have to imagine, you can actually feel it. If we didn't have energy we wouldn't be able to work with it. There would be no transfer when we contact. Some people are very tuned to another's energy and can feel that person from thousands of miles away. It's not magical, it's talent.

Well, back to the present, on my desk there is a book I have begun reading. It's John Muir's personal notes from when he was out in the world. He always kept a notebook strapped to his belt on his travels and he would scribble down thoughts, like a journal. I never realized it before, and I have read his writings before, but this man had an amazing gift to see, feel, and interact on a deep level, with the energy all around him. This quote comes from a time in which he was a shepherd in the San Joaquin valley, at the foothills of the Sierras.

"January 1, 1869
The New Year was ushered in with rain, a black day without a single sunbeam. The purple and brown colors are fast fading from the plains, the bright youthful plant green is deepening with astonishing rapidity. Every grove and hallow, however shallow, has its stream - living water is sounding everywhere, 'Tumbling brown, the burn comes down, and roars from bank to brae.' I celebrated the Happy New Year crossing countless streams, running 'ower moor and mire through gude and gide' in full chase of the wretched sheep.
Everything is governed by laws. I used to imagine that our Sabbath days were recognized by Nature, and that, apart from the moods and feelings in which we learn to move, there was a more or less clearly defined correspondence between the laws of Nature and our own. But out here in the free unplanted fields there is no rectilineal sectioning of times and seasons. All things flow here in indivisible, measureless currents."

Another language? OK!

OK, so I am here, in 2006, and I have begun the lengthy process of learning another language. I find myself drawn to languages. I have studied only one in depth, Spanish, and took about one and a half quarters of German in college. Now it's Japanese, and I am currently using a book to learn Kanji, the written symbols. I also like to explore languages wherever I travel. I love traveling immersion style, with no guide, relying solely on feet, dead reconing, and a piercing attitude to get by. When we went to Europe for our honeymoon we learned a lot of Italian, and then adjusted to the Spanish style of speaking...well...Spanish; I guess I really learned Mexican in school? What we didn't learn was French. WHY? No, it's not because I hate the F*ing frogs, it's because we didn't have to. Nearly everyone there, save for one older couple on the train to Versailles, spoke lots of English. Screw that! I want to learn French! Well, not so much right now, but you see where I am going. When I travel I find one of the best parts is the exercise of integrating with the environment. The challenge of stepping into the socks, shoes, pants, shirts, and hats of another is wonderful. Damn, I forgot to put on my underwear again. Oh well. And the goal of true integration, true communication, is the root of understanding. Otherwise I'd be on a tour bus going, "OOOH, look at all the pretty buildings...Where's my McDeadCow on a stick?".
When traveling I genuinely try to become as one from that region. I watch and learn from the people around me. Try it this weekend. Dress just a little differently than usual to get you in the mood, go to a cafe, and pretend you are from another place, perhaps another time. Trust your imagination to guide you. Let the anthropologist in you brush the dirt off of your own relics. Walk in and have a seat. See what others are doing and mimic them. Go to the man behind the counter and order something someone else has ordered, perhaps in the same way that you watched and heard it being ordered. A cup of coffee? Watch someone pour their cup from the pot, and follow them, doing it yourself. The action is not as important as the impression you get from actively participating in learning. Language, art, science, ordering coffee...it's all the same. Open yourself up to the learning around you at every moment, and your thoughts will become deeper, your knowledge more sound, your vision more perceptive; you will start thinking with complexity, acting with intention, and you will find yourself reaching.
As a favorite singer of ours says, "Shake off the dust and arise"-Matisyahu

Here's my "Kanji of the Day" : wazawai



This Kanji, like many, is a combination of characters, a complex word in our parlance. The top character with three kinked vertical lines is a radical for river:


The bottom character is the character for fire:


The interesting thing about Kanji, for me, is that many of the charaters are representations of real world happenings. One can see where fire meets water there is surely some type of calamity going on. Perhaps a lavaflow? A fire burning through the city that is being put out? There is imagination here.

According to another website: Each year, there is a public survey asking Japanese residents what they think is the one kanji (word or concept) that best sums up the year. The kanji for 2004 is wazawai, meaning calamity. There was a large earthquake that killed 200 people in Niigata in October, as well as many more typhoons and supertyphoons than usual this year.