Spring fever has hit.  I asked Tyler to help me clear away some tangles in my back yard to bring in more sunlight.  The next thing I knew, we'd cleared an old dead tree and trimmed back the big Joshua plan that has been lunging out toward freedom for ten years.  Gone!

Now I have more a more open area up to the back fence, and my Buddha sits peacefully on his rock pedestal, anchoring my garden.

I'm growing 4 pepper plants.  I am always mad for grilling peppers.  They are so delicious.

A couple of days ago I had Anders over for two hours.  He immediately goes to my craft drawer and picked out the old Amazon.com cardboard insert I had saved for a project.  When he held it up to his face and chest, it looked like some kind of body armour, so we went with that idea.

I cut out a slit for his eyes (complete with a flap to close down under attack) and we put green paper on the chest, and inserted pipe cleaner "antenna" and "alien sensors" . He always knows exactly what he wants--such certainty at the age of 5!  So I had to rummage around for some old Velcro strips to make a fastener on the back of the mask.  It turned out perfect!

It's so relaxing to make a project and not have any plan, but be in the moment with the stuff you have in front of you.  Make it work.  It's so much fun.  Costs almost nothing.  Save those cardboard inserts if you have kids around.  They know what to do with them.

Eliza, Ander's mom, and my daughter-in-law is giving a talk at her college class today on the benefits individually and globabally of  eating and buying local food.  I'm so proud of her! She's started buying only organic produce from local farms and avoiding imported foods and produce.

Robert and I have been doing lots of research on ways to handle and heal eczema for someone in our circle.  If anyone reading this has any verifiable, eczema-specific advice or knowledge, I'd appreciate hearing from you--you can write to me at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it   I'm open to synchronicity on this!

I had a very grounding week--paid my taxes, had my electrical panel repaired, bought two new planting boxes, four little hopeful pepper plants, and some daisies and succulents. 

Robert and I cooked dinner yesterday for Gunther and Eliza and Anders and Auggie.  We had fried oysters, chicken, rice, bread, salad, and mangoes and blueberries for dessert.  We played the Nature show we had recorded on cephlapods, particularly the Humboldt squid.  We had saved it for Anders who loves things squid.  (Gunther and Eliza went out to dinner with an old friend on Thursday and he had squid stuffed with sausage.)

Lots of walking all weekend.  I seem to be using the car less and less.

After watching every species of animal eating one another in all these hours of nature shows (Planet Eart is spectacular) it seems the purpose of life is eating.  What else is one to think (I know-- procreation--which leads to more eating.)  They show the eating more than the procreating. 

I arrived home on Friday--and very happy to be back.  Gunther and Eliza prepared a wonderful Middle Eastern lamb and chicken feast yesterday for Easter.  Eliza's mom, Carmen, is here for the week from San Diego, and we also had Steven and Marian and their two kids over for an Easter egg hunt and dinner.  The weather cleared up just in time!  

I had an interesting talk with Steven (while he was helping Luke, his 2-year old with his log-like building block set.)  He's returning to India (the whole family went last year) to do more research on Bhopal, and the organizations there which have been taking environmental action since the 1960's.  "People think it's a new idea to be challenging the multi-national companies," he said, "but they've been doing it in India for a long time." 

Eliza has decided to only buy food that is locally grown. "A lot of pollution goes into the air because of transporting food," she told me.   

Still pondering so many things about Japan--relationships, communication styles, projects.  Jet-lag kept me up and I started reading the book Fumiko had given me last year, Polite Lies, On being a woman caught between cultures, by Kyoko Mori.  It's quite interesting and makes me wonder about how my friends see me there!  It seems to me to be so easy to be rude without knowing it although I keep trying to understand the most obvious customs.  

Before that I finished the book that Banana Yoshimoto gave me when I met her in Tokyo--Argentine Hag.  It's very good.  It's also illustrated in a most interesting way that complements the story.

I don't feel like working today, but I have many things to catch up on.

This morning there were five patches of rainbows, like little rocket ships, on my bedroom ceiling. 

I'm leaving for the airport in 30 minutes.

I just wanted to record two images I wasn't able to photograph in Tokyo.

A rainy morning earlier this week, coming out of the subway at Ochanomizu.  We were waiting for the light to change, so we could cross the bridge over the river.  Ahead I saw the bridge crusted over with hundreds of pink, blue, green, black, white umbrellas, hurrying forward.

Last Tuesday coming out of the museum, a corridor with a line of fifty people waiting for a meeting.  Young men and women all dressed alike, in crisp black suits and white starched shirts and blouses.  April is the month for new hirings.  Hopeful starts.  Black suits.

I have had such a good trip this time.  In two days we finished an interview book between Yamakawa-san and myself.  She has translated many spiritual books in Japan and, though quiet and humble, something of a celebrity.  We are the same age.  Little girls in Japan and America during World War II.  Now together, talking about life purpose, overcoming challenges, marriage, and visiting power places.

I'm sorry the book will be published only in Japanese, so I won't be able to read it.

I'll have four other books coming out this year, all in Japanese.  Hmmm.

What a wonderful day.

I finished my last consultation today (a handsome drummer in a Japanese band) and took the afternoon off.  I walked from the apartment to Sunshine City (a huge shopping and entertainment center,) because I wanted to go to the aquarium there (Robert had found it was close to me from searching on the Internet).  It's quite an accomplishment for me to walk around Tokyo by myself!

I had been wanting to go to an art museum.  Amazingly, there is a museum on the 7th floor (the aquarium was okay, but the museum turned out to be the reason I went.  It had three of the most beautiful sculptures I have ever seen.  The show is called Archaic Smile, and it's a collection of Mediterranean figures....

The bust of Buddha from Gandhara, Pakistan 2nd-4th centuries is gray stone dusted with pink.  The miracle was standing close to it, and seeing--almost feeling--the crisp carving of the lips, the nose, the eyes, the rivers of hairs.  I was overwhelmed and it brought tears to my eyes.

The other stunning pieces stood in the same case.  A stone female figurine from China 25-220 AD.  Pale gray, smooth, compact rounded body with arms held in her sleeves, a patch of rusty red like a stain on her pedestal.  Tranquil, waiting as the years pass and pass...

Next to her a ceramic female figure, China 618-907 AD.  Her indigo, gold, and terra cotta gown is glazed, and her face and hair are bisque-colored.  Her hair is in side knots, and her eyes appear closed, and soft smile gives an impression of inner revelation.  I love her!

The guard stopped me from taking pictures, so I bought the exhibition catalogue.  I'm so glad I did!  The catalogue is wonderful, but I'll never forget seeing these pieces in person--their 3 dimensional elegance, presence, and soul.  Who were these inspired artists!  Quiet people going about their business of capturing the human spirit and the spirit of spirit.

Tonight, I had dinner with 7 women.  All powerful and fun!  We decided that for our next meeting we should rent one of the "love hotels" in this neighborhood.   They are meant for private rendezvous, but we could lounge around and order take out and beer!  Maybe use the jacuzzi and sing a little karaoke (I hear the rooms are well-equipped.)

A little more work and then time for a hot soak in the Japanese tub.