#356 • Yūgen

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There are only so many ways to describe moonlight. I decided to use the word yūgen. Yūgen had flown by me on Facebook defined as a Japanese word to describe mystery and concealment. As it turns out, yūgen is one of the nine ancient Japanese aesthetics. Their meanings are greatly edited here, but for me, it is the words themselves that I find captivating for some reason - maybe because they are in and of themselves both beautiful and lyrical to look at and speak.

1. Wabi-sabi 佗寂 (Imperfection) - The philosophy of wabi-sabi is one of imperfection, impermanence and incompletion. 

2. Miyabi 雅 (Elegance) - Miyabi is about elegance, refinement and courtliness. It is also about the elimination of anything vulgar or unsightly. 

3. Shibui 渋い or Shibusa 渋さ (Simplicity) - The aesthetic ideal behind shibui is one of simplicity, subtlety and unobtrusiveness. 

4. Iki 粋 (Spontaneity and Originality) - Iki is often compared to its older and more universal cousin wabi-sabi. While iki is about simplicity and temporality, it also encapsulates qualities like originality, uniqueness and spontaneity. 

5. Jo-ha-kyū 序破急 (Modulation and Movement) - Jo-ha-kyū is the concept of modulation and movement. It can be thought about like a tempo in how you do things and connote how all things should begin slowly, build up quickly thereafter to a rising crescendo, and then end swiftly. 

6. Yūgen 幽玄 (Mystery and Concealment) - Yūgen is a concept that values mystery and concealment. It describes an element of profound depth with questions that may remain unanswered even as the plot unravels. 

7. Geidō 藝道 (Discipline and System) - This concept is embodied in the discipline, ethics and systematised approach to apprenticeship embodied in many Japanese traditional arts. 

8. Ensō 円相 (Void and Absolution) - Ensō is represented by a circle that symbolises a holistic form of absolution, enlightenment, strength, elegance, the Universe and the void. 

9. Kawaii かわいい (Cute and Lovable) - Lovable, cute or adorable, kawaii is found almost everywhere in modern Japan and an integral part of Japanese society.  

 Edited from Japan Talk on the “9 Principles of Japanese Art and Culture.” 

Yugen • 8" x 8" acrylic framed to 12" x 12" • $250 

#355 • One Dead Run At A Time

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ONE DEAD RUN AT A TIME
Sailing with the wind square to your stern is called a dead run. If you have a main and a jib, you can sail wing on wing. The jib flies to one side of the mast, the main to the other. You are pushed across the water like a butterfly. It's lovely.

Decades ago, I took a friend out for a spin on a borrowed Laser. For those who don't know, a Laser is a small but feisty single-handed racing boat with a very tall mast and way too much sail for it's size. As a result, it's very "touchy," with a response time of 0 seconds. I had single-handed a sailfish a couple of times in my career and figured, heck, all little boats are alike - I could handle this one. My friend had no prior sailing experience, but like me, she was gung-ho for a new adventure. No worries, we said, we have life jackets, the sun is shining and the water temp is delightful.

There was a brisk breeze tacking off the dock close-hauled upwind. I was feeling really special - like I really knew what I was doing. We were going fast and loving it because honestly, we were speed freaks having accumulated a legendary number of speeding tickets between us in our day. What a blast we were having.

And then it was time to go back downwind, or jibe-ho as they say. For me it meant spinning the boat around 180 degrees into a dead run. The first jibe resulted in an immediate sail slap to the water. The boat went over so fast, we flew through the air and into the water before we could yell fore! Choked with laughter, we righted the Laser and jumped back into the saddle and took off again. As I started to haul the sail back in, the mast immediately pitched from the left to the right and back again. My friend brilliantly ducked the lightning fast and deadly pendulum that was our boom, eventually pinning herself tight to the deck. But we were in the drink again before we knew it.

It was dramatic. I'm thinking seven, but hoping it was only five times we rolled over trying to get underway. We were like a death roll wind-up toy, and my friend now had justifiable reason to finally ask me if I knew what the hell I was doing. I don't remember what my reply was, but I think I lied hoping it would somehow morph true.

By the grace of God, and I'm not kidding here, we eventually got the hang of it. We both figured out how to throw our weight around - hiking in nautical terms, and were to win the race against impending death when we finally bow-butted our home dock. It was freakin' awesome! we decided over a cold one later, and over several more later on. We scared the shit out ourselves, were exhausted but on an adrenaline high, defined ourselves as Olympic contenders on perseverance and raw guts alone, had a great swim, got some color, and survived!

We never sailed together again - both determining that I needed to hone my technique. She and her husband eventually bought a sailboat, which shocked the hell out of me, so I didn't have to feel guilty about destroying her aspirations. Me, I continued to test my fear of death rolls for many years. I still freak sailing a dead run, but not so much that I feel like it's still a game of high seas chicken - like who's going to take a dunking first, me or the boat. You just gotta hang in there and take one dead run at a time.

Sailing Downwind • 8" x 8" acrylic framed to 12" x 12" • $250

#354 • Public Gardengeek Tour

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Ever round a corner while on a walk and bump into something that makes you stop for minute? I found this stop in Stonington one day. It's the work of mother nature, but she doesn't own the property, so I tried to be a little discreet while snapping away.  I often wonder, do owners of these roadside patches look out their windows and ask themselves, how am I suddenly a participant in an unannounced free-and-open-to-the-public-gardengeek-tour? Do they take pride in their work and like showing it off, or do they consider fencing us nosy gardengeeks out? Hopefully they generously recognize it's part of the deal when they snap up prime-location property in Maine's most popular tourista communities.

Public Gardengeek Tour • 8" x 8" acrylic framed to 12" x 12" • $250

#353 • Trees

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Trees. They're really quite astounding. I’ve just started reading a book called Lab Girl. It’s good, and a great way to escape to another universe for an hour or so.

Trees are important. They give us oxygen and store carbon. They provide shelter for wildlife and humans, and stabilize the soil. At one point, a third of our planet’s land was covered with trees. Today there are eighty billion trees in the protected forests of the western US. The ratio of trees to humans is well over 200. In the last ten years we’ve chopped down around fifty billion of them - and there will not be trees re-planted. Every ten years we humans cut down one percent of those forests.

I'm gong to take a walk to appreciate trees tonight, and pray we figure out how to curb our appetite for them.

Trees • 8" x 8" acrylic framed to 12" x 12" • $250

#352 • A Meditation Manifesto

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This is a memory from long long ago in a galaxy far far away, when we children had no idea what was really going on out there in the world. I was lucky. This was not, and is not a scene a lot of children will ever know in their lifetime. All the more important therefore, to suggest it to them as a possibility now.

Constant bombardment of information forces me to be involved. It is a part of my life. There is too much at stake to ditch my brain.  A side must be taken, even if it means bucking the powers that be, choosing peace over war, or love rather than hate. Intellectual liberty is what makes a democracy a democracy.

To be able to balance on the bongo board, I occasionally stop all activity, close both eyes, and conjure up a prompt that will, like a quiet harbor, release all surrounding chaos to a quiet mind.

And then I share my meditation with the world to balance out the karma I create with the other stuff I post.

A Meditation Manifesto • 8" x 8" acrylic framed to 12" x 12" • $250

#351 • Another City Garden Poster

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Every year for the past several, I've done a painting for the local garden club - Friends of the Eastern Prom. It's for their annual hidden garden tour. This is a particularly difficult assignment for me to do because I know nothing about flowers. I'm a wiz with vegetables, but flowers are a totally incomprehensible language. The flowers I buy, and are given, are complete mysteries to me. It's a lesson in something, not quite sure what.

Another City Garden Tour Poster • 8" x 8" acrylic framed to 12" x 12" • $250

#350 • Frenchboro

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It was over a decade ago on one of those days you could sell a clam shack on a no-beach-rock-bound-wind-battered-all-day-shade-side of an island with no ferry access in a heartbeat to someone from away. Frenchboro was holding it's annual lobster festival and we just happened to be there on one of those spectacular summer days.

Set up on a hillside in the churchyard near the head of harbor, local fisherman's wives were, and had for over fifty years, been preparing for their annual fundraising lobster feed - a bunch of picnic tables with plastic table covers and the atmosphere only a hillside on a harbor on a remote island can offer. Although lobster was the star, the homemade pies made you nod yes please, though your bloated stomach sloshed no way.  I had chosen a pecan pie, and unbeknownst to me, this artist had thrown a handful of chocolate bits into the mix.Yeowza!

The Frenchboro Congregational Church always hosts this event on the second Saturday in August, rain or shine. It benefits the church and outreach programs in the island community including the Historical Society, library and Solid Waste Committee. It's gone mainstream now with live music, a road race, children’s games and other activities.

We stopped by last summer, missed the dinner, but made a donation to the cause. It's a good honest one.

Frenchboro • 8" x 8" acrylic framed to 12" x 12" • $250