Sharing Beauty and Peace

To dear Val and my dear readers,
I apologize you for my long, long absence from this blog and also I would like to express my gratitude to Val for allowing me to keep writing my part here.  As Val mentioned in her post, I created another blog in Japanese in April, although I have not been able to update it yet, due to a family problem.  The main reason I started the Japanese blog is to share the concept of "Beautify and Pacify", FACE TO FACE.

Sharing positive thoughts and viewpoints is valuable, especially in this confusing world.
Having read all of Val's recent posts, I really reaffirm my connections with her.  I found myself nodding my head as I read each post.  Beauty and Peace ARE always here, in an every single thing we do in our everyday life, and it depends on ourselves whether if we find them and enjoy them or not.  I really feel them through taking care of my mother who has been in the hospital.
As Val and Nancy say, every choice we make IS the key to make our world beautiful and peaceful.
I hope to continue to move on to our/my purpose, both on this blog and on my Japanese blog.

*****

Lastly, I would like to share some photos with you from an event called Children's Day (or sometimes Boy's Festival) in Japan, which is held on May 5th.  It was for celebrating boys but now it has become a day to celebrate children in general.  The event has already passed and though my photos are not timely, I did tell you I would talk about it just before I took my long absense, so I'm glad to be able to share these photos here.

On Children's Day, dolls for boys (patterns after warriors and heroes) are set up (abpve photo).
Also, if you come to Japan in May, you will see carp streamers  everywhere, flying in the blue sky.  Carp have the strength to swim up waterfalls. So, from ancient times, parents have prayed for the success of their children in life.  Traditionally, the event was for boys, but towards girls or boys, the thoughts of moms and dads have been the same: Happiness, good health and success... They all come from their deep LOVE!!!

Sachi

Good morning, 2014!

Really, what am I doing with this blog!? Seriously, have I skipped my Merry Christmas wishes? Not that I have forgotten, but, Life has its ways, life happens, life has turns and tricks. Recently I was stopped in my tracks, by mere chance, and forced to realize how much time had passed, how many things I had dropped, neglected, avoided, abandonned, bypassed...Well, you get the idea.
Yet this blog means a lot to me, because I share it with a dear friend, because I have met great people out there in cyberspace, because I have plans and ideas for rubrics and things I want to write about.
I hope I get more regular and prolific in 2014, not because I have to, but because I want to. I also want to thank the sweet girls who left comments here on this blog. Because sometimes it means sooo much, else you end up wondering why the hell you should write in a vast, empty, silent, void space. Comments make it real, they make it human and heartwarming! Thanks again!
And to you all, have a wonderful year 2014. Mainly I will wish you the things I wish for myself: love, health, a sense of novelty and energy renewed, news plans and projects, beautiful discoveries and peace along the way, a true connection with Nature,  a re-connection with your artistic self . And freedom (something I will elaborate on in a next post, something that has to do with a certain state of mind). There, all new year wishes for you and me! :) Plus, all the things you dream about.
Here's to a great year together, crafting, reading, thinking, commenting. Here's to starting afresh!

Making a dried flower wreath

I posted this in my other blog steps to the sky, but I would like to share this here too.

I hope you can enjoy her beautiful photos. Photos are universal language, aren't they?:) 

I have often visited the blog "Nature's 工房 -晶- " since I had happened to find it.

That photos are all beautiful and the wreaths she makes are full of purity, 

tenderness and warmth goes without saying of course,

however, what caught me the most is the owner's strong sense of love for nature

and her warm thoughts of protecting the earth.

Besides, the fact that her favorites (Ms.Venesia and Ms. Rachel Carlson)

are the same as mine is one of the reasons that I have visited her occasionally.

Last Saturday, I participated in her work-shop at Cafe Slow Gallery, 

and learned how to make a dried flower wreath.

I wanted express my love of nature, with a sense of protecting our earth like her,

but oh my! I failed to make a wreath like hers with a sense of clarity.

I'll challenge myself again, maybe using the flowers and leaves from my tiny garden.

Apart from the disappointing result, it was really nice to finally meet her face to face.

In the event space at Cafe Slow, I looked at an exhibition 

through which some young art students expressed their feelings 

after visiting Fukushima following the disaster March.11, 2011.

 I chatted with two of the exhibitors for a while.

One of them told me that he felt some distance among people 

who live far away from Fukushima;

he sensed a different feeling between the people 

who live far away from Fukushima and the people who live in Fukushima.

In his work he expressed the difference by making two life-sized boys;

 one of them has a placard written "No"(to nuclear energy) and the other has "Yes".

Oh, I should have taken some pictures of their works.I'm sorry for the lack of the pictures.

Somehow, it was so encouraging to me to know there are young people

who have visited the field and caught a sense of the need 

to express their feelings for the sake of a better future. 

After all it's each of them and each of us who possess the ability

to change our world into a beautiful and peaceful place.

Protecting our planet

I am so glad to know that Val met a lovely family and that her daughter became friends with their daughter.  In the world of the Internet, one click gives us various windows on the world, and if we want, it also gives us the chance to make friends with people all over the world. What a fascinating modern age we are living in right now!

I have thought about using this great tool for world peace for years.  Actually, the reason why I started blogging was because I desired to be some help, even in a small way, to further world peace.  I know that there are many blogs/homepages that have culitvated gathering voices hoping for world peace already and there are many people who support world peace.

Wishing for world peace and healing the earth together...

The other day, one of my friends told me about an article that she happen to read.  

According to her, the message in the article was suggesting that people all over the world pray to heal the earth, at the same time together.  The procedure of the pray is as follows:

1. Imagine a perfect and healthy earth.

2. Imagine the earth full of green, and all of our families full of happiness.

3. Bless the earth for ten minutes.

4. Do it for about ten minutes at 22:00 every day.

The message also appeals to people by the following message:  We are all members of a spaceship called "Mother Earth".  Each of us has different beliefs, culture, and religion.  However, everyone has the same four DNA base structures of ATCG.  We all have the same feelings of happiness or sadness.  At the core, we are all one!  So fighting each other is absurd!  It is sad to see our Mother Earth (our home) being hurt and destroyed.  That is why the earth healing project has been started.

I think this prayer is worth doing.

The weather this summer here was totally abnormal; not only this summer and not only Japan, also the weather throughout the year, all over the world, has been abnormal!  I feel a sense of crisis and some sense of responsibility as a human-being.

As Val mentioned in her previous post, we mothers wish for our children's happiness, now and forever.  

My daughter is a grown-up already, but I still worry about her a lot and it seems that the worrying never ends.  So I wish for world peace and a healthy earth from the bottom of my heart.  Therefore, I have decided to do this earth healing prayer for about ten minutes at 22:00.

Protecting our ocean...

I would also like to share this TED DVD with you.

Her presentation is one of those that urged me to do something to protect our planet.  I strongly feel that now is the time that more people strongly desire world peace and to protect our planet with a unified voice.

Expanding our worlds...

Internet is a most fascinating thing.
Like in real life, the web is full of vanity; like in real life, it is full of beauty.
When I first started looking into the blogging world more particularly, I was searching for precise information. I was in a phase of intense learning on how to cook better, how to organize my home more efficiently. And I googled some key words.
And I stumbled/came across a few blogs, and I started reading instead of only collecting information.
And I started enjoying some of these blogs as much as I loved consulting web sites.
I started visiting a few of them, regularly.
And I became fond of them.
And I became fond of blogging people.
And I became friends with Sachi. 
Our true friendship expanded into another blog, Beautify Pacify.
I discovered different people, different lives, different countries. So different, yet so alike.
There are a few blogs I check on regularly, and Kristel's is one of them. 
She is so talented and does all sorts of beautiful things, I love her blog.
Recently we did a swap, and this swap lead to our daughters corresponding together.
And oh this morning, my daughter received a letter from Kristel's sweet daughter, with the most beautiful little gift inside: Kristel has already used a fabric I sent her, and as I knew she would, she came up with an exquisite creation and even sent a part of it back!

This piece of fabric came from my ancestors. I don't like keeping objects for the sake of keeping them, when I know these things can be better off somewhere else, in someone else's hands. Kristel has proved me right on that point!

There are so many ways the blogging world, like the real world, can enrich and expand our lives.
This is something I didn't know a few years back.
I am glad I know it now.