There are many people nowadays who go for holiday in seaside places, in resorts on the beach. Many more are moving to the cities determined to work and live there and see the natural beaches only for vacation because of course in such a materialistic world we live today who is going to choose to stay on a beach for 365 days a year. There are commercials about wireless products and laptops which make people believing that yes they can be in control of their job from an island while sipping a fruit cocktail under a palm tree, arent there? But who would stay settled ona beach for years today? Only the ones who are forced to by the events of life, or who are kind of lost in this universe, let’s’ say.

One time in Jamaica i met an old man who was surviving to the poverty by singing raggae and making straw-hats under a tree all the time. Every morning he would stay under the pal tree crossing the straw leaves. His skin was dark and wrinkled, he said to have been good friend with Bob Marley and to have composed music for him during young years. Who knows if it’s true. But he was a good man, quite a symbol of a life-on-the-beach in a central american country of the past years. He could have been a good friend of my grandpa probably who was able to understand the variations of the weather just by looking at the sky in the morning. He was always right, very knowledgeable about nature and time cycles. It is because he was living and working on a beach for 80 years. His wife the same for 95 years. Their daughter, my mother, the same and still now at 52 in the old century house with one kilometer of peaceful beach in front of it. The beach where her two daughters, my sister and I also spent all their childhood, the adolescence and few more years.

Do you really want to know how it feels to have spent 19 years on a beach? See again the picture above. Then ask it to the sound of the sea waves, to the light of the starry sky every night, to the melody of the seagulls early morning, to the cool grey sand  under the naked feet, to the storm coming thru the wind, to the punctual sound of the anchor released just behind the barrier rock in the harbour. All this is only imaginable for the ones who did not live two steps from the sea. Nurturing, always calm and shallow sea. Just like a real father.

Which I wanted to briefly recollect here based on two trips, one in India and one not far from home in Hong Kong. These are the epidemy we love to hear arent they? These artistical injecton of bubbling lovely effort to raise our awareness and our energy levels. To push them higher towards humble and generous goals. To make them touch the souls of all the people around ourselves so that at least they can get a soft glimpse of ho wparadise laws work out. They work out thru love and compassion, thru dance and action.

You know how much i love dancing already. My mom used to tell me all the times when i was about 7: “daughter i am sorry you were born in Italy cause if you were living in Russia now i would have enrolled you right away in a dance school to work out your talent better”. Never mind i took other paths but dance is always in my heart. In the next post i want you to sniff two secrets of one kind of the indian classical dance which i am studying now. stay alert and move your body on the notes&sounds of heaven.

oh mothers! pls dnt be fashionable, nor sexy nor intelligent. we just want you to be yourself, to go deep down into your roots and to know youe mother within. oh mothers! please help us to emancipate this wonderful unique world left. with love, r.

[the picture is a commercialized message to attract the mothers attention in Hong kong city]

It is the same city, the one i am discovering day by day…

As i am writing in the last posts here and here with the most auspicious thought that the Tang living force was awakened in all the branches regarding Chinese lifestyle: politics, economy, art and electronics. i am sure the strenght and power which were truly evident thru the acts and the spirituality of all the men and women <worriors> belonging to this memorable time, can revive now and bring China into a new light and more original perspective.

Verses of the song Kindly translated by my mandarin teacher in Beijin:

SonglingJ it’s a cool tasty song!I generally translate the meaning for u!

jianjiaCang cang    bailu  weishuang

蒹葭苍苍 白露为霜

The plain world,the white dew becomes frost

guangxiu piaopiao   jinzai hefang
广袖飘飘 今在何方

the wide sleeve of the gown wafting,now where the person is

jijing cangsang    jidu panghuang
几经沧桑 几度彷徨

how many up and down in life,how many uncertain events

yiju miaomiao   zhongcheng  juexiang
衣裾渺渺 终成绝响

the clothes only a few,finally disappearing

woyuan chonghui  hantang   zaizou  jiaozhigongshang
我愿重回汉唐 再奏角徵宫商

I want to go back to han tang dynasty,play the instruments again.

zhuowohanjia yishang   xingwoliyizhibang
着我汉家衣裳 兴我礼仪之邦

wearing my han dynasty clothes,revive the polite country

woyuan  chonghui  hantang   zaipushengshi  huazhang
我愿重回汉唐 再谱盛世华章

I want to go back to han tang dynasty,write the great songs again.

heju dangzuqiechang   kanwo huaxia erlang
何惧道阻且长 看我华夏儿郎

no fear of the hard and long road to go,look at the descendants from then.

It is beautiful to see how the design of certain style flourishes in one place and then moves to another one. And people can admire the original feature of the original design truly better in the second place than in the first. It’s fascinating. This is what happened to the buddhist Chinese architecture which originated here in China during the Tang Dinasty and can be nowaday found quite intact in the island of Japan.

There is almost no need to go and seek for informations about this period because the temples speak by themselves. They are charged with silence, dignity and sober beauty. These qualities are certainly the same residing in the ancient Chinese spirit which was moreless lost for all these years. These are the blossoming times and the meaning of strenght and power animating this spirit must come back now.

Calm sea and playful clouds. Bulletin from lunch time in Kowloon side.

A skype talk about urban education and spiritual foundations.

Lui from India: [Hong Kong] it is among the most globalized nation of the world. How is HK in terms of education.

Lei from Hong Kong: not very good actually, static. We shud get there, as yogis i mean. I know several teachers and when they talk i dont feel anything so speacial and enlightened abt their method. So i suppose it s the same as in other countries

Lui from India: but being a free [market] also must have lots of opportunities for growth…

Lei from Hong Kong: yes may be

Lui from India: ok..

Lei from Hong Kong: but the programs for example are the same as in other UNI of other countries

Lui from India: ok tht’s nice.

Lei from Hong Kong: the globalized aspect you can touch it more in the street than in the school

Lui from India: you are absolutely correct. It is the general upscale living and life style…

Lei from Hong Kong: 90% of the people here is local

Lui from India: ok

Lui from India:how about the school.

Lei from Hong Kong: the schools?

Lui from India: ya primary school eduations for kids.

Lei from Hong Kong:some are very chinese , some others international with more teachers from abroad. Kids i heard they are very much pressured. They always have examinations during the year and between the years. I know that coz i talk to the kids in the ashram too. They study hard and have several extra classes

Lui from India: since you can understand the psycho of kids better [saying that because Lei has been a childhood psychologist, n.d.r.]…

Lei from Hong Kong:here kids study ALOT, maybe too much. They start languages, instruments when they are 3 for example. There are plenty of nurseries for this aim.

Lui from India: what is the common stress release for them.

Lei from Hong Kong:not too much time for playing free

Lui from India: hmm

Lei from Hong Kong:i always see them in the street dressed to go to learn something. Their head is too long in the little books. HK also is the first city in the world with the highest rate of music-learning kids.

Lui from India: how does a kid react when they grow up under high pressure.

Lei from Hong Kong: they develop an attitude like they want to learn many many things and apply to a course after another to fill the brain with lots of info.

Lui from India: do they frustrate or some would get involved in other activities to release stress….what do you say.

Lei from Hong Kong:i hear my colleagues talking about their daughters/son, they say the kid is not always happy but a kid should be happy and joyful all the time. But these kids here start to learn the word and the feeling of stress already so young, like it was a normal thing to handle or to cope with. This is not really normal. It’s like they are being prepared to live in a stressed socierty in the future not in a relaxed and enjoable one. Do u think is allright?

Lui from India: yes u are right, but tell me if kids grow up under pressure how do they react when they grow teens, or later…

Lei from Hong Kong:yes i told u they develop an endless desire to fill their brain with info, they learn many things, and probably they are good at them all

Lui from India: ok now we are on the same platform…must be excessive right sided..

Lei from Hong Kong:yes, my co-workers and friends of my age are not happy with learning 2 things for example. They dont want to put limit to this knowledge and they apply to so many classes, and they are like machines; i can see them, they are not relaxed. Always busy studying, learning someting, it’s not positive, i am sure.

Lui from India: it is out of competition or out of learning insincts they behave like these…

Lei from Hong Kong:i dont know, maybe both? many people say because of competition. It becomes a circle in the mind.

Lui from India: but if it is the latter it is better !!!

Lei from Hong Kong:YES

Lui from India: ya, this is why kids cannot enjoy their age now…

Lei from Hong Kong:i also feel they burn so much energy and then later they will not have enough strenght for more important steps

Lui from India: this might result in decling age ratio then.

Lei from Hong Kong:somtimes i felt tempted to apply this and that class but i had to tell myself no, 2 is enough otherwise u ll go crazy. HK is based on the Learning principle, very mind oriented, not spiritual oriented, sorry.

Lui from India: i am completely with you on this…

Lei from Hong Kong: it s created on very fragile foundations, human foundations but the spirit is the most important food for a city.

photocredit

acrylic painting on canvas with use of: semiprecious stones, waterpearls, silk, glitter, paper flowers, cinilla threads - art by radha with fantasy

It was painted during the Holi festival time in March before going to India. My mood was very much already “into colors and powders”, so I wanted to reproduce the festive atmosphere I was going to live with my sisters in few weeks. But my sisters are of a special kind, their skin is quite a magic and can be of any nuance of color. Moreover their eyes are peaceful and meditative, their hair long and shining. They are very close to the angel species if I am allowed to say that. They look like they are floating but probably they are just dancing…This is what I wanted to express in this surreal artwork.

Every morning a black man slave used to wake up and go to work in a cotton plantation. One day he was listening to his friends singing along the road. Those chants were laments of suffering and pain. In their melodies they used to pray and ask god to make them free from slavery and chains.

After many years from the discovery of America the black people were taken from their African villages and put on steamers; they have been sold as slaves to the American landlords. They had to obey and work for them. This is why freedom is such a wonderful thing. They have been treated as animals.

We have to love each other, white and black colour doesn’t matter. He is going to be in big trouble the one who looses his freedom. Men who loose their freedom also loose the dignity of human beings. Today black people are free citizens but it is not always easy to live together with the white ones.

[blog author: 9 years old]