Life   of   Tara 

   Spring has come

    07/04/2012

　（病から回復して、タラの春を楽しみながら作業しています）

   Spring has come at last. Wild daffodils are in full bloom at
  Tara.
   However I have been suffering severe pain in my throat these
  past few days. Even when I swallowed spit, I had great pain
  in my throat. And my body temperature showed 39 degrees
  Celsius. Apparently, I had an acute severe bronchitis. Therefore,
  I had no choice but to take a long rest in order to recover
  completely. I went to the hospital and got antibiotic drugs.
  Though high temperature decreased, my physical situation
  never recovered soon.
   Now, I have got better than before but my condition has not
  still been normal. What does this situation mean? That provably
  means that I got old and was not able to recover earlier than
  before. However I have come to feel better day by day.
  There are a lot of works to do at Tara in spring. That is, I have
  to clean rooms of Tara completely because a lot of dust, pollen
  and puff entered into Tara by spring storm. If I left the dust just
  as it is, various harmful insects would invade the room.
  Furthermore, I have to clean weeds and shrubs around Tara
  because yellow hornets and snakes become easy to appear
  from among the bush. At any rate, I have to come back to the
  former life without overworking myself.

    Marilyn Monroe's face

    06/03/2012

　　（タラ書棚のマリリンモンロー写真集から）

   One day, I watched a woman enka singer talking on TV in the
  morning. Her background was introduced on that TV. I watched
  her photo which was taken when she started her life as a singer

  at the age of seventeen. Her face in those days looked cheap

  and rustic. She is forty-three years old now. I was very interested

  in the difference of her face between her seventeen and forties.

  Her present face has apparently become vivid as a famous singer
  different from her teenager’s face.
   When I watched that face on TV, I recollected Marilyn Monroe’s
  face. There are a lot of books at Tara. Members of Tara brought
  these books. Among them, there has been a photography book
  of Marilyn Monroe. Her face in her prime was sophisticated
  and vivid. By contrast, her teenager’s face was unsophisticated
  and could not be recognized like her beautiful face which was

  realized when she became a famous actress.
   So, I think that a person, in a sense, grows toward his or her
  original or true personality if he or she came to be exposed
  clearly to ordinary people and was valued at one’s true worth.
  For ordinary people, a beautiful actress should be an existence
  that entertains them with her sexual beauty. That is why an
  actress and ordinary people do collaborative work. Marilyn
  Monroe also traced the same road. Wherever she appeared,
  there have been the face and body which ordinary people
  wanted to find out.
   We cannot say that she has been at the mercy of ordinary
  people and has been driven to her death because she had lost
  original herself. Her face and body have been gazed at by
  many people and have been matured by their eyes.
  And by that fact, she had been able to realize her original value. 

    Chanting from Tara

    17/02/2012

　（冬の青空に広がる古代インドの朗唱）

  It has been cold today as ever. However I enjoy a panoramic
 view from Tara. Sky is clear despite cold wind. I don’t have to
  work hard at Tara during winter. So, I study Sanskrit at a sunny
  spot in Tara.

   Asato mah sad gamaya
   Tamaso mah jyotir gamaya
   Mrtyor mah-amrtam gamaya

   < Lead me to the existence from nothingness.

      Lead me to the light from the darkness
      Lead me to immortality from death. >
      
  This is a famous passage written in Sanskrit from
  Brhadahranyaka Upanisad (The thought of blessing). I chant
  these words of Sanskrit in a woody room of Tara.
   I think chanting is a free and natural action for human beings
  since ancient times.

    To pray is to chant words.

    I chant Holy words.
    Holy words circulate through my body
    And fly out of the body.
    Holy words reverberate throughout woods around Tara.
    Holy words echo over hills
    And are released into the clear sky.

   A shining inhabitant in the woods

    02/02/2012

　（光り輝くボエチカ住人！若者よ、来たれ！）

   I found a young evergreen tree shining at the hill behind Tara.
  That spot faces north. So, the sunshine doesn’t almost reach
  there. Nevertheless, a seed fallen there grew as a young
  evergreen tree. It sprouted young green leaves while I didn’t
  know. And it shines vividly toward the sunshine entering there
  a little. The young evergreen tree seems to be ‘Sudajii’
  (Castanopsis sieboldii).
   I want to name that young tree a shining inhabitant in the woods.
  I explained it as inhabitant. That is because I think that a spirit
  of wood is dancing there in response to the sunshine.
  Though it is the height of winter now, I feel the atmosphere of
  spring at that young plant.
   But animals and insects are still hiding somewhere.
   And how are the human inhabitants there? There have been
  more than a dozen dairy farmers in this farm ever. But now
  there are only three dairy farmers. All of them got old.
  Furthermore, they may have almost no successors. And that, I also

  have been barely able to maintain Taranomeann.

   However I hope that a younger appears and follows in our footsteps

  sometime.
   By the way, I recollect that I had found the word of
  ‘hikarikagayaku boechika jumin (the shining inhabitants of Boetika),
  in a book. That is a wonderful word. They seem to be inhabitants
  like people who live in the square of Polan described by Kenji
  Miyazawa. Such shining young men as inhabitants of Polan!
   Come to Tara! And make advance toward the human future!
   I don’t know when such a day will come true.
   However we, old men, have to get through this cold winter
   while aiming at such a day.
   Having such hope, I was gazing at the shining leaves of
   young ‘Sudajii’ for a while.

  The brocken

    18/01/2012

　（たらの芽庵の山並みは、昔北アルプスで見たブロッケンを

　　思い出します。それは神秘に満ちたものでした。）

    When I have a view of faraway mountains from Tara, sometimes I
  recollect the Brocken phenomenon which I had ever come across

  at the North Alps . The Brocken phenomenon was so named from

  often seeing in Mt.Brocken in Germany.
   About 40years ago, I climbed the North Alps of Japan with my
  friend. When I arrived at the hut near a summit around 4:00 p.m.,
  I placed the rucksack and climbed the summit alone.
   The summit was fine weather without even clouds. The sound
  of a motor of a hut can be heard from the bottom. When I was
  looking at the sky on the summit, clouds like a head of giraffe
  appeared beyond far. Next, round clouds appeared in right-hand
  side of giraffe, and it became the figure of a brilliant swan.
  I was moved deeply and involuntarily raised voice. I thought
  whether my friend of the lower hut would also look at this
  wonderful scene.   
   However, strangely, I did not hear the sound of a motor of the
  mountain hut at all. When I admire still a swan, the cloud of a
  swan gradually approaches towards me. And clouds become
  in pieces on the way, and a man is standing there. 
   The man rode on clouds and approached me. I became fearful,
  and ran down from the mountain. The sky is pitch-black in no
  time. I turned around and took a photo.
   I returned to the mountain hut and told a friend about the
  phenomenon. He answered to me. It was a Brocken. There was
  rarely a case that a Brocken was gradually approaching the
  person who watched it.
   It was a really mystical and wonderful experience though a Brocken

  was explained scientifically.
   This photo is a copy of the photo that I took while turning around
  back at that time. The Brocken went over my head like fog.
  That is why the photo fades.

     
        Tara in winter

    12/01/201

　（冬はタラの室内の日だまりで、ゆっくり作業をします）

   It was the coldest day this morning in this year. The temperature
  showed minus one degree Celsius and the water of the bucket
  in my garden froze hard.
   At the time like this, in the area around Tara, it is colder than
  the area around my house because Tara is situated on the top
  of hill. The car might slip when the road froze because the slope
  there is very steep. Tara has a sunken hearth, Irori. The late
  union president in the dairy firm around Tara bought a pothook,
  Jizaikagi, and a big pot, Nabe, for us. So we used to cook hot
  pot dishes around the sunken hearth.
   However, recently there are few people who visit Tara.
  Furthermore, I came not to be interested in eating a lot of foods.
   The warm light of the sun in winter enters into the whole room
  of Tara. Therefore I don’t fire the sunken hearth and I relax in
  a sunny spot. There are few works in Tara of winter because
  I don’t have to work for mowing like in summer or for raking up
  fallen leaves like in autumn.
   Thus I can enjoy the warm light of the sun fully at Tara in winter.

      

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