The Body Book

This is another unfinished and ongoing recycling project. I saw these remarkable images of body tattoos in a magazine, and knew I wanted to keep them. I clipped them out, and now what to do with them?

I bought a children's board book at the Peninsula Community Thrift Shop for 15 cents. I scraped it and sanded it and painted it. I smoothed some different colors of chalk along the torn edges of the pages. With some acrylic paint backgrounds I now had a place to paste the tattoo images






I love these images of women's bodies ... all shapes and sizes, colors and ages.

Happy Birthday Grandpa

Sending you hugs and kisses, wherever you are now.

This picture was taken a long time ago with one of those old cameras before digital.

Wish you were here with us now, but you're always in our hearts and minds.








Nan asked in the comments 'who was on his back' and also commented on the picture of me on the sidebar. So, here is another old picture ... same man, different child. This one is me. Quite a few years earlier, as you might imagine.

Paper Cranes

On most Saturdays we meet at the Men's Prison for a meditation group. M is a nun in the Tibetan tradition .... we meet in the dining hall with a small group of prisoners. Guards look on, but as yet none have joined us.

We meditate, drink tea and talk ... and fold paper cranes. We started with very large pieces of newspaper because it's easier to fold a large one when first learning. Many of them were set in flight about the hall ... like paper airplanes. We laughed a lot and ate all the cookies.





Over a few weeks, we gradually progressed to smaller and smaller models until the guys became familiar with the folds. They hung the cranes in their rooms when they went back. They don't live in cells here, but in blocks of duplexes scattered about the grounds.

Eventually I became known as "the crane lady"

Enso

The universal enso on my new t-shirt symbolizes enlightenment and oneness with nature. Zenga are the ink paintings and calligraphy of Japanese Zen Buddhist monks from approximately 1600 to the present.

The calligraphy reads:

Pure white birds set against

emerald waters,

Green mountains ablaze

with blooming flowers.

Zen priest, Ed Brown, described how his teacher, Suzuki Roshi, said, "you all are enlightened until you open your mouth"