Daily Archives: March 27, 2008

Cinema and Television

The Mourning Forest

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25  bar rises 30.14 0mph N dewpoint 10

          Waning Gibbous Moon of Winds

Naomi Kawase is a 37 year old Japanese filmmaker.  This was the first film of hers that I have seen and it’s powerful.  It won the Grand Prix at Cannes this year.

The film approaches the question of mourning with delicacy, but directness.  A young woman, newly hired as a caregiver at a nursing home, develops a relationship with a difficult man, Shigeki-san.  Their relationships proceeds through many levels, but reaches its climax after her car breaks down while she has him on a day trip.  She leaves to get help and he wanders off. 

She finds him in a watermelon patch and he runs away from her into the forest.  He will not turn back and she becomes desparate, responsible for him, but unable to turn him back toward the car.  Over a day and a half he leads her on his quest to find his wife’s grave.  When he does find it, both have a revelation about their own mourning.  He digs a hole and says he is “going to sleep in the earth.”

She lost her son not long before and has been enclosed in her grief, but her experience with Shigeki-san forces her out of her shell and back into the sensations of life. 

Worth seeing if you can catch it.

Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality, General

Double Checking Enlightenment

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38  bar falls 30.06 5mph NNE dewpoint 9 Spring

            Waning Gibbous Moon of Winds

a clip from the Groveland e-wire 

E-Wire, Vol. 13, March 27, 2008    Last Sunday’s Service    Groveland UU:  St. Paul 

It’s always a treat to hear our old friend, the Rev. Charles Ellis. Last Sunday, Charlie offered a wide-ranging, in-depth presentation on transcendentalism.

While focusing on Emerson, Charlie interwove threads from Des Cartes, Kant, Freud, Jung, Thoreau, Channing, Parker, and other intellectual and spiritual leaders who have influenced Unitarian-Universalism.

The discussion that followed touched on important topics of interest such as the interplay between individualism and community.

We’re grateful to Charlie for deepening our understanding of both transcendentalism and our UU heritage.

Continue to knock items off my list.  The generator folks will come out on Tuesday at 10:00 AM to give us a bid on a natural gas generator.  Finalized information for the Headwater’s UU bulletin.  Reviewed my tour outline for the two Weber public tours I have tomorrow.  I also read the relevant chapters in the Tale of Genji, the one’s that relate to the two screen painting that I will use.  In addition I double-checked on the meaning of enlightenment and found that I had it right after all.  Never hurts to look one more time.

Tonight I’m going into the Walker for a movie, “The Mourning.”  I made a pledge to myself a year ago that I would get to more of the Walker events since that’s a place where they shine.  Got tickets to 4 movies this month and April. It’s a start.

General

A Nice Note from Groveland UU

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E-Wire, Vol. 13, March 27, 2008      Last Sunday’s Service Charlie Ellis It’s always a treat to hear our old friend, the Rev. Charles Ellis. Last Sunday, Charlie offered a wide-ranging, in-depth presentation on transcendentalism. While focusing on Emerson, Charlie interwove threads from Des Cartes, Kant, Freud, Jung, Thoreau, Channing, Parker, and other intellectual and spiritual leaders who have influenced Unitarian-Universalism.  The discussion that followed touched on important topics of interest such as the interplay between individualism and community.  We’re grateful to Charlie for deepening our understanding of both transcendentalism and our UU heritage.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, General

Making Room for New Work

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34  bar steady 30.10 3mph NNE dewpoint 10 Spring

               Waning Gibbous Moon of Winds

“Our power is in our ability to decide.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

Since long ago college days, I have found primary life guidance from the existentalist perspective.  The existentialists believed, as do I, that we are responsible for our actions and always have a choice.  I know there are Buddhists and cognitive scientists who might differ with seeming clarity of the I in this case and, even, with the notion of free will it implies. Who knows? They may be right.  Until they convince me, (a circular notion if you think about it) I will continue to act as if I am acting.

Kate and I had our business meeting at the IHOP nearby.  Gourmet breakfasts for seniors.  Omlettes and pancakes.  Yum.  After concluding that we’ve done well of late, except for that excess in Hawai’i, we drove to Wells Fargo Bank where I got a medallion seal on a letter to Vanguard adding Kate to my account and putting the assets of the account in our living trust.  We set up the trust last October and I’m glad we’ve both lived long enough to finish moving our assets into it.

Ever since Monday I’ve been on a tear, getting this and that done.  Got a loan.  Got the beneficiary stuff completed.  Filed tax stuff.  Cleaned out my in-box.  Sent an e-mail to Headwaters Parish about my upcoming preaching assignment there on April 13th.  Set up the hydroponics and am into the third chapter of the large Permaculture Design book by Bill Molison.

All this deck clearing provides, eventually, room for new work.  Perhaps a novel, certainly outdoor work later this month, more reading in Taoism and art history.  Whatever.