46\u00a0 bar falls 29.96\u00a03mph\u00a0NNW dewpoint 25<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Gibbous Moon of Winds<\/p>\n
Last night the moon of winds cast shadows on our yard, elongated dogwoods, thick oak trunks and thin lines of multiple raspberry canes.\u00a0 This point in the seasonal change is delicate.\u00a0 Thin ice forms a lattice over the snow while tiny drops of water gather along the roof line ready to plummet the final distance to the earth.\u00a0 Snow and grass play encirclement with grass spreading outward from trees and shrubs while the snow holds its own over the lawn, the hills and prairie grass.\u00a0 Here there daubs of photosynthetic green have begun to appear.\u00a0 Rosemary beneath the steps.\u00a0 Tufts of grass up close to the house.\u00a0 It is a gradual change for the moment, but soon the earth will leap and shout, fly flags of bright colors and clothe\u00a0itself again in verdant splendor.<\/p>\n
Tour today with students, 6th graders, from a Muslim school in Fridley.\u00a0 As near as I could tell, the kids were mostly Somalia, all born here, but there parents emigrated.\u00a0 I had the boys, David Fortney had the girls.\u00a0 We circled each other for half an hour in the Islamic gallery as these children drank in the physical objects of their cultures, linking themselves to the Seljuk Turks, the Safavid Persians and the Mughals of India.\u00a0 After half an hour we went into the Weber Collection (Japanese traveling exhibition).\u00a0 I asked them to become tea masters selecting objects for a tea ceremony for persons unfamiliar with Japanese art.<\/p>\n
We saw Hotei reach for the moon\u00a0and a Zen monk’s ordination festival.\u00a0 We learned wabi from the Negoro ware with its faded red lacquer, worn and used; we learned sabi from the tea wares, especially the lumpy and imperfect mizusashi.\u00a0 I read them a Daoist poem and its conversion into a Buddhist poem by the extraction of only one line, spun downward in a flowing cursive script.\u00a0 Time went fast and at the end they picked objects for their tea ceremony:\u00a0 8 Views of Xiao and Xiang, the delicate miniature Song dynasty-like landscape, the Negoro spoon, the tea caddy with a silk cover, Oribe teaware and a few dishes for tea food.\u00a0 Then we were done.<\/p>\n
Afterward I copied and copied and copied, even to the end of the toner cartridge, material on Chinese bronzes.\u00a0 I have a tour on Saturday that will focus only on our Chinese bronzes.\u00a0 I chose them because I wanted to go deeper into the world of early Chinese dynasties like the Shang and the Chou and the Han.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
46\u00a0 bar falls 29.96\u00a03mph\u00a0NNW dewpoint 25 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Gibbous Moon of Winds Last night the moon of winds cast shadows on our yard, elongated dogwoods, thick oak trunks and thin lines of multiple raspberry canes.\u00a0 This point in the seasonal change is delicate.\u00a0 Thin ice forms a lattice over the snow while tiny drops of … Continue reading Tea Master for a Day<\/span>