Restoring an old koto

         

  So I've been meaning to post this for a while. My amazing koto teacher is letting me use her fabulous 6ft koto. It got me interested in looking at kotos on ebay, and I found a good deal for a half size one from a seller in Japan. It arrived on my doorstep in only bubble wrap, and it looked, and smelled not so good, like a really, really old, stale book. Parts of it were broken, and cracked. I didn't want my family to know I bought it, so I hid it, and then, I eventually told my sister, and then everybody found out.

It was not what I was expecting, so I decided to take a chance and give it a make over, and fix several broken cracks. It also did not come with any bridges. I was scared to take off the strings, because I didn't know I could put them back. But with help from my koto teacher, also my sister Bess I was able to re-string it. My koto teacher is very generous, and she also sent me a new set of strings to put on this one---though I decided to wait until the silk strings break to see which koto needs new strings first. I sanded the koto, and painted it. I wasn't going to varnish it at first, because I liked the blond wood, but I thought it might help preserve my painting, and the wood as well.

After fixing this one up, I really appreciate the koto my teacher is letting me use, as mine goes out of tune, really fast.

        I also had the urge to paint a set of wooden bridges, and they look pretty cool on the koto, but I sanded the bottoms of that set too much, so they slide too much. So they are mostly for decoration. 

On a funny note, I was talking to my koto teacher, and told her that I noticed that the koto music I was learning from, looked like the code symbols you see in the matrix movie. So I had to google it, and sure enough, I found that the matrix code is simply just recipes for sushi in Japanese. So if it's raining fish, you know you're seeing the code koto. 

 

        This is how it looked originally. Though it looked a lot greener.

This is the koto sanded. I really liked the blond wood.

Starting to paint it. 

These are some Bridges I painted to look like the seasons. 

        Starting to varnish.

Done!

I had fun writing koji symbols all over the edges, and on the inside. This one means peace.

I wanted to paint a dragon on it, so I painted the back of the koto as well.

I wa

I wrote my name in Japanese, and also the meaning of my name in kanji

Spinning

        Hello.

Well, I haven't posted anything since last year....sooo long.

It only feels like, maybe a week. I have zero concept of time. 

Time? What is that? Something that wouldn't exist without the space in which it occupies.

:)

 

Technically, we just had the Chinese new year, so happy year of the Water rabbit.

And even more odd, yesterday, I just celebrated a Christmas cast party with friends we do our summer plays with. We did Christmas music, and food, and all that.

I had heard that Ukrainians celebrate Christmas twice. 

My Christmas tree is still up. 

And I just made some pine-needle tea from someone's discarded christmas tree, that looked too pretty to leave where we found it. I did even think about putting that one up in our living room. (though if your make your own make sure the variety of pine you use is safe to consume as some can be poisonous. Amazon also has pine needle tea. 

So 

And twice new years, as well.

I'm sure there's a word for someone who extends holidays indefinitely---?

I'm just sitting here, listing to some music on Pandora with my bird, Sophie, perched on my chair, watching me. There was a fun song that first came on, where I felt like dancing, so I got up and did a jig, and Sophie wasn't sure what in the heck I was doing. She stretched her neck out, and looked at me very oddly.

                                    Now drums are sounding. And epic music is now playing, with full orchestra, complete with deep bass voices, high voice, and a choir---I had to check what was playing. Some song called, immortal. Very heroic-sounding, and good.

                                    Sophie seems content. She's got all her feathers proofed out, and I love watching her. Her favorite place is on my lamp. She sits there, fluffs out her feathers and becomes one with the light. She looks quite wise, and phoenix-like with the lamp silhouetting her feathers. The other day, she hopped off my lamp, and landed on my bed, and sat on covers, and peered into my nest of blankets, and we both stared at each other, content in our solitude. Her little eyes, blinking at me as she drifts to sleep, always gives me such delight. She knows when I'm watching her, and giving her attention.

     Now some lovely music has come on, called Ludovico Einaudi, Daniel Hop--time laps is now playing.

                        I drive my family nuts because I love having some sort of music playing the background. Music is something that has always helped me write, and work, and make things feel softer, calmer.

            Sometimes I can't help but wish that life was narrated by music. If it was, you would know exactly what to prepare for, because you would hear the somber music playing, and get the cue to pay attention.

            You'd walk into a room, and David Arkenstone - Solitude's music would be playing. Just from the contemplative sound, you'd know that someone was deep in thought, or sad, or lonely, and you'd just sit. And not say a word, just feel and soak in the feeling of that moment.

            Or you'd hear a fleet of trumpets, or drums sounding as someone was at the door, and you'd know, that someone royal, or full of themselves was wanting an audience.

            Maybe you'd not answer the door.

            Or if blah, elevator music sounded when the phone rang, you know that it was salesman, or a long-winded person you'd rather not chat with. 

            Angry people---oh, the clash, you'd hear so you'd know to stay far away.

            People who's manic mouths are always moving, would have the flight of the bumblebee droning on.

            Scary scenes would have the scraping sound of violin music going.

            Warm summer days, with floating clouds, and little wildflowers would have some classical wandering music softly playing.

            Music makes things much more easy. This was my thought as I was skating today, with music, and enjoying it so much, though the wind was blowing, and it was oh, sooo, cold.  The music made me forget it was cold.

            Today was the first "real" day of getting to ice stake since the weather has been so beautifully good bad, odd.

                        It's been spring one day.

                        Snow.

                        Rain.

                        Sun.    

                        Gray.

                        Blue.

                        Brilliant sunsets.

                        Frost.

                        Fog.

                        Thunder.

                        Wind.

                        And everything in-between.

                        Much like how I've been feeling.

                        But today it finally got cold enough to ice skate. This ice rink has been an interesting venture, as I was determined to even the ground much more than it's been, because it saves on water to have the ground even.

                        So I dug, and dug with a shovel and bucket just a little at a time.

                        It actually paid off, because I didn't have to fill it with quite so much water.

            Who would have thought that a tiny, 50x30foot space could give so much pleasure? It felt especially good. I had some stress in my system that I was able to skate off. I was thinking maybe about not doing the rink this year. But I did. And even if this is the only day I get to skate, I was glad to have put it up.

            Skating is such a flowing meditative art, I always feel myself composing words, and thoughts, and feelings as I slide across the ice. If you were to translate the etches in the ice from my ice-skates, you would hear beautiful thoughts, like a recorded record, etched into the ice.

            If you could find the record player for those grooves, what things you would hear?

            Things written with my feet, and heart. Round, and round, in circles, and eight patterns. Conversations about life, echoes from past years, expansive ideas, the feeling of unfolding.

            Here.

            Poetry of the ice, and the cold, and the winter ground, the sun, and the sky.

 Of the frozen things trapped without a voice.

            These things you would hear.

            It's funny because you would think we would get bored going round, and round the same rink.

            But not so.

            The more you get into the flow of it, you just keep going. It's addicting.

            Yet look at the planets, the earth everything. So many trips around the sun. Spinning. Spinning. Round and round. The world goes.

            Has it stopped once?

            Does it get bored?

            You'd think it would get tired of spinning. Going round and round.

Yet, I am starting to see why we go round, and round the same rink over and over.

Every time you do. Something changes.

You.

You're different.

Every time you spin, there's something else to see.

Something new to feel. The sky is always changing as well.

I just read that a few days ago the earth's core switched directions and started spinning in a new direction. 

Don't ask me who measures these things? It made me wonder....does that mean time shifts? Maybe that's why I'm having second christmas and second new years---what if that means we live our year backwards. Does that mean second thanksgiving, and Halloween? Mind-blown...! Maybe the real christmas was really on January 25th. Now my mind's spinning. Didn't think that until now. 

Anyhow it made me think about how my sister and I skate on the ice.

Bess likes to skate left to right.

I like to skate right to left.

Today we practiced switching around so we could give each other a chance to skate in our preferred direction, because our hips and ankles get sore from skating as we are more used to using different muscles.

We eventually decided a figure eight pattern worked, because it went both directions.

                                                         Round, and round.

                                  Here, the muse of the ice imparts its wisdom.

            Here in whatever space you are, be it big, or little, on ice, or water, or ground,

            our only real task in this life, is to find the unlimited, even while in a limited, mortal-time bound world. Our little life-rink.

            Some of us may be blessed with may opportunities, endless ways to expand, and glide, and swirl, and spin. Maybe your body has great capabilities, unlimited ways of expressing yourself, maybe you can leap, and jump, and twirl.

            Maybe your space is so small, all you can do is go in little loops. Maybe your legs aren't strong, so you have to skate with a walker.

            Maybe it's your first time round, and you are terrified of falling.

            Maybe you've been on the ice many times, maybe you can teach others how to skate.

            Yet, we are all on the ice together. All trying to balance as best we can, and enjoy our trip round the rink.

            We all have our little part to play.

            Our little bit of earth to live on, and learn from.

            Maybe you have a big space, maybe you've skated from one end of the globe to the other.

            Maybe you're like me. Maybe all you have is a 50x30foot space to expand.

            Yet...if that is yours. That's all you need. It's perfect.

            Sometimes, the smaller the arena, the tighter the physical limits, the higher probability you have in finding the limitless inside the limited---to find the real, beyond what we can see, hear, taste and touch.

            To look past everything that is a boundary, and find that there is nothing that your heart and soul can not reach, no place where your soul can not skate.

            It matters very little how many tricks you may learn, and do, your spins, and jumps, and showy costumes. They're all just confetti. And can be quite distracting to yourself, and others.

            What matters...

           The space beyond the space.

            Here, while spinning round, and round, if you're lucky, you might, stumble upon the now moment, even without trying, and find the space between the patterns, and the boundaries of our human condition,  and find ultimate arena, where you feel the unlimited, ever expansive soul of the cosmos.

I made a very dizzyfying video---