Jan 31 - Celebrate Lunar New Year

The Year of the Horse trots in to begin the Lunar New Year. The Chinese year 4712 starts on Jan. 31, 2014 and continues until the fifteenth, with the brightest moon.

According to Chinese lore, Buddha asked all the animals to meet him on the Lunar New Year. When twelve arrived Buddha named a year after each one. He said that the people born in each animal's year would share some of that animal's personality. 

Individuals born in horse years sport cheerfulness, talent with money and perceptivity. They also reveal wit and talent with their hands. 

For fireworks, people in China used to light bamboo stalks, believing that the crackling flames would frighten evil spirits. Now they have fireworks along the Hong Kong waterfront.

Legend claims, "Nian," a half-dragon, half-lion monster, comes out of hiding and attacks people (especially children) during the Lunar New Year. 

Using firecrackers and wearing red robes will intimidate him because of his sensitive ears and fear of red. 

During the celebration everyone decorates with poems on red paper. Children receive "lucky money" in red envelopes. 

The dragon, made of silk, paper, and bamboo, might stretch a hundred feet long. Held high by young men, the beast moves with them as they dance and guide it through the streets. 

The lantern festival, held on the fifteenth day, features lanterns painted with birds, animals, flowers, zodiac signs, and scenes from legend and history. Individuals hang lanterns in temples, and carry lanterns to an evening parade under the full moon.

Sugary snacks prevail during the festivals. Nian gao (ride pudding), babaofan (eight treasure rice) jau goks (crispy dumplings) and candied fruits and seeds abound.

Take time to celebrate and write about the Year of the Horse.

Write into Vegetables

The Artichoke by Pablo Neruda

The artichoke

With a tender heart

Dressed up like a warrior,

Standing at attention, it built

a helmet.

It remained

Unshakeable,

By its side

The crazy vegetables

Uncurled

Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,

Throbbing bulbs,

In the sub-soil

The carrot

With its red mustaches

Was sleeping,

The grapevine

Hung out to dry its branches

Through which the wine will rise,

The cabbage

Dedicated itself

To trying on skirts,

The oregano

To perfuming the world,

And the sweet

Artichoke

There in the garden,

Dressed like a warrior,

Burnished

Like a proud

Pomegrante.

And one day

Side by side

In big wicker baskets

Walking through the market

To realize their dream

The artichoke army

In formation.

Never was it so military

Like on parade.

The men

In their white shirts

Among the vegetables

Were

The Marshals

Of the artichokes

Lines in close order

Command voices,

And the bang

Of a falling box.

But

Then

Maria

Comes

With her basket

She chooses

An artichoke,

She's not afraid of it.

She examines it, she observes it

Up against the light like it was an egg,

She buys it,

She mixes it up

In her handbag

With a pair of shoes

With a cabbage head and a

Bottle

Of vinegar

Until

She enters the kitchen

And submerges it in a pot.

Thus ends

In peace

This career

Of the armed vegetable

Which is called an artichoke,

Then

Scale by scale,

We strip off

The delicacy

And eat

The peaceful mush

Of its green heart.




Take a stroll through a market's produce section. Think about an artichoke from Neruda's view. Add your perspective. 

   

Discover a vegetable you've never tried. Name it.

How might you address it in an ode?  Would it respond?

Bring in the colors, flavors and comments of other vegetables near it.  


Write about ways you use vegetables in a recipe. 

Add a dash of mystery and fun after writing about shapes, textures and succulence.

Enhance Your Writing!

Add spice and imagery to your writing by avoiding worn out modifiers and phrases.When you write an overused image like blue sky consider what else you could use in sound, scent, taste or texture to pique the reader's curiosity and gain attention.

Notice the difference in imagery:

a broken tool          half a pair of scissors

a rusted car              Cadillac dappled with rust

beautiful woman     woman with a piano player's fingers

quiet day                  even the birds overslept

good friend              tasty as triple chocolate cake

Try these:  summer day, hot morning, wet dress, cheeping bird, frustration, anger, anxiety.

Creative Write:  Where will you go with sensory metaphors today?

Write to Combine the Unlikely

"Behind the cotton wool of daily life is hidden a pattern; all human beings are connected with this.  The whole world is a work of art."    - Virginia Woolf

Try three unlikely combinations and see where they lead in your writing.

Use an automobile, a force of nature, and a cookbook   Let a telephone,  turtle, and emerald collaborate.  

What will you do with a radio, a chess piece, and pumpkin pie?  

Combine a tuba, fish pond, and Snoopy.

Choose three other items that might trigger unlikely reactions.  

Let a story or poem emerge.

Nature's Moments Moved into Words

When a moment of awe arouses a reverence for nature, the next level requires an expression in words.

Discover life's thrills in sensory details. When you observe, squint and refocus. Look up and around. Listen to drizzle and wind. Pay attention to textures when using fingertips on surfaces.

Use your nose like a Bloodhound and breathe in to tickle the nostrils with scents. Let your arms feel changes in temperature.

Notice what surrounds the object you’re viewing.

Ask questions in the abstract and answer them in imagery.

Life astonishes (in what ways?).  In the flash of reflections blurred in blue and purple feathers.

Nature stimulates curiosity (reveal it).  A bee invites an adventure. Search inside the labyrinth of petals.

How would you communicate admiration and respect without using those words?

Find reverence in a moment that takes your breath away or makes 

you stop and ponder.

Revel and write about life's mysteries. 

Aloha āhui hou

How does one leave a location?                
A vacation          

where the mind
has sorted,
settled
and soothed itself
immersed
on an island
of pikake and plumeria



that float
on trade winds
where waves rustled past lava
and green turtles ambled
to shore.

Where the texture
of coral and sand
collated with colors,
flashed at each turn
during a beach stroll.

The mind
dazed
hummed a
tune
long forgotten
until
retrieved in wonder.

Ukeleles strummed while black bees on lilies tinted the air.

Chants of the ancients
                        slanted from the palms
                                        released into the sea.

To pass the time at ease in the ocean spray:  E nanea i ka 'etukai 

A celebrated place of awakening and growth:   A 'o kēia ka wahi pana e ho'āla a ho'oulu iā 'oe

The heart rested
in a nest
of serenity.

One felt no
recall of distress
or a worried
thought.



A blast of rain
tasted magenta.

Time removed its
       racing shoes
  without a rush
          to finish
                   anything.

     
     Reminders

Hali’a Aloha
         Fond recall

                                  The sun relented to twilight.

Stars expanded in flower and sky.

Memories dwell 

   in

      flashes

           of firelight.

Only relaxation remains.

Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles

The sea turtles swam, over 180 million years ago, before the Hawaiian Islands formed. When Christopher Columbus adventured through the Caribbean in 1503, he named three islands Las Tortugas because of the prevalence of green sea turtles. 

The Hawaiian green sea turtle (chelonia mydas) feeds on marine plants in coastal waters throughout the Islands. The turtles eat algae growing underwater on coral reefs and on rocks in shallow waters. The upper shell (carapace) of the adult turtle shines with olive or gold flecks. 

The green turtles, called honu, received their name from the color of body fat. The honu grows to 200 pounds or more. Every two to five years, the adult honu migrates hundreds of miles to mate and nest in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands at isolated French Frigate Shoals.

Early Hawaiians used green turtles for food, tools, and decoration. After western cultural contact, the level of turtle exploitation increased. In 1978, the Hawaiian green turtle found a place on the list of threatened species.

Turtle fables abound in all cultures. A turtle represents creation, endurance, strength, cunning, longevity, and stability. Turtles provide happiness, protection and good fortune.


The turtle’s shell figures in many tales. Zeus invited a turtle to a party. When she declined the invitation and said, "There's no place like home," he put her house on her back. 

In China a turtle shell formed the vault of the heavens. Vishnu, the Hindu god, changed into a turtle's shape to carry the world on his back. 

For Native Americans the world rides on the back of a giant sea turtle.

An African legend tells of the leopard who built a drum that everyone can hear. He will not permit anyone to try the drum, not even the Sky-God. Angered at this behavior, the Sky-God announces that anyone who can bring leopard's drum to him will receive a reward for teaching the leopard a lesson about his greedy, disrespectful ways. Then the Sky-God waits.

The elephant, monkey and tiger try to get the drum but the leopard scares them away. Finally, the tortoise steps up. The animals laugh and tease her because of her size and soft shell.

She proceeds anyway and tricks leopard by telling him his drum looks only middle-sized, but nice. She says that the Sky-God can climb inside his drum and not be seen at all.

The leopard brags that he can climb into his drum and not be seen, too. When he squeezes himself completely into the drum, the tortoise seals it with a cooking pot. She drags the drum to the place where the Sky-God waits. He laughs at the lesson that the little tortoise has taught a big, bragging leopard.

As a reward the Sky-God presents her with the strong, hard shell that the tortoise wears to this day.

Sea turtles have poor eyesight and cannot use visual clues to find their way. Experiments have shown some turtles can detect differences in the angle and intensity of the earth’s magnetic fields. 

Scientists theorize that turtles follow each region’s magnetic pull to find their way back to birth beaches. They have a built-in global positioning system.

Celebrate a turtle in words today!

Creative Write:  Write a fable or poem about a turtle and its qualities.