asakiyume: (yaksa)
Happy mid-Autumn festival, one day late! Please enjoy this Google doodle that was only shown to people in East Asia. In the United States Google was busy urging us to register to vote.

It was a lovely harvest moon--with a bite taken out of it in these parts, due to a partial lunar eclipse. Like a ghostly version of the moon cakes made in its honor.

Some time ago I learned how to ask questions using "Why" in Tikuna. I gave some sample questions (Why is the cat happy? Why are you tired?) and my tutor went to town, giving me *lots* of why questions. There was a theme...

Why don't you listen?
Why don't you listen to your grandparents when they want to give you advice?
Why don't you pay attention to your parents?
Why did you go without telling me?
Why don't you want to?
Why don't you want to eat?

There were others that didn't fit the theme, but those were so salient! I had a feeling these were things my tutor had heard a lot. If I memorize those, I will know how to nag a teenager in Tikuna ;-)

Recently my college-aged nephew was at my house, helping me smash hickory nuts. We smashed enough to get a cup of nutmeats, and then we made a hickory nut shortbread, yum. I sent a picture of my nephew to my tutor, who remarked that he was cute. I said he was two years younger than she is, just twenty years old. "Veinte añitos!" she said, "Waooo!" --I like that Spanish can do that: turn years (años) into cute little years (añitos). Twenty cute little years. Twenty adorable years. Twenty yearlets.
asakiyume: (feathers on the line)
We went to a lookout above the Quabbin Reservoir to face east for the first day of the new year. The first light, many minutes before sunrise, lit up a crack in the baleful sky.

New Years sunrise 2024 648 (2)

As it grew lighter, the waning gibbous moon glowed brighter.

New Years  2024 gibbous moon 655 am

Wakanomori turned his back on the colors to admire the moon.

S against presunrise sky 2024 Jan 1 656 am

The sun was as discreet as a Heian lady, just the hems of her brightness peeking from beneath the clouds' screens.

New Years sunrise 2024 710 am peak pink

There was evidence fairies had been at the lookout earlier, enjoying takeout.

fairy takeout New Years morning 2024

I posted that picture on Instagram, and [personal profile] amaebi said she had her doubts about whether the L&Ms were part of the takeout. [personal profile] wakanomori agreed: he thinks fairies probably roll their own. [personal profile] amaebi suggested sweet clover and Corsican mint, which I told her was a combination I could be induced to try.

Come find me
smoking sweet clover and mint
at the lookout point
asakiyume: (squirrel eye star)
A moonflower is like a morning glory, but it opens in the evening and blooms through the night. It's very fragrant. In Japanese they're yūgao (夕顔), "evening faces." In Genji Monogatari, the woman called Yūgao gets one of the most exciting stories--attacked by a jealous spirit of one of Genji's other lovers. Genji actually draws a sword and everything! (This is remarkable because mainly men in Genji Monogatari don't get any more active than slipping into women's sleeping quarters or taking walks.)

Here is a moonflower in the evening, preparing to open:

moonflower bud beginning to open

Here it is, later in the evening, unfurling

moonflower unfurling

moonflower unfurling

another )

And here is the moon, a night before full, at 3 am

hazy moon

And the moonflower (this time taken with a flash), fully open

moonflower (3 am) fully unfurled



asakiyume: (squirrel eye star)
I heard something on the radio this morning, a story I don't remember any details about, but it used both the words "contentment" and "complacency," and since then, I've been asking everyone (well, three people):

How do you tell the difference between contentment and complacency?

I'm not asking for the dictionary definitions of them--I know what they both mean--but both from the inside (in other words, if it's yourself and your feelings you're talking about) and from the outside (if you're talking about other people and your perceptions of them), how do you know the difference?

In other news, I made a tumblr for quotes from Sphene in Ancillary Mercy. I haven't yet filled it up with all the quotes, but I've got a good bunch. It's at Ancillary Sphene. I hope to make a picture, too, of Sphene and Translator Zeiat at their game.

In other, other news, if it's nighttime where you are (as it is for me) and not overcast, you can take a look at the moon and all its craters and mountains in high relief, because the sun is shining on it slantwise. I got the idea to look from a two-days-ago broadcast of Strange Universe.

All right then... see you around the Internet.


asakiyume: (squirrel eye star)







The full moon is a golden coin at the bottom of night's pocket, and the black tree branches are the seam of the pocket.

The gibbous moon is an egg, in the nest of the night hen. Her black feathers are speckled with white stars.

The half moon is a thimble on the black finger of night.

The crescent moon is a fingernail from that same finger.


asakiyume: (squirrel eye star)






Yesterday I neglected to post what happened on August 25 in Pen Pal, so I will tell you today. Kaya's memories took a dark turn:

I won’t write more just now. I don’t like recalling those next hours and days. If I start to, the memories spring to life too real, too vivid.

. . . On a more pleasant note, what is your favorite lunar body of water?

Here is a handy list to choose from. I think I like the Sea of Vapors and the Ocean of Storms. The lakes are also good: there is a Lake of Autumn, and for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, a Lake of Spring, and also lakes of perseverance and forgetfulness. There is a Marsh of Epidemics and a Bay of Rainbows.


Crop of this photo, by Olga Gladysheva


asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)






Yesterday The Writer's Almanac featured the poem "Summer Night," by Connie Wanek. I was transfixed by the first image:

The street lamp looks down;
it has dropped something
and spends the whole night
searching around its feet.


The light it has dropped illuminates its feet, but the street lamp sees only grass and asphalt and senses that this is not what it's searching for.


Street Lamp 2 by ANDYWPHOTO on Flickr.

Also yesterday, I saw a loneflower:

loneflower

The outbuilding's roof has collapsed and one wall has crumbled, but the sentinel doesn't abandon the post. In time the loneflower will hang its head . . . it will be searching around its feet for something.

And [livejournal.com profile] yamamanama saw a performance of A Midsummer's Night Dream in which a player played the moon by wielding a cane. The moon with a cane. The moon, puttin' on the Ritz . . .

the moon walking with a cane 1

PS, and unrelated, but I love it, so: The Boy Who Cried Wolves


asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)
After working all day, tonight, when it was all soft and dark out, and the breeze felt pleasantly cool, the forest creatures and I went out to look at the fireflies, or the moon, or both.

It ended up being both--the fireflies spangling the fields on one side of the road, pure magic, and the moon the color of lemon custard and bright as a candle flame above the other.

--okay but here's what I've been thinking about. It's because of getting all these extra immunizations to go to East Timor. Immunizations and prophylactic medicines: they're like wards. I feel like the medical establishment is laying spell upon spell upon me: "Now you will be able to walk through flames and over scorpions, and you will emerge unscathed." (Except really what they said was, "You know this typhoid shot is only 80 percent effective, so be careful of what you eat" but even so. Eighty out of one hundred typhoid scorpions will not sting me.)

But I can't help thinking, What about everyone who lives there all the time? I bet they're not on prophylactic doxycycline all their lives. They have to just rely on mosquito nets and bug spray to keep away malaria. Or, y'know, they just get it. And same with all the other ailments. But I get to waltz covered in wards. Oh: and whatever germs I might be carrying with me from New England, they're certainly not warded against. ... I shall try not to breathe on people.

catalpa wands: blossoms threaded on grass
DSCN3681

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