Posts

Showing posts with the label Japanese flower arrangement

Ikebana: A Journey to the Self, A Sublime Art

-
Image
(Image source: B. Lennart Persson, flickr.com) Ikebana is a noble hobby that involves flowers and everything else in life. It is more than putting some flowers and twigs in a vase. This article explores its philosophy and meaning. The Meaning of Ikebana Ikebana is like meditation; it has a deep spiritual quality to it. The beauty of this art form is that anyone can practise it, and it can become part of our ordinary domestic life, transforming mundanity into something extraordinary. Ikebana means arranging flowers, but the exact meaning is making flowers alive. It has a deep connection with the Buddhist approach to life. Ikebana did not lose its charm for the fair mind, and in a recent book, the author, Yuji Ueno, called it ‘The Zen Way of Flowers’. There is another name for Ikebana that reveals its spiritual undertones- Kado. Kado means the path of flowers. Learning and understanding this art is a profound spiritual journey to undertake. The Origin of Ikebana A Buddhist monk, Ikenobo,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Popular posts from this blog

How Far Away Is a Cancer Vaccine?

-
Image
(image source: Pixabay) A cancer vaccine has always remained elusive for medicine and science. Is this situation changing? Is hope rising over the horizon? The Ovarian Cancer Vaccine According to the latest news , Oxford University scientists have developed a vaccine for ovarian cancer . This vaccine, OvarianVax, when available for use, will be able to teach the immune cells in our body to detect and attack ovarian cancer cells in the early stages of this disease. Prof. Ahmed Ahmed is the leading scientist behind this research.  The trial for this vaccine has started. The importance of this development is that when it is ready, this vaccine might wipe out ovarian cancer. Yet, this vaccine is still years away.  Why Is a Cancer Vaccine Still a Mirage? What is Happening on the Research Front? Catherine J Wu, a cancer scientist, was awarded the prestigious Sjöberg Prize for her contribution to cancer research  in February 2024 . She is a professor of medicine at Harvard...
Read more

Paraman, The Street Violinist: Memory of a Man

-
Image
  (The folk violin of Pulluvas; image source:  Kannanshanmugam,shanmugamstudio, Kollam , Wikipedia) The Village Visitors  Those were times when things were less complex than they now are. We lived in a bucolic countryside where everyone knew everyone else. The only outsiders who frequented the place were visiting relatives, a bunch of regularly appearing street vendors, the postman, the Gurkha (a man from Nepal who would be paid Rs 10 per month by each family for keeping vigil in the village during nights*), and our very own exclusive beggars. We knew them as they made rounds on almost expected dates and times. Paraman’s Song Paraman, the street violinist, had positioned himself between an artist and a beggar. In our culture, the members of the Pulluva community, who made exquisite music using two delightful musical instruments- a single-string local fiddle and a round mud pot with a tight wire wound across it- were the official local musicians. They would come to sing in...
Read more

Travel Plan: A Trip to Understand The Bermuda Triangle

-
Image
  (Image source: grammidistoria.wordpress.com Hi Traveler,  You are a fan of mystery, the inexplicable, and you would love to go probing the geographies, home to such mysteries. For someone like you, the Bermuda Triangle is now not an intangible puzzle. You can visit this region of the sea by entering it from three land masses, which form the three endpoints to the triangle.  The Bermuda Triangle: Basic History and Facts An imaginary triangle drawn connecting Florida, the Bermuda Islands, and Puerto Rico in the North Atlantic Ocean will give you the Bermuda Triangle. The area of this sea stretch is around 1.3 to 3.9 million square kilometres. The exact boundaries of the triangle are not demarcated. Different people at different times set vague definitions of the area under the triangle.    In December 1945, five Navy training aeroplanes navigating the sky above the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean, with 14 men on board, disappeared. A rescue mission was la...
Read more