Tanabata – Conscience-weaving under Summer Stars
by Terry Boardman May 1998 The Tanabata (or “Loom”) Festival has grown greatly in popularity since the end of World War II. In 1996 the first All Japan Tanabata Summit was held in Sendai when representatives from 25 municipalities which hold Tanabata festivals got together to discuss the significance of the festival in Japanese history and its future development. One of the five traditional yearly sekku, and first celebrated at court in 691, the festival is based on an ancient legend which has acquired all...
read moreJapan’s Crisis and Opportunity : Fukushima (Island of Good Fortune)
by Terry Boardman This article first appeared in New View magazine Spring 2011 By next year, I realise that a sixth of my life will have been spent in Japan ; it is a land, a society and culture for which I feel great gratitude and with which I am very familiar. Japan and its people taught me to love nature, to meditate, and the value of hard work and many other things too numerous to mention. I spent most of my 20s there, the years of my youthful and impressionable heart. It was with real sadness and shock therefore...
read more“Where Is My Home? Truth Prevails” – A Journey to the Heart of Europe
Terry Boardman 2009 This essay first appeared in New View magazine Issue 54 Winter 2009/10 Pravda vít?zí (“Truth prevails” – The official motto of the Czech Republic) Kde domov m?j (“Where is my home?” - The Czech national anthem) A secretive sun – this is the phrase that comes to mind when I think of Prague, a city of open secrets. The heart can be radiant; with its inner chambers it can also be secretive and alluring. The Czech lands and their capital are in the heart of Europe. Prague...
read moreWhat’s Going On in the Muslim World in 2011?
Soon after the outbreak of civil disturbances in Egypt in January 2011, on the well-known alternative news website www.prisonplanet.com run by Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson declared that what had been going on in Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen and now Egypt was "a cry for freedom [that] threatens to derail the new world order agenda". The 'Global Awakening' that Zbigniew Brzezinski (the USA political strategist) feared has arrived, he announced...
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