Lunar New Year Postcard 2011 (Side B), 6/52, BlackBerry 52 – WEEK 6, February 7th 2011, photo © 2011 by A~Lotus. All rights reserved. Medium: E-Postcard created using MS Word 2007, Adobe Acrobat, & Adobe Photoshop CS2. Photo taken on Canon PowerShot A550. Digital Collage (Side B): Text by Lotus, clipart of lanterns from MS Word 2007, Lotus icon: from oceancurrents, QuoinMonkey icon: Chartres Cathedral labyrinth from inside the front cover of Alice Walker’s The Same River Twice.
I was delighted to receive this digital postcard collage from Lotus last night. It’s the BlackBerry 52 Jump-Off for Week 6, and the inspiration for whatever response rises to the top by the end of the day on Sunday.
Dear Lotus,
I’d love to know more about your experience of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration. I am a Moonchild, and after receiving your card, I researched a little bit about Tết Nguyên Đán (also known as Tết). I wonder if it ever came up in the comments on ybonesy’s many posts about her journeys to Vietnam.
I read that the Lunar New Year falls on the New Moon, the first day of the first month of the Lunar calendar (around late January or early February), and is the same day as the Chinese New Year. Yet according to the Vietnamese Community of Minnesota site, 2011 is The Year of the Cat; for the Chinese, it is The Year of the Rabbit. It must be a season that has to hold both.
With two cats on the couch and a resident rabbit in the yard, I’d be happy to honor either. I did happen to be in San Francisco one year for the Chinese New Year. We stood on Market Street and watched the parade. It was a wonderful evening full of bright color and light. I wonder what happened to those photographs.
Lunar New Year Postcard 2011 (Side A), 6/52, BlackBerry 52 – WEEK 6, February 7th 2011, photo © 2011 by A~Lotus. All rights reserved. Medium: E-Postcard created using MS Word 2007, Adobe Acrobat, & Adobe Photoshop CS2. Photo taken on Canon PowerShot A550. (Side A): Origami paper, glue, & masking tape. Origami by A~Lotus (Chrysanthemum Kusudama model by Tomoka Fuse).
Your origami is beautiful. How did you come to it as an art form? And the weather. In Texas, an unexpected blizzard on Super Bowl weekend. In Minnesota, -11 last night to be followed by dips into the 40’s next week. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t mention the weather in my journal. Peeling the onion. Do the layers ever stop unwinding? Whatever it is that lies at the core, I have never stopped seeking.
Thank you for your postcard,
QM
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We will continue our call and response by posting a BlackBerry photo for the 52 weeks of 2011. Feel free to join us if you wish (learn about the project’s beginnings at BlackBerry 52 Collaboration). To read more about Lotus, visit her at alotus_poetry on Twitter (where she writes poetry every day in community with other Twitter poets), at Poetry By Lotus, and on her Flickr account.
-related to posts: Best Of BlackBerry 365 — First Quarter SlideShow, BlackBerry 365 Project — White Winter Squirrel, Flying Solo — Dragonfly In Yellow Rain, Searching For Stillness, icicle tumbleweed (haiga) — 2/52, The Mirado Black Warrior, The Dying Art Of Letterwriting (Postcards From The Edge)
-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, February 10th, 2011
QM,
I’m in and out of school assignments, NaHaiWriMo, the BB52 Collaboration, and of course, catching up with sleep and life. I can’t believe how I have to play catch up for the past couple of weeks now. I’m really hoping to finish my response (5/52) and post it to my Flickr set as soon as possible (and that way you can have it in your gallery as well). Haven’t gotten a chance to work on it yet so that’s why you got my 6/52 with the e-postcard above so you can get started. 🙂 I’m so happy to know that you enjoyed the postcard. I wonder if I can print it out on card stock, but unfortunately I don’t have a color printer…
The Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration is wonderful. My family hasn’t celebrated much of it for the past several years now because we all have busy lives revolving around work, school, church, and transportation. Nevertheless, we do honor such customs such as visiting our relatives, wishing them a good new year and giving them gifts such as rice, Vietnamese fruits and cakes/sweets. There is also lucky money involved too. The adults give money in this fancy red envelopes to the kids. Of course, the money inside is what all the kids want, but I collect those red envelopes. I still have some somewhere in my closet. 😛 I don’t know if Yb has mentioned Tet in her travels to Vietnam either, but I’m sure she may have encountered it.
The Chinese and Vietnamese Lunar calendar is the same, but I have no idea why years like 2011 has both the cat and the rabbit. It’ll be interesting to research why it is so. And yes, for the Vietnamese, it’s the cat, and the Chinese, the rabbit. I too have a lurking wild rabbit in my backyard nibbling in our vegetable garden.
I want to go to a festival or attend a parade again and see dragon dances, fireworks, and the drums. I miss those. Celebrations like this are indeed bright and lively! Next year, I plan to go to one, so I’ll definitely post photos of it and share it with you and everyone else. 🙂
I remember I first encountered origami when I was about 5-6 years old. My first one was a water bomb, then it was a frog. Then later when I was older, it was a heart, crane, and lily. For me, I’d always loved patterns and symmetry, both of which are reflected in my writing, art and life. Patterns and symbols are everywhere, so I find meaning in them. Same thing with dreams, or the meaning of a person’s words. Origami is similar to having a blank sheet of paper and turning it into something that breathes, the way poetry is, the way art is.
Brrr! I can’t imagine how cold it is in Minnesota! My mother used to live there when she was in her late teens and early 20’s before she got married and moved down here to Texas. I would really love to go up there someday and see real snow! 🙂 It’s the same for me too; I talk about the weather all the time!
“Peeling the onion. Do the layers ever stop unwinding? Whatever it is that lies at the core, I have never stopped seeking.”
Spoken beautifully, like a sage. I love it, and it’s so true!
Blessings,
Lotus
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A~Lotus, a beautiful postcard and your comment is beautiful as well with the details of celebrating the lunar new year.
About the snow, it looks better in pictures than it does in person especially if you must live in it for months at a time, but I understand the fascination.
Happy New Year to you and your family.
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Lotus, I don’t know how you do it all. I totally understand. I took some much needed quiet time to myself this weekend and am just getting back to it. We may go to the Walker today to Yves Klein, a neo-Dada artist whose work is there. I will think of your Jump-Off when we view the show. And see what comes tonight!
Thanks for the info on the Vietnamese New Year. I enjoyed reading it. When I was in San Francisco for the Chinese New Year, there was a huge Dragon winding down the street at the beginning of the parade. I loved it. And so much RED. I’ve always been fond of red. Soon I will be looking for my next pair of red glasses frames. 8)
Patterns and symbols are important. And the way that they play into cultural and daily rituals. I can see them in your work. Your origami is beautiful. I’ve never been very good at art that requires high spatial aptitude. I don’t think in 3-D very well which is why I think I became a photographer. My horoscope today told me to pay attention to the symbols in my dreams tonight. To keep a pad and pen by the bed and remind myself to wake up when the dream appears and write the symbols down. I will try to do so.
I had forgotten that you said your mother lived in Minnesota for a time. I think you may have mentioned it at one point on red Ravine. If you ever come back here to visit, let’s meet. I’ll take you around to all the sites, we can visit the museums. What are your mother’s memories of Minnesota? Was it too cold for her? I bet she has a few good stories of her time here. It is a good place to live, but the Winters are long and cold. And the summers humid and hot. I do love it here though. One thing about Texas, it’s just right down I-35 and lots of Minnesotans make the trip to Texas, same the other way around.
I will look forward to your piece whenever you have a moment to complete it. Life can be crazy sometimes. It’s hard to find the space to slow down. Take good care this week!
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[…] reading the Lunar New Year postcard from Lotus (her BlackBerry52 Jump-Off for Week 6), I started to think about how we don’t know each other […]
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A~Lotus,
Your work always delights me 🙂 And what a great and lovely idea of sending a digital postcard – much more personal than an email!
Your origami collage is fantastic – are those blossoms real? You’ve really captured your spirit in this – if you were a collage, I’d imagine you like this 🙂
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your desription of how you celebrate the New Year. I love the idea of the red envelopes and you still having them 🙂 You also reminded me of how important it is to honor and celebrate occasions such as this; they really do hold families together. In Scotland, we have a late dinner with all the family on Hogmanay (new years eve) and then toast the Bells at the stroke of midnight. We then sing a few songs and await the arrival of the ‘first foot’ (the first person through the door after midnight) who MUST be tall and dark, carrying a lump of coal (so we’ll always be warm), black bun and shortbread (so we’ll never go hungry), and a bottle of spirits (preferably whisky!) I remember one year when my mum wouldn’t allow my sister’s boyfriend to ‘first foot’ us because he had red hair and wasn’t carrying a bottle! The poor boy had to sit on the step for about half an hour until a more suitable ‘first foot’ arrived!
This year, just after midnight, I looked out of my window and saw around 50 chinese lanterns floating over the woods. People had been setting them off from their back gardens – two cultures coming together…
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[…] Waning Moon (Haiga) by Lotus is a response to the BlackBerry 52 Jump-Off Skip Rocks Not Breakfast – 7/52. It is a beautiful testament to the Vietnamese New Year and relates to her piece Lunar New Year Postcard and the comments on Celebrating The Lunar New Year — Postcard From A Friend. […]
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[…] to posts: Waning Moon (Haiga), A Warm Game Of Texas Hold ‘Em (haiga) — 6/52, Celebrating The Lunar New Year — Postcard From A Friend, Flying Solo — Dragonfly In Yellow Rain, The Mirado Black Warrior, icicle tumbleweed (haiga) […]
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