Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Shadow Thoughts


Inspiration from two photos of a friend taken of himself on a beautiful outing in San Diego...  Took me quite a while before the idea was able to be committed on paper.


1 池中近天影 Closer to the heavens is a shadow upon the pond,
2 騰雲心緒靜 Soaring through the clouds my mood is at peace.
3 離恨莫愁湖 Regrets left in the Lake of No Sorrows,
4 九霄世外迎 Welcome to the realm beyond this mortal world.

3 離恨 leaving regrets. 莫愁湖 is used to denote a place without worries or sadness. There is a real lake by this name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochou_Lake
This line can be interpreted in other ways as there are no prepositions or other syntactic sugar to help along.

4 九霄 – Ninth Heaven. It was believed that there are nine layers of heaven and by extension, the abode of heavenly immortals. There are earthly immortals who do not live in heaven but on the Immortal Isles in the Eastern Ocean. Thus, they are not directly controlled by Heaven and be less restrictive in their comings and goings. 
For example, unless it is on official business, visitation to the mortal realm is strictly forbidden.  There are many stories of them breaking this law and be punished severely.  It is now used to mean the highest or the furthest of reaches.  


Sunday, June 06, 2021
Wednesday, July 14, 2021





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