IKEBANA : The Japanese Art of Flower Arrangement : A Small Write-Up About This Mesmermerizing Art-Form Follows The Following Group Of Pictures. Please Don't Miss it. :)
As a youngster during my high school, undergrad & masters days, I was extremely fond of flower-arrangement ; Any kind of flower-arrangement would immediately mesmerize me, then & there.
I always kept looking around here, there & everywhere for rare opportunities to hone my passion & display my skills, in many kinds of this art-form of flower-arrangements. This includes, even the amazingly beautiful art-form of 'flower-Rangolee' of India.
I have stayed along the length & breadth of this vast, expansive, colourful & vibrant Indian Subcontinent, and am feeling very blissful right now, writing here in my personal Blog, that the 'Great God' was always very kind & generous to me, in this particular matter, and always blessed me with enough of opportunities for practising, honing & displaying my skills in this divinely beautiful art-form, in major public-gatherings, like 'The Corps Day of The Indian Armed Forces Medical Corps', Navaratna Oil Giant ONGC's Annual 'Flower-Shows' & flower- arrangements, during the visits of dignitaries in various places on various occassions, & so forth.
Whether I excelled in the art of flower-arrangement or not, it perhaps didn't matter to me that much, in those youthful days. It was simply a joy for me, passionately practising this art-form. It was at least like meditation for me, if not anything else.
This doesn't mean, that I never liked genuine complements & at times also flattery from others, every now & then. The complements & flattery, that I was showered with, every now & then, only motivated me even more, to improve my skill & participate more in special events. As being self-motivated & self-driven all the time too is no jokes.
One needs real Will-Power, Soul-Force & some powerful Atma-Balam, for being self-driven & self-motivated all the time, without any extrenal help. And I was perhaps not so spiritually evolved either then, to be blessed with such mighty divine powers.
Not that I am very evolved now, at this ripe age, after so many decades of leaving those youthful days behind :) Even today, I am still a struggling aspirant in Spiritual-Path, trying to find my way to reach the 'Ultimate-Truth', insanely struggling at every step.
Spiritual Path is without a shade of doubt, 'A Razor-Path', as my beloved Gurudev Swami Sivananda Saraswathi often mentions in his Spiritual Discourses.
Wish Gurudev was present today physically on this Earth-plane, to guide & spiritually motivate, struggling aspirants like me. In the year 1963, Swami Sivananda Saraswathi made up His mind, to get merged with the 'Divine' ' The All-Powerful-Almighty' permanently, eternally. Perhhaps, he must have silently felt, that he had lived enough on this Earth-Plane, and the time was right for him to depart from here, bidding Final Good-Bye to us, struggling toddlers, leaving us behind on the same 'Plane of Existence' itself. I was a very small school kid then.
Anyway, even in the absence of His Mighty Physical Presence today, I feel there is a Subtle-Power inside me, that is guiding me very sincerely, in many of my efforts, very silently. And I sometimes wonder, if it's my dear Gurudev, who is helping me silently, in his own subtle ways !!!
Now, let's come down to the original topic of flower-arrangement, for which the foundation stone for this Blogpost was laid.
I adored the fine-art of flower-arrangement, no doubt. But none of the flower arranging styles anywhere, ever impressed me & touched my soul, as much as the 'Ikebana Flower Arrangement Style' of the extremely creative Japanese homemakers. Life itself is an Fin-eart for the unusually creative Japanese folks. Would simply love to pick up this beautiful art-form, even now at this ripe age, when my life has almost come to an end, given an opportunity.
As a youngster during my high school, undergrad & masters days, I was extremely fond of flower-arrangement ; Any kind of flower-arrangement would immediately mesmerize me, then & there.
I always kept looking around here, there & everywhere for rare opportunities to hone my passion & display my skills, in many kinds of this art-form of flower-arrangements. This includes, even the amazingly beautiful art-form of 'flower-Rangolee' of India.
I have stayed along the length & breadth of this vast, expansive, colourful & vibrant Indian Subcontinent, and am feeling very blissful right now, writing here in my personal Blog, that the 'Great God' was always very kind & generous to me, in this particular matter, and always blessed me with enough of opportunities for practising, honing & displaying my skills in this divinely beautiful art-form, in major public-gatherings, like 'The Corps Day of The Indian Armed Forces Medical Corps', Navaratna Oil Giant ONGC's Annual 'Flower-Shows' & flower- arrangements, during the visits of dignitaries in various places on various occassions, & so forth.
Whether I excelled in the art of flower-arrangement or not, it perhaps didn't matter to me that much, in those youthful days. It was simply a joy for me, passionately practising this art-form. It was at least like meditation for me, if not anything else.
This doesn't mean, that I never liked genuine complements & at times also flattery from others, every now & then. The complements & flattery, that I was showered with, every now & then, only motivated me even more, to improve my skill & participate more in special events. As being self-motivated & self-driven all the time too is no jokes.
One needs real Will-Power, Soul-Force & some powerful Atma-Balam, for being self-driven & self-motivated all the time, without any extrenal help. And I was perhaps not so spiritually evolved either then, to be blessed with such mighty divine powers.
Not that I am very evolved now, at this ripe age, after so many decades of leaving those youthful days behind :) Even today, I am still a struggling aspirant in Spiritual-Path, trying to find my way to reach the 'Ultimate-Truth', insanely struggling at every step.
Spiritual Path is without a shade of doubt, 'A Razor-Path', as my beloved Gurudev Swami Sivananda Saraswathi often mentions in his Spiritual Discourses.
Wish Gurudev was present today physically on this Earth-plane, to guide & spiritually motivate, struggling aspirants like me. In the year 1963, Swami Sivananda Saraswathi made up His mind, to get merged with the 'Divine' ' The All-Powerful-Almighty' permanently, eternally. Perhhaps, he must have silently felt, that he had lived enough on this Earth-Plane, and the time was right for him to depart from here, bidding Final Good-Bye to us, struggling toddlers, leaving us behind on the same 'Plane of Existence' itself. I was a very small school kid then.
Anyway, even in the absence of His Mighty Physical Presence today, I feel there is a Subtle-Power inside me, that is guiding me very sincerely, in many of my efforts, very silently. And I sometimes wonder, if it's my dear Gurudev, who is helping me silently, in his own subtle ways !!!
Now, let's come down to the original topic of flower-arrangement, for which the foundation stone for this Blogpost was laid.
I adored the fine-art of flower-arrangement, no doubt. But none of the flower arranging styles anywhere, ever impressed me & touched my soul, as much as the 'Ikebana Flower Arrangement Style' of the extremely creative Japanese homemakers. Life itself is an Fin-eart for the unusually creative Japanese folks. Would simply love to pick up this beautiful art-form, even now at this ripe age, when my life has almost come to an end, given an opportunity.
Japanese
Doll-Making is yet another beautiful craft, that I just missed learning,
from one of my mom's extremely creative, talented & dear friend in Cal (Today's Kolkata ), Mrs.
Shyamala Ganapathi. This chirpy & chatty lady, was one hell of a
powerhouse of this lovely Japanese art-form, & had frequent exhibitions of hand-made dolls those days, in the once British-occuppied city of Cal, attracting big crowd. She told me once, that she had picked up this doll-making art, in Guwahati, when her dear hubby was employed there.
Will never ever be able to trace today, some of the wonderful people, with extremely rare to find talents, who crossed my path, over the years, in the journey of life, during my stay across the length & bread of this unusually vast, and culturally rich Indian Subcontinent ; even though today , Social-Networking-Sites, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ etc are a big rave around the globe.
Unfortunately many people today around the globe, who are otherwise unusually brilliant, creative & talented in multifarious fields of human endeavour, are not computer-savvy & internet- savvy, to exploit these Mighty-Powers, to shine even more in their respective fields ; I mean 'The Wonders of this 21st Century Planet'. And I really wish, Social-Media -Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ , Linkedin, Pinterest, YouTube, Blogger & many others in the field, take this point of mine, expressed in the last stanza , very seriously & help the world even more.
-------------------
Disclaimer :
"These inspiring & amazingly beautiful 'Images' on top, featured in this Blogpost, are the sole properties of their sole owners. My deepest sense of gratitude to all of them, I mean to him, or her ,or of any gender, for making this small write-up a reality. If the inclusion of these inspiring 'Images' in this Blogpost is unacceptable to the actual owners, & they do not want their pictures anywhere here, the 'Brilliant Creative Souls' may kindly send me a message with the details and the link to the picture, and I will remove the pictures right away. Unfortunately I was unable to discover the name of the creators, the Great World-Wide-Web ( WWW ) being full of Copy-Cats of all kinds, like me. Didn't want to put the wrong name of the creator either. That would have been total injustice to the real artist. But I MUST, MUST admit before the Whole-Wide-World ( WWW ), that these 'Images' were indeed great inspiration for me, to begin this Blogpost:) :) "
Will never ever be able to trace today, some of the wonderful people, with extremely rare to find talents, who crossed my path, over the years, in the journey of life, during my stay across the length & bread of this unusually vast, and culturally rich Indian Subcontinent ; even though today , Social-Networking-Sites, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ etc are a big rave around the globe.
Unfortunately many people today around the globe, who are otherwise unusually brilliant, creative & talented in multifarious fields of human endeavour, are not computer-savvy & internet- savvy, to exploit these Mighty-Powers, to shine even more in their respective fields ; I mean 'The Wonders of this 21st Century Planet'. And I really wish, Social-Media -Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ , Linkedin, Pinterest, YouTube, Blogger & many others in the field, take this point of mine, expressed in the last stanza , very seriously & help the world even more.
-------------------
Disclaimer :
"These inspiring & amazingly beautiful 'Images' on top, featured in this Blogpost, are the sole properties of their sole owners. My deepest sense of gratitude to all of them, I mean to him, or her ,or of any gender, for making this small write-up a reality. If the inclusion of these inspiring 'Images' in this Blogpost is unacceptable to the actual owners, & they do not want their pictures anywhere here, the 'Brilliant Creative Souls' may kindly send me a message with the details and the link to the picture, and I will remove the pictures right away. Unfortunately I was unable to discover the name of the creators, the Great World-Wide-Web ( WWW ) being full of Copy-Cats of all kinds, like me. Didn't want to put the wrong name of the creator either. That would have been total injustice to the real artist. But I MUST, MUST admit before the Whole-Wide-World ( WWW ), that these 'Images' were indeed great inspiration for me, to begin this Blogpost:) :) "
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