Marie Bortolotto Artist 2024

 

Biwa Hoshi - Japanese Troubadour
 

 Ancient Japanese Bronze Bells

Marie Bortolotto Art 2024

 

Japanese Kabuki
 

Marie Bortolotto 2024

 

Marie Bortolotto 2024

 

walking
on holy ground
- daily pilgrimage

- Marie Bortolotto

Let It Go, Ride the Wind - Taoist Philosophy

Marie Bortolotto Artist



riding the wind
I rest on a park bench
children's laughter

- Marie Bortolotto

from Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns

Living in Seclusion, Sitting in Silence

Living in seclusion, one can simply do as one
pleases,

With a single text, one can forget oneself for
a while.

The daylight hours—how much time is there
really?

Why then do I not exert myself?

Although the ancients are long gone,
their wisdom must still be grasped.

From the empty eaves, water keeps on
dripping,

From the censer, ashes fall marking the time.

This mood always brings me great pleasure,

As with both hands, I clasp my book tightly.

What a pity it is that ordinary people of the world
know not this intimacy with the words of
the wise!

 

 

Marie Bortolotto

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 “I love, therefore I am.” 

 - Robert Graves 

 

"Your life is precious.
Use it as an altar towards what you love."

- Sophie Strand, Author of The Flowering Wand.

 

Primordial Voices, Marie Bortolotto Artist 2024

 

Composting a Life
by Marie Bortolotto

Without warning

the tower
toppled

brick
upon
brick

helter-skelter

mirrored
by stars 

in
the
midnight
sky.

 

Ruins 

for
desert
scavengers

and 

archeologists
of memory

who dig

sift

puzzle
over

bones 

of
dead
voices 

beneath
the goddess
of the sun's

luminous gaze:

she
who
waits 

for you --

she
who
sees 

through

the succulent lips

of
your
thorny
cacti

into 

the fungal-rich soils

of

your

buried


Aliveness.

Marie Bortolotto

That Wondrous Star

She is that bright and wondrous star
forever raised above the great wide sea
of this world, sparkling with merit,
a shining guide.

O voyager, whoever you may be,
when you find yourself in stormy seas
in danger of foundering in the tempests
and far from land, lest you sink and drown,
fix your eyes on this bright star; call out to her

Follow her and you will never lose your way.
Appeal to her and you will never lose hope.
Think of her always and you will never stray.
With her holding you, you cannot fall.
With her protection, you cannot fear.
When she leads, you cannot tire.
With her grace you will come safely
through to journey’s end.
Then you will know for yourself
why she bears the name “Star of the Sea.”

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – 1153)

 

 

Marie Bortolotto

 

Ongaku Masters - Japanese Sacred Music - The Distant Calling of Deer

 Ongaku Masters - Japanese Sacred Music

 

walking through
a whirlwind of cherry blossoms
pink tears

-Haiku by Marie Bortolotto

Artwork by Marie Bortolotto

Poems by Santoka Taneda

today again,
soaking wet
I walk on an unknown road

 

there is nothing else I can do;
I walk on and on

 

my heart is weary —
the mountains, the sea
are too beautiful

the breeze from the mountains
in the wind bell
makes me want to live

 

alone
listening
to a woodpecker

 

picking
the nameless flower
I offer it to buddha

 

all day long I said nothing
the sound of the waves

 

alone, I watch the moon
sink behind the mountain

 

just as it is --
it rains, I get wet, I walk

 

No path but this one --
I walk alone

 

Kisagotami

A child dead.
And a mad search for a magic seed.

It’s a story as old as dust.

Brave up, my sisters.

The day will come
when you run
from house
to house.

People will meet you at the door,
look you in the eye,
and they won’t let you in.

I’m sorry, they’ll say.
But we can’t help you.

Listen.

When everyone you love is gone,
when everything you have
has been taken away,
you’ll find the Path
waiting
underneath
every rock
on the
road.

These are the words of Kisagotami.

from Matty Weingast’s book: The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns

Marie Bortolotto



The clear water sparkles like crystal,
You can see through it easily, right to the bottom.
My mind is free from every thought,
Nothing in the myriad realms can move it.
Since it cannot be wantonly roused,
Forever and forever it will stay unchanged.
When you have learned to know in this way,
You will know there is no inside or out!'

-Han-Shan

 

Seclusion is happiness for one who is content;
who has heard the Dhamma and clearly sees.

Freedom from ill-will is happiness in the world,
for one harmless towards living beings.

Dispassion is happiness in regard to the world,
for one transcending all sense desires.

But the dispelling of the conceit ‘I am’
~ this is truly the highest happiness.

Buddha: Udana 2.1 

 

Marie Bortolotto Art

 

All is Full of Love - Bjork

Spring is arriving in Western Canada. All is full of Love!

 

 

 

walking meditation; a helicopter circles overhead
cutting through

- Haiku by Marie Bortolotto 

 

 

Art by Marie Bortolotto

Sumana ~ Flowering Jasmine

Walk through
the mind
all day
and
all night.

When you find
each thought
ending
right
where
it began—

here your circling ends.

 

Tissa ~ The Third

Why stay here
in your little
dungeon?
If you really want
to be free,
make
every
thought
a thought of freedom.
Break your chains.
Tear down the walls.
Then walk the world a free woman.

 

-from Matty Weingast’s book: The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns

Marie Bortolotto 2024

 

Marie Bortolotto 2024

 

 "When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object."

- Milan Kundera, Czech/French novelist

 Inspired by Cave Art Paintings of Lascaux

Marie Bortolotto Artist 2024

 Inspired by Cave Art Paintings of Lascaux

Marie Bortolotto Artist

 

"What surrounds us here and now is not guaranteed. It could just as well not exist -- and so man constructs poetry out of the remnants found in ruins."

Czeslaw Milosz, The Witness of Poetry