I'm re-posting this story:

The Rainmaker

A story told by Richard Wilhelm, Chinese scholar and theologian to Carl Jung:

In the ancient Chinese province of Kiaochou there was a drought so severe that many people and animals were dying. All the religious leaders attempted to solicit relief from their gods: the Catholics made processions, the Protestants said their prayers, and the Chinese fired guns to frighten away the demons of the drought. Finally, out of desperation, the town’s people called upon the Rainmaker, and from a province far away there appeared a shriveled up, old man. The old man immediately requested a small hut on the outskirts of town, where he locked himself up for three days and nights in solitude, and then, on the fourth day, it rained. In fact, it snowed at a time when snow was not expected.

Wilhelm, who was allowed to interview the Rainmaker, asked him how he made the rain, and the old man responded by exclaiming that he did not make the rain, that he was not responsible! Not satisfied with this response, Wilhelm pressed on, “Then what did you do for these three days?” And the old man explained that he had come from another province where things were in order with nature, but here, in Kiaochou, things were out of order, and so he himself was also out of order. Thus, it took three days to regain "tao" and then naturally, the rain came.

Marie Bortolotto Art

 

 

city faces

symphony of buddhas

passing by

poem-image 
by Marie Bortolotto 2026

Art Marie Bortolotto

Marie Bortolotto Art -- spring blossoms -- mixed media on paper

© 2026 Marie Bortolotto

 

M. Bortolotto Art

 Faith's Hymm

 

soon demolished! 
house porch buddha
 laughs at day’s end

poem-image by Marie Bortolotto

Marie Bortolotto Art

singing to the Heart of Water 

Red Rain (by Peter Gabriel)

 
Do not say, “It is morning,” and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. 
See it for the first time as a new-born child that has no name.

~ Tagore (1861 - 1941)

 
"Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction."

~ Rumi

She Who

eyes of fish
, translucent

seeing through ourselves
she grows watery succulents
where thoughts once were

all around, ocean of air 
she who breathes through
ourselves, re-membering
imagination mirrored


~ M. Bortolotto

 

Om Pūrṇamadah Pūrṇamidam Pūrṇāt Pūrṇamudacyate, 
Pūrṇasya Pūrṇamādāya Pūrṇamevāvaśiṣyate.

"That is whole, this is whole. From wholeness, wholeness comes forth. Taking wholeness from wholeness, wholeness remains."

 
"I believed that I wanted to be a poet, 
but deep down I just wanted to be a poem."

- Jaime Gil de Biedma (1929 - 1990) Spanish Poet

Marie Bortolotto Art

...how to see with the eyes of a pilgrim poet?

New book in progress:


Eyes of a Pilgrim Poet
A Book of Minimalist Poem-Images
by Marie Bortolotto

Books on Amazon

Gaiea Sanskrit

 

 

Marie Bortolotto Art

Long seeking it through others,
I was far from reaching it.
Now I go by myself;
I meet it everywhere.
It is just I myself,
And I am not itself.
Understanding this way
I can be as I am.

Dongshan Liangjie (807–869 CE)

Now Available

Haiku in the Time of Winterberries
New and selected Poem-Images

by Marie Bortolotto

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

Haiku in the Time of Winterberries is a book of new and selected poem-images by visual artist and poet Marie Bortolotto, in which she views haiku not only as an ever-evolving literary genre but also as a creative mindfulness practice. Dropping the rules of traditional Japanese haiku, she writes in a modern Western style to express “haiku moments” of heightened awareness in the here and now. Similar to her previous books, Haiku in the Time of Winterberries offers a window into quiet contemplation, inspiring us to cultivate curiosity and responsiveness toward the world around us to experience deeper truths, beauty and meaning.

“Why are you unhappy?
Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, 
and of everything you do, is for yourself
—and there isn’t one.” 

- Wei Wu Wei (1895–1986)

The Edge

by Robert Creely, American Poet (1926 - 2005)

Long over whatever edge,

backward a false distance,

here and now, sentiment —

to begin again, forfeit

in whatever sense an end,

to give up thought of it —

hanging on to the weather’s edge,

hope, a sufficiency, thinking

of love’s accident, this

long way come with no purpose,

face again, changing,

these hands, feet, beyond me,

coming home, an intersection,

crossing of one and many,

having all, having nothing —

Feeling thought, heart, head

generalities, all abstract —

no place for me or mine —

I take the world and lose it,

miss it, misplace it,

put it back or try to, can’t

find it, fool it, even feel it.

The snow from a high sky,

grey, floats down to me softly.

This must be the edge

of being before the thought of it

blurs it, can only try to recall it.

Marie Bortolotto Art

 

This place is a dream
only a sleeper considers it real.

Then death comes like dawn,
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought was your grief.

But there's a difference with this dream.
Everything's cruel and unconscious
done in the illusion of the present world,
all that does not fade away at the death-waking.

It stays.
and it must be interpreted.

-- Rumi (1207 - 1273)
(translated by Coleman Barks - The Essential Rumi)

Marie Bortolotto Art

 

 
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, 
nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” 

— The Lorax by Dr Seuss

Marie Bortolotto

Toshi Tsuchitori plays ancient Japanese Bronze Bells

Urban Jungle
by Marie Bortolotto

Wild-mouthed, a dog whines in swelling octaves.
A garbage truck crouches over its prey.
Squabbling children, a sullen breeze hovers,
then swoops. Round and round, 
a red and white bicycle wheel whirls.
All is full of love.

All is Full of Love by Bjork

From "A Handful of Poem-Images"
by Marie Bortolotto

A Lost Key

We dance in a line of pigeons; and crows, 
noisily, flapping wings over a vacant parking lot. 



A tall, stark thistle; motionless, against the backdrop 
of far-off mountains.



At a yellow-tiled temple, voices of enchantment lull us 
deeper into sun-soaked dew, where, finally; we can rest. 



On a bench, there, for us to see; a lost key.

Marie Bortolotto Art

Marie Bortolotto Art

 

Stay alive; at least for the moment:it doesn't last long. 
Stay alive. Other worldly considerations though are out.
The living has nothing to do with the life.

William Bronk, American Poet 1918 - 1999

Marie Bortolotto Art

 Wind
Shinkichi Takahashi
(translated by Lucien Stryk)

Give it words,
Stick limbs on it,
You won't alter essence.
Whereas the wind --

I'll live gently
As the wind, flying
Over the town,
My chest full of sparrows.