After Jane and Donna and I ate Chinese food for the new year, Jane and I went to last night's meeting of the Joseph Campbell Roundtable (Donna had another meeting). We all three wore Chinese red.
For the arrival of the year of the Water Dragon in the Chinese zodiac, Chris Campbell gave a presentation on the
I Ching, or Book of Changes and
The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life, two Chinese classics. He recommends the ones by Richard Wilhelm.
Chris was explaining the
I Ching on the flipchart.
I Ching means "book of changes." On the wall to the right is his "cursive" drawing of the Year of the Dragon, where we can almost see the dragon flying through the air. Double click on the photo to enlarge it, so you can see the dragon's head where the line starts — in other words, starting at the darkest end of that ribbon of black ink.
Here's how he drew the golden flower. See the eight petals? And then he added the trigrams, which have shifted from the basic chart above. (I can't explain it, since I'm just learning about all this.)
Chris also previewed a recently released Joseph Campbell film,
Finding Joe, which he received permission to show. So we were among the first in town to see (part of) this film. Click on the blue link to see an even shorter bit than I saw last night.
Happy Year of the Dragon!
Yesterday, I meant to show you this wonderful children's book that I reviewed a couple of years ago.
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin is a 2009 children's book, which I rated 9 of 10. Click on the blue link to read my review. Do you see the dragon on the cover? The dragon is flying through the air. Yes!
Added a bit later: Ha! I've learned that Chattanooga, my town, has a
Dragon Museum that's all about dragons.
3 comments:
Happy Year of the Dragon to you too! Grace Line's book is going on my TBR list immediately. I'm spending the day trying to catch up with old friends and gaining some much needed recommendations for my reading list. Thanks for the help!
By the way, tell Donna I said Hi!
Have you seen the new US postage stamp for Year of the Dragon? It reminds me of the flying dragon on Grace Line's book, though hers is better.
Stephanie, I told Donna, who says "hi" back to you.
Jan, I have NOT seen that stamp. I'll have to go to the Post Office and get some. I hope they are "forever" stamps.
Post a Comment