Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Paart 1 of 2 Tara Mandala 20th Anniversary Calligraphy Paper Project



These gorgeous days in the vicinity of lilac bushes and flaming red maples, I’ve been hand beating the cooked Kozo (Mulberry bark from Asia) that will form a part of the pulp used in the special calligraphy paper I am making for Lama Tsultrim Allione. Last year I made similar offerings for Choegyal Namkhai Norbu
For this paper Lama Tsultrim sent us a large variety of sacred substances she has collected for many years. 

In the photo below taken this morning, the fiber has already been cooked and soaked many hours. You can see from left to right unbeaten fiber, middle pile cooked more than the first pile and ready for beating. The third pile is almost there requiring  about 5 minutes more vigorous hand beating and ready for sheet forming with a mixture to linen. Once ready--I will add the sacred substances and recycled sacred texts...






Yes, the Kozo is  beaten with a stick for 20 minutes. 
Below is a picture of the cooking process as the first stage prior to beating. Sheryl added about a cup of soda ash (caustic) and then covered the vat with a lid and rocks to cook for several hours to breakdown the cellulose.




More to come tomorrow.......

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Recent News & Projects



Projects in order of priority:

1) Make Calligraphy paper for Tara Mandala
2) Process asparagus for asparagus /abaca paper for Asparagus Festival June 1
3) Make seed paper for Asparagus Festival with indigo pulp and other pulps on hand ****poppy ***** larksphur ***** cosmos*******herbs
4) Bottle our own Black Walnut ink and  make handmade labels “Dragon Song” after Dogen Zen Master
5) Cut out box templates and cover with KPC papers for crystals and other products
6) Process more flax linens and giant red tablecloth in the critter






Lama Tsultrim, founder of Tara Mandala, donated an extraordinary range of sacred substances we will use to make her special calligraphy paper. The following is a partial list:

*Baked earth from Mt. Kailash sacred to Machig
*Earth Chu Mig Chang Chub Bodhi Spring Padmasambhava’s entry to Tibet collected with Choegyal Namkhai Norbu in 1992
*Sang Shoto Terdrom saved seat of  Yeshe Tsogyal in Tibet

.......and numerous other substance to be recorded later. 

These papers will be used for sacred calligraphy and other uses for practitioners


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