Yoko Ono: The Tate Gallery Lecture (2004) - excerpt

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love
yoko

Water Talk

you are water
I’m water
we’re all water in different containers
that’s why it’s so easy to meet
someday we’ll evaporate together

but even after the water’s gone
we’ll probably point out to the containers
and say, “that’s me there, that one.”
we’re container minders

For Half-A-Wind Show, Lisson Gallery, London 1967.

Dance Report - on floating

(or how to make the city
so light that it floats
away in the sky)

Carry a stone. Go on
carrying heavier stones
until they become so
heavy that the whole
city starts to look
lighter than what you
are carrying.

Dance Report - on hiding

hide in the cupboard
a) until your family starts to wonder
b) until your family forgets you
(make choice)

Dance Report - on facing

face the wall throughout the year
and imagine banging your head
against it: a) slowly until the
walk collapses and you see the sky.
b) violently until your head is
gone.

consider if it is such a catastrophe
to live without your head or if it
shouldn’t be easier for you to go
around since your body would be much
lighter.

October 9th 2008

On 9 Oct 2008, John Lennon’s birthday, Yoko Ono asks the people of Iceland to join her and many others across the rest of the world in praying for peace and stability. At 8pm, as IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is illuminated on the island of Viðey, she asks everyone to join together and let the power of light and prayer become a collective expression of the desire for peace and harmony on our planet.


Dear Friends

Please join me not only in remembering John on October 9th but also in spreading the message of peace. This is something that was so important to John - the fact that we could all work together for the positive good of our planet. He would have loved how we are all mobilizing ourselves in thought and in action. It's time for action and the action is peace!
with love, yoko

Yoko Ono
9 Oct 2008
www.IMAGINEPEACE.com



9th midday Anchorage • 9th 1pm Los Angeles • 9th 2pm Guatemala • 9th 3pm Chicago • 9th 4pm New York • 9th 4pm Montreal • 9th 5pm Rio de Janeiro • 9th 8pm Reykjavik • 9th 9pm Liverpool • 9th 10pm Europe • 9th 11pm Baghdad • 10th midnight Moscow • 10th 1am Karachi • 10th 2am Dhaka • 10th 3am Bangkok • 10th 4am Shanghai • 10th 5am Tokyo • 10th 6am Sydney • 10th 7am Vladivostok • 10th 8am Suva • 10th 9am Auckland • 10th 10am Kiritimati

At that time, send your wishes to the Imagine Peace Tower by email:
wish@IMAGINEPEACE.com

post your handwritten wishes on a postcard to:
IMAGINE PEACE TOWER, PO Box 1009, 121 Reykjavík, Iceland

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 13th day

13th day
future time

color yourself
wait for the spring to come
let us know when it comes.

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 12th day

12th day
dreamtime

SWIM
SWIM IN YOUR DREAM AS FAR AS
YOU CAN UNTIL YOU FIND AN
ISLAND. TELL US RESULTS.

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 11th day

11th day
daylight

send
send something you can’t count

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 10th day

10th day
morning

find
go find a clover and send us
measurements weight of all
possible parts of the clover

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 9th day

9th day
afternoon

shake
go shake hands with as many
persons as possible. Write
down their names. Try in the
elevator, tube, escalator,
street, toilet, on top of a
mountain, in the dark, daydream,
on the clouds etc. make it a
nice handshake by holding a
flower in your hand, perfume or
wash your hand, etc.

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 8th day

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 7th day

7th day
8 p.m.

watch
boil water and watch until it
evaporates

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 6th day

6th day
evening

watch
have you seen a horizon lately?
go see a horizon, measure it
from where you stand and let us
know the length

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 5th day

5th day
afternoon

watch
go to the nearest fountain
and watch the water dance

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 4th day

4th day
in the afternoon

draw a large circle in the sky
let us know the diameter of the
circle (guess), direction and the
color of the sky you were watching
and the duration of your watching experience

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 3rd day

3rd day
in the evening

breathe together

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 2nd day

2nd day
at dawn

breathe

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival : 1st day

1st day
midnight

breathe

Dance Report

Yoko Ono's 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival to be held worldwide!

Dear Friends

I am very happy and suprised that so many of you did the Acorns Event which took 100 days!

I feel like we got to know each other through sharing those days.

As a little bonus to wind up the 100 Acorns blog, I will additionally present here (from 27 Sept 2008) my 13 Days Do-It-Yourself Dance Festival.

It was originally sent out by mail order in London between 27 Sept and 9 Oct 1967.

Keep dancing through life.
Know that you are not alone.
Enjoy!

lots of love
yoko

END PIECE

Each planet has its own orbit agenda.
Think of people close to you as planets.
Sometimes it's nice to just watch them
orbit and shine.


HAPPY ORBIT 2008!

Love, yoko

Yoko Ono
24 September '08




Bonus extra from tomorrow...

REVELATIONS

Bless you for your anger.
For it is a sign of rising energy.
Direct not to your family, waste not on your enemy.
Transform the energy to versatility
And it will bring you prosperity.

Bless you for your sorrow
For it is a sign of vulnerability.
Share not with your family, direct not to yourself.
Transform the energy to sympathy
And it will bring you love.

Bless you for your greed
For it is a sign of great capacity.
Direct not to your family. Direct not to the world.
Transform the energy to giving.
Give as much as you wish to take,
And you will receive satisfaction.

Bless you for your jealousy
For it is a sign of empathy
Direct not to your family, direct not to your friends.
Transform the energy to admiration
And what you admire
Will become part of your life

Bless you for your fear
For it is a sign of wisdom.
Do not hold yourself in fear.
Transform the energy to flexibility
And you will be free
From what you fear.

Bless you for your search of direction
For it is a sign of aspiration.
Transform the energy to receptivity
And the direction will come to you.

Bless you for the times you see evil.
Evil is energy mishandled and it feeds on your support.
Feed not and it will self-destruct.
Shed light and it will cease to be.

Bless you for the times you feel no love.
Open your heart to life anyway
and in time you will find
love in you.

Bless you, bless you, bless you.
Bless you for what you are.
You are a sea of goodness, a sea of love.
Count your blessings every day for they are your protection
Which stands between you and what you wish not.
Count your curses and they will be a wall
Which stands between you and what you wish.

The world has all that you need
And you have the power
to attract what you wish.
Wish for health, wish for joy.
Remember you are loved.


I love you!
y.o.

QUIZ VI

Heart Talk

The weight of your heart equals:
a) a feather - when you're happy
b) an ocean - when you're sad
c) an old truck on a dusty dirt road - when you're angry.
d) a bright summer cloud - when you're dreaming

QUIZ V

Check the one you think is right.

Wind Talk

The age of the wind is:
a) a billion years older than the Empire State Building
b) three hundred years older than the Alps.
c) a day younger than the sea.
d) two months younger than your daughter.
e) a wind will be born when you pass away.

QUIZ IV

Check the one you think is right.

Wink Talk

An intensity of a wink is:
a) two cars smashed head on.
b) a storm turned into a breeze
c) a water drop from a loose faucet.

QUIZ III

Check the one you think is right.

Line Talk

A line is :
a) a sick circle.
b) an unfolded word.
c) an agressive dot.
d) what you want to erase.
e) what you regret after you dish it out.

QUIZ II

Check the one you think is right.

Youth Talk

You are still young because:
a) you never matured.
b)you talk baby-talk to your mate.
c) your children say so.
d) your grandchildren say so.
e) you don't see any wrinkles on your face.
f) you still hate the same friends.
g) other reasons (give your reason).

QUIZ I

Check the one you think is right.

Yellow Talk

a) All colours are imaginary except yellow. Yellow is the colour of sun at its height. Other colours are shades of yellow in varying degrees. - Dr. Song

b) Yellow is the only imaginary colour. - Dr. Suzuki.

c) All colours have yellow in it. - Dr. Lee

d) All colours are imaginary - Dr. Kato

QUESTIONNAIRE II

Check the following statements: True/False.

1) Adam and Eve were social outcasts from another planet.

2) People are afraid of shadows. People are even more afraid of being in the shadow. But without a shadow, life will be two dimensional.

3) There is no ownship in beauty.

4) The human race is in its embryonic stage.

Make your own truth/false lines.

5)

6)

QUESTIONNAIRE I

Check the following statements: True/False

l) All streets are invisible. The visible ones are fake ones, though
some visible ones are the end parts of the invisible ones.

2) If you wear something long enough it becomes part of you and you suffer from serious physical maladjustment when you take it off.
A woman died from taking off her ring she wore for ten years. A man was found to be non-existent when his title was taken away.

3) When you leave things, you leave your spirit behind as well. But if you don't leave them, you age.

4) Your brother is the man you killed in the past world. He was born in your family because he wanted to be near you.

5) There are one thousand suns rising every day. We only see one of them because of our fixation on monolithic thinking.

6) Grapefruit is a hybrid of lemon and orange.
Snow is a hybrid of wish and lament

WISH PIECE VI

Write all the things you want to do.
Ask others to do them and move on.
Keep dancing.

WISH PIECE V

Whisper your desire to the wind.
Ask the wind to take it to the end of the world.

WISH PIECE IV

Make a promise to a tree.
Ask it to be passed on to other trees.

WISH PIECE III

Whisper your dream to a cloud.
Ask the cloud to remember it.

WISH PIECE II

Mend an object.
When you go through the proccess of mending, you mend something inside your soul as well.

Think of a "crack" in your own life or the World.
Ask for it to be healed as you mend the object.

WISH PIECE I

Make a wish. Write it down on a piece of paper.
Fold it and tie it around a branch of a Wish Tree.
Ask your friends to do the same.
Keep wishing until the branches are covered with wishes.

LIFE PIECE X

Walk in the footsteps of the person in front of you.

1. on the pavement.
2. in the mud.
3. on ice.
4. in the snow
5. on fire
6. on water

LIFE PIECE IX

Get a piece of rubber the size of your palm.
Imagine yourself stretching the rubber
to cover the world with it.
See how much you can cover.
Hang the piece of rubber
on the wall beside your bed.

LIFE PIECE VIII

A ghost was standing in a public toilet.
I suggested that he go up in the sky and be part of light.
"I don't want to do that", he said.
"Why?"
"Because I want to maintain my individuality".

I thought it was interesting that he would rather stand in the public toilet than join the light. Does he really treasure what he perceives as his individuality, or is he just simply afraid of making the move?

Tell us what you're story is in staying where you are now in life.

LIFE PIECE VII

Fly in your dream.
Spread your wings.
See how clear the world really is.
See how you never miss a turn.
See how you never fall.
See how you can fly forever.

Try to remember the feeling
when you are awake.

LIFE PIECE VI

Each time we don't say
what we want to say
we're dying.

Make a list of how many times
you died this week.

Dying is a necessary act
for living.

Just like inhaling is necessary
in order to exhale.

LIFE PIECE V

Imagine yourself being
in your mother's womb
as an embryo.

Stay in the position for awhile.

Ask yourself if you still wish to come out
into the world with all the knowledge
you have of what happened to you
and how you affected others.

LIFE PIECE IV

Life is about focusing and balancing.
If you focus and lose your balance, you fall.
If you balance and lose your focus, you die.

Check where your emphasis is on: balancing or focusing.

LIFE PIECE III

Imagine all the people singing one day of the year.
That day:
a) lawyers will argue in court by singing.
b) politicians will make their speeches by singing.
c) teachers will lecture by singing.
d) soldiers of both camps will sing to each other.

LIFE PIECE II

Imagine painting all the statues in the world in the color of the sky.

LIFE PIECE I

An old Japanese warrior who belonged to the famous Byakkotai Youth Regiment and who survived the battle of Suribachi Mountain at the turn of the century, told this story on a radio program when I was a child.

"I survived because I was too young to be a good swordsman. I mainly ran. From behind a tree, I witnessed a famous old warrior surrounded by enemy swordsmen fighting for his life. The warrior kept twisting and shifting his body, placing his body under the enemy sword in an angle in which it was difficult for the blade to slice the body. He kept placing his body in that angle as the swords kept coming down on him. From where I stood, it looked as though he was dancing a graceful dance. Suddenly, I noticed that he was in a very different position. I did not see it happening because it was done so gradually and subtlely, but somehow he removed himself from the center of the circle of swords. His enemies were now behind him.

After the battle, he showed me his clothes and his body. All his clothes were shredded into pieces, but his body had only small cuts he called scratches. That's when he taught me how to place your body under the blades"

This story helped me, at one point in my life, when I was attacked from all directions and had to make series of quick decisions and moves.

Tell us if there is any story that helped you to survive.

DANCE PIECE X

Think of all your movements in life as dance movements.

Breathe
Watch
Listen
Touch
and move between
The earth
and the sky

DANCE PIECE IX

a) Dangle empty cans and bottles all over your body.
Dance without making a sound.

b) Carry a heavy object on your back.
Dance as swiftly as you can.

DANCE PIECE VIII

Imagine one thousand suns rising at the same time.
Dance in the field.

DANCE PIECE VII

Sit at the dock.
Watch the seagulls dance.
Dance with them in your mind.
Keep dancing until you feel
you can hear their heartbeats.