Carpe Diem #363, Aleph, the journey begins

 

 

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

 

I love to wish you all a wonderful, uplifting, loving, spiritual and inspirational New Year and I hope that you all will stay in good health and of course ... I hope you all will stay part of our haiku-family.

 

Today this is the "kick-off" of our new Carpe Diem month in which we will make a trip straight through the Soviet Union on the Trans Siberian Railroad. As I have told you all in the introduction of the prompt-list for January (HERE) we will travel with in our hands the novel "Aleph" by Paulo Coelho. So our first prompt for this month (and the very first of 2014) is "Aleph, the journey begins". By the way I found a nice book review video on You Tube about "Aleph" and I love to share that with you all.

 



"Aleph" is written by Paulo Coelho (a Brazilian author) in 2012. I am a big fan of his writings. He writes with a kind of spirituality and enthusiasm. Two years ago, when I was on holiday in Turkey, I have read "Aleph" and a week ago I started reading it again. It's a very personal story and again full of spirituality and philosophy.

In his most personal novel to date, Paulo Coelho returns with a remarkable journey of self-discovery. Like the main character in his much-beloved The Alchemist, Paulo is facing a grave crisis of faith. As he seeks a path of spiritual renewal and growth, his only real option is to begin again—to travel, to experiment, to reconnect with people and the landscapes around him. Setting off to Africa, and then to Europe and Asia via the Trans-Siberian railroad, he initiates a journey to revitalize his energy and passion. Even so, he never expects to meet Hilal. A gifted young violinist, she is the woman Paulo loved five hundred years before—and the woman he betrayed in an act of cowardice so far-reaching that it prevents him from finding real happiness in this life. Together they will initiate a mystical voyage through time and space, traveling a path that teaches love, forgiveness, and the courage to overcome life’s inevitable challenges. Beautiful and inspiring, Aleph invites us to consider the meaning of our own personal journeys. 

Synopsis of Paulo Coelho's "Aleph":

In Aleph, Coelho writes in the first person, as a character and a man wrestling with his own spiritual stagnation. He's 59 years old, a successful but discontented writer, a man who has travelled all over the world and become widely acclaimed for his work. However, he can't shake the sense that he's lost-and deeply dissatisfied. Through the leadership of his mentor "J.," Coelho comes to the conclusion that he must "change everything and move forward," but he doesn't quite know what that means until he reads an article about Chinese bamboo.Coelho becomes inspired by the thought of how bamboo exists only as a tiny green shoot for five years while its root system grows underground, invisible to the naked eye. Then, after five years of apparent inactivity, it shoots up and grows to a height of twenty-five meters. Taking what sounds like advice he's written in his previous books, Coelho begins to "trust and follow the signs and live [his] Personal Legend," an act that takes him from a simple book signing in London to a whirlwind tour of six countries in five weeks.Filled with the euphoria of once again being in motion, he commits to a journey through Russia to meet with his readers and to realize his lifelong dream of traveling the entire length of the Trans-Siberian railroad. He arrives in Moscow to begin the journey and meets more than what he's expecting in a young woman and violin virtuoso named Hilal, who shows up at his hotel and announces that she's there to accompany him for the duration of the trip.When Hilal won't take no for an answer, Coelho lets her tag along, and together the two embark on a journey of much greater significance. By sharing deeply profound moments lost in "the Aleph," Coelho begins to realize that Hilal can unlock the secrets of a parallel spiritual universe in which he had betrayed her five hundred years earlier. In the language of technical mathematics, Aleph means "the number that contains all numbers," but in this story it represents a mystical voyage wherein two people experience a spiritual unleashing that has a profound impact on their present lives."Aleph" reads as a movie. The reader is part of the journey and learns to look at his (or her) own journey,  called life.

Aleph, is the first letter of the Hebrew Alphabet

 

Today's prompt "Aleph", based on the novel by Paulo Coelho, isn't an easy one. It's really a challenge I think to write a haiku inspired on this wonderful novel by Paulo Coelho. I have read it several times in the meantime and I found it stunning, very spiritual, very intense and very personal. I can't remember that in his earlier novels he was the main character in the story. In "Aleph", he himself is the main character.

I am an author too and I can recall the first novel I wrote in 2007 titled: "Netsach, the universe of the seven magical worlds` in which I unknowingly became the main character as my readers told me later.

 

lives collide
Inner Fire burns
in the Aleph

in the Aleph
searching for my past
with the one I love

with the one I love
in the middle of the Aleph
lives collide

This wasn´t an easy one, but I loved writing this cascading haiku inspired on `Aleph` by Paulo Coelho.

This first episode of our new month Carpe Diem Haiku Kai will stay on until January 2nd 11.59 AM (CET) and I will post our new episode, Yaroslavsky Terminal Moscow, later on today around 7.00 PM (CET).!! Aleph is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) !!