Carpe Diem Sneak Preview #3, Some changes in the first quarter of 2014 and looking forward to the second quarter.

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First I love to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. A New Year will start soon ... a whole new year ahead of us in which I hope that Carpe Diem Haiku Kai will evolve further and that our haiku-family will grow ... I hope you all will stay part of this haiku-family, because I can't miss you.

As I wrote earlier in a Sneak Preview I planned a two months pilgrimage to Shigoku. That will happen, but ... I will start that pilgrimage not in January, but in February. Why? Well ... I thought ''We are going on a pilgrimage in Japan on the Isle of Shikogu, but first we have to go there. How do we go there? With a plane, a car or boat? No, we will arrive there by train''. We will start our Shigoku Pilgrimage in January with taking the Trans Siberian Railway, the longest railway on our planet straight through the Soviet Union. We will visit a lot of wonderful places. And to lead us straight through the Soviet Union by train we will have the novel 'Aleph' by Paulo Coelho in our hand that will be the perfect preparation to start our Shikogu-pilgrimage in February. We will explore our deeper thoughts and 'catch' them in beautiful haiku.

After our Shigoku-pilgrimage we will stay another month in Japan to enjoy and discover the most wonderful festivals and celebrations of the country that gave us haiku.
And as I said in that earlier Sneak Preview we will have not in April, but in May a whole month of Carpe Diem Specials in which I will share haiku written by the ancient and classical haiku-poets for your inspiration. That will be a great month and I am enjoying already the compilation of haiku I love to share that month with you all. The most beautiful haiku will come along that month. Haiku written by wellknown haiku-poets, but also by less known haiku-poets (and poetesses).

Of course 2014 will bring months of wonderful prompts and inspirational music. I hope to have a new month full of inspirational music in June, I am already searching for a wonderful musician and I think that musician will be a joy to listen to ... I will keep you posted on this. And I hope to do another month of Tan Renga Challenges.

looking forward
to another wonderful year
full of haiku

It's a joy to make Carpe Diem for you all, my dear haiku-family-members, and I hope you all will enjoy Carpe Diem too.
More Sneak Previews will follow on an irregular base and I have a few nice new features for you this upcoming year. The first new feature I will introduce to you later on this week. It's called ''Sweet Memories'' and I hope that new feature will give you the same joy as I had as I was creating it.

For closure I love to share another idea with you all. I love to create a kind of Anthology of our first two years of Carpe Diem, but that idea is still young and has to grow further ... maybe later in the next year I can harvest that idea and share it with you all. Well ... I have brougth some light into the future of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai and I hope Carpe Diem will continuing to grow ...

Namaste