[...] "The great advantage of writing about spirituality is that I know I’m bound to keep encountering people with some kind of gift. Some of those gifts are real, others are fraudulent, some of those people are trying to use me, others are merely testing me out. I have seen so many amazing things that I no longer have the slightest doubt that miracles can happen, that everything is possible, and that people are beginning to relearn the inner powers they long ago forgot." [...] (The Zahir by Paulo Coelho p.65)
Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,
Welcome at a new (delayed) episode of our daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. This month we are wandering through the region of The Altai Mountains in Central Asia and while we are wandering through its magnificent nature we are reading The Zahir by Paulo Coelho. Today we are looking for healing. Healing ... become better, regain good health for mind, body, heart and soul ... that's what healing means.
Healing we can find in almost everything. A beautiful comforting song or poem. Or in a wonderful movie or novel. but also in our direct surroundings. As I look outside my window I see the swirling leaves, I smell that sweet perfume of autumn. I can feel the wind and the rain ... it cleanses my heart, my soul, my body and my mind.
As I was reading The Zahir to prepare this month I especially searched for the deeper meaning of this wonderful novel and I found it in the life of the leading character, the writer on a quest to find his beloved wife. He is searching to find peace of mind, and to find the mysteries and miracles of life.
In the above fragment of The Zahir I reproduced one line (in bold) that says it all.
As I look around me in my own environment than I can feel that I am surrounded by miracles. Miracles we are taking for granted, but that's not enough, we have to be part of it, we have to see, feel, hear, smell and taste our environment ... than we can see the miracles. The miracle of the coloring leaves, the sound of the wind, the rain on our faces, that sweet perfume of the wet earth. It are all little wonders and miracles.
As we regain our inner child again, bringing it out ... than the miracle is there ... than there is the healing of our body, soul, heart and mind ... This is what The Zahir is about ... this is what The Altai Mountains and the Mongolian shamans tell us, are anxious to learn us all ... nature is healing and ... if I take that feeling, that idea to our beloved haiku ... than every haiku can be healing, can be a little miracle.
That's our goal today ... try to write/compose a haiku and let it be that little wonder, that little miracle that makes you happy.
one heartbeat
a flash of light cuts through the sky
a shooting star
© Chèvrefeuille
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 10th at noon (CET). I will publish our next episode, Mother Earth/Mother Nature, also today.
Chevrefeuille...your haiku over the past few weeks have been masterful...I question the cherry blossom as your source of joy and eace, and honestly think you have been touched by the shaman spirit, and the muystical culture of Central Asia, that very, very few visit, yet among those who do, a new understanding is seen on their faces. I would suggest, like Paulo Coelho, you can also vsit in spirit and empathy to be caught with the bug. But I remember standing in a square in Finland a few years ago, selling copper pieces when times were a bit hard in my business. A woman perhaps a touch older than me walked over, and hugged me. She simply said, "you have been to Central Asia too."
ReplyDeleteYou need to understand, that fr a Finnish person, human contact is very rare. However, the woman saw that I had indeed worked a long while in Kazakhstan, the land of eagles (even on the flag). Funnily enough, she had worked years in northern Finland, the country of the Laplanders, the Sami people, another great cutlure of shamans. I didin't ask about er past...but she knew, somehow, that I had a connection to her, a distant connection to the steppes and mountains of Central Asia.
I think it is in you. How else could you produce the haiku you did?