Carpe Diem Sneak Preview October 10th 2017

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I love to give you a sneak preview for the upcoming months here at CDHK. First of all, I think you have noticed that I have changed the lay-out of our Kai. I think it makes CDHK more of this time and I think that this new lay-out looks fresh and fits us better than our former lay-out.

This month we are celebrating our first luster of our CDHK Family and I love it. It's a honor to be your host. It makes me proud, but humble too. Who am I that I can and may be your host. Without you, my dear Haijin, visitors and travelers, I couldn't make CDHK the best website on haiku and other Japanese poetry forms. Thank you all for being part of CDHK ...

Recently I dived into the "prompt suggestions" section of our Kai and I ran into an idea by Björn Rudberg. An idea that ... spook to me ... Next month we will explore the beauty of quatrains through Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat a wonderful series of quatrains. Say ... next month will be a month full of Carpe Diem Distillations. I hope to tell you something more about Omar Khayyam and I hope to explore the similarities between these quatrains and Japanese poetry. I am looking forward to this new spectecular month.

Omar Khayyam (1048-1131)

Let me give an example of one of the quatrains from his "Rubaiyat":

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.

© Omar Khayyam (taken from: Rubaiyat)

Of course in November we will go on with our weekend-meditations, which items that will be, we will see than. I hope to bring back the weekly Tan Renga Challenges, not as we had once on Fridays, but on Wednesdays.

Than December will start with a new theme, however not that new. I have done this earlier here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, but this time it will be a little bit different. In December I will try to inspire you through quotes all chosen from the novels from Paulo Coelho. I first had planned that theme for November, but it takes a lot of time to choose the quotes, I have to read all novels of Paulo Coelho first. I started recently with reading "Aleph" again. And that novel "triggered" me to make a whole month of "Use That Quote" with quotes by Paulo Coelho. Paulo is in my opinion a wise and spiritual man and in his works I have read wonderful sayings ... so I just had to create a month full of quotes by Paulo Coelho.
The choice to make a whole month about Paulo Coelho's thoughts and sayings is that his first novel "The Alchemist" is celebrating its 25 years anniversary. "The Alchemist" was once the first novel I read written by him ... and I was immediately caught by the beauty of his writing style.

Paulo Coelho

And ... I will give already a "hint" for the theme of January 2018 ... than we will visit the ancient sites of The Maya ....

Well ... I hope I have already made you all a little bit excited for the upcoming months.

Namasté,

Chèvrefeuille, your host