Carpe Diem #1320 Falling in Love

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Falling in love is the greatest thing that can happen to someone. I think a lot of you have experienced that somewhere in your life. I fell in love almost 30 years ago with the woman I am still married to, but I also fell in love with the beauty if Japanese poetry especially haiku. I remember that moment as if it happened yesterday. I love haiku and through the years I have learned a lot about haiku, but as I started with CDHK I discovered that all around the globe there are lovers of haiku, but also other Japanese poetry forms. A few years ago I started creatinf other forms from the land of the rising sun. Forms like tanka, choka, dodoitsu, kyoka and sedoka. All beautiful ways to give words to your feeelings. However that's not the theme for today ... that's not what the title means.

This month I hope to inspire you through the novels of Paulo Coelho, one of my favorite authors. Today's quote is extracted from "Eleven Minutes". As I read this novel I was surprised, because "Eleven Minutes" is all about sex and the beauty of it, but also the sad site of it. I was really surprised as I read that novel it was ... different from all his other novels I had read, but after reading it and reading it another time and another time ... I fell in love with that novel. Surprisingly there was a deeper layer hidden in it, a spiritual approach of love and sex ... sacred sex ... as it is described by Paulo Coelho.

Spiritual Love

spiritual love ...
like bees seeking honey
giving life

© Chèvrefeuille

Let me give you a brief overview of "Eleven Minutes" than you maybe can imagine or relate to it.

"Eleven Minutes" is the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village, whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heartbroken. At a tender age, she becomes convinced that she will never find true love, instead believing that “love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer. . . .” A chance meeting in Rio takes her to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune.
Maria’s despairing view of love is put to the test when she meets a handsome young painter. In this odyssey of self-discovery, Maria has to choose between pursuing a path of darkness—sexual pleasure for its own sake—or risking everything to find her own “inner light” and the possibility of sacred sex, sex in the context of love.

Re-read that "quote" in italics "love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer ..." Is that what love means? Something that will make you suffer? I haven't that kind of feeling with love ... to me love isn't something terrible that will make me suffer. The love I have found in my wife and my family is love straight from the heart, that love is sacred a warm blanket. Of course there will be situations or relationships that are not such a warm blanket. I even know several people that actual feel love like it's suffering ... to those I love to say ... "there is real love and it will cross your path one day".

Everlasting Love

everlasting love ...
the waterwillow and the brook
living together

© Chèvrefeuille

Okay ... this episode will be to big, but the theme touches me ... I believe in love ... that love we show here at CDHK ... a loving family of haiku poets. Back to our source of inspiration ... "Eleven Minutes" written by Paulo Coelho. A novel in which love, sacred love, is the leading theme.

Here is the quote for today:

[...] “When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side.  And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left!  How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly?  Life moves very fast.  It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.” [...] (Source: Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho)

universe explodes
as sacred loves finds it way
two hearts become one 

© Chèvrefeuille

Awesome ... what a strong haiku full of love (how immodest), this haiku came straight from my heart like erupting geysers. Isn't that what real love is? Strong as nature!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 12th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode later on.