Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,
Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Haiku Kai. I had a very busy day at work, I had the dayshift on the so called "chemo-unit" and it was a tough day, a real tough day, but ... well my co-worker and I "survived". Every day I work with very sick people, all have a kind of cancer, but they all are strong and look at their life with gratefulness.
Back in 2015 we spent a whole month in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia were we discovered the way of the shaman and maybe you remember that we read "The Zahir" by Paulo Coelho, another wonderful novel.
This month I hope to inspire you through quotes taken from a big part of Coelho's oeuvre. Today I have a nice quote taken from "The Zahir". Let me give you a brief overview of this novel, like in "The Pilgrimage", this novel is also about a pilgrimage, but not as we know it. It's more a pilgrimage to find inner peace.
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| Altai Mountains Mongolia |
The Zahir means 'the obvious' or 'conspicuous' in Arabic. The story revolves around the life of the narrator, a bestselling novelist, and in particular his search for his missing wife, Esther. He enjoys all the privileges that money and celebrity bring. He is suspected of foul play by both the police and the press, who suspect that he may have had a role in the inexplicable disappearance of his wife from their Paris home.
As a result of this disappearance, the protagonist is forced to re-examine his own life as well as his marriage. The narrator is unable to figure out what led to Esther's disappearance. Was she abducted or had she abandoned the marriage? He encounters Mikhail, one of Esther's friends, during a book launch. He learns from Mikhail that Esther, who had been a war correspondent against the wishes of her husband (the protagonist), had left in a search for peace, as she had trouble living with her husband. The author eventually realizes that in order to find Esther he must first find his own self. Mikhail introduces him to his own beliefs and customs, his mission of spreading love by holding sessions in restaurants and meeting homeless people living in the streets. He tells the narrator about the voices he hears, and his beliefs related to them. The narrator, who only too frequently falls in love with women, (also known as Michael Gardiner) consults with his current lover, Marie, about his encounters with Mikhail. She warns him that Mikhail could be an epileptic. However, she also advises him to search for the Zahir as is his desire, even though she would prefer him to stay with her.
The narrator eventually decides to go in search of his Zahir. As it was Esther who had initially brought Mikhail from Kazakhstan to France, the protagonist suspects that she may in fact be in Kazakhstan. At first, he is curious about what made Esther leave, but later he realizes that troubles in her relationship with her husband may have been a major reason. As he discovers, she was interested in getting to know herself through the making of carpets. Eventually the narrator meets his Zahir and the outcome of this meeting constitutes the climax of the book. (Source: Wikipedia)
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| Cover The Zahir |
[...] "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." [...] (Source: The Zahir by Paulo Coelho)
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.
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| Find Your Inner Child |
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
Well ... I hope I have awakened your muses ... your source of inspiration ... maybe I have awakened that Inner Child ...
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 13th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... feel like a child again and enjoy nature's miracles.
