Carpe Diem #588, Vladivostok (January 2014) reprise

Dear haijin, visitors and travelers,

Maybe you have already read the CD-Extra earlier today, but if not ... than I have an announcement to make. As I told your earlier this month, Jane reichhold has granted me the exclusive rights for two of her E-Books, and I succeeded today to make them available here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. You can find the E-Books by Jane on the left and right side of the posts. I also have made an E-Book by myself available. The E-Book by myself is a compilation of all the episodes of our Tarot-month May 2013. I hope you like these E-Books and I hope it will give you pleasure to read them.

Ok ... back to today's episode. Today we are going further on our memory lane along the first two years of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. We have now arrived in January 2014. In that month we started with our pilgrimage to the Isle of Shikoku to visit all 88 temples there. To get there we took the Trans Siberian Railroad (TSR) straight through the former USSR in January 2014. While we were on our way to Vladivostok, the end station of the TSR, we read "Aleph" a novel written by Paulo Coelho in which he describes his search to his former lives. "Aleph" is situated on the TSR and so we went on reading "Aleph" following the story-line and traveling straight through the former USSR.
I remember that it was a wonderful month and that I have read wonderful haiku, tanka and haibun. In that month Alexey Andreyev (a Russian haiku poet who lives in the USA) was our featured haiku poet. I love to share the last CD-Special haiku of January 2014, here again.

morning awakenings:
among window curtains' flowers
a blade of gray sky

© Alexey Andreyev

Our Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Logo for January 2014, a picture of the TSR along Lake Baikal

As I told you above, the TSR drives straight through the former USSR from Moscow to Vladivostok. So this reprise-episode is about the end station of the TSR Vladivostok. Vladivostok was closed for foreigners until the end of the "Cold War" and in 2012, after a major International Event, it became one of the bigger cities of Russia.

I ended that episode, back in January 2014, with the following quote from Paulo Coelho's "Aleph":

As they arrive almost in Vladivostok, Paulo decides to make a walk through the Trans Siberian Express, which he sees as a city. He walks through that city,which stretched out like an ever-flowing river of steel, a city were he doesn't speak the local language. He heard all kinds of languages and sounds and notices that, as happens in all large cities, most people weren't talking to anyone, each passenger absorbed in his or her own problems and dreams, forced to share the smae compartment with three strangers, people they never will meet again. The Trans Siberian Express, is really a city ... and as in a normal city we live together with our neighbors, but ... do you know your neighbors really? 

After his walk through the train he writes a note, which I love to share here with you.

[...]I am not a foreigner because I haven't been praying to return safely home, I haven't wasted my time imagining my house, my desk, my side of the bed, I am not a foreigner because we are all travelling, we are all full of the same questions, the same tiredness, the same fears, the same
selfishness and the same generosity. I am not a foreigner because, when I asked, I received. When I knocked, the door opened. When I looked, I found. [...] (Source:'Aleph' by Paulo Coelho)

And I wrote to conclude that episode::

With this quote by Paulo Coelho I will conclude our Trans Siberian Railroad journey. Dreams you have ... you have to fullfill, they are not negotiable. So ... go for your dream and let that dream come true.

another day ends
reaching for the stars and the moon
into the dreamworld

(c) Chèvrefeuille

Credits: The Future Is Full Of Dreams

As I started with Carpe Diem I had a dream ... to be here after a half year. Now we are celebrating our second anniversary and we have become a great family of haiku poets ... Thank you all for making my dream come true ... 

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until October 26th at noon (CET). I will publish our new episode, Zentsu-ji (February and March 2014),later on. For now have fun, be inspired and share your haiku with us all here at our Haiku Kai.