Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu #89 Back In Time with "Spiritual Ways"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at this week's Tokubetsudesu episode. As you all know this month we will "revisit" special features I created for Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. And this week I love to share an episode of Carpe Diem's special feature "Spiritual Ways". I have taken the easy way this time and have redone the first episode of this special feature that was launched on January 14th 2014.

As you (maybe) know, haiku has a strong connection with Buddhism. A lot of haiku have a Buddhist layer and for example Basho, Issa and Chiyo-Ni (a female haiku-poet) were Buddhist, Chiyo-Ni was a Buddhist monk.

Several years ago I wrote a short essay about haiku for WonderHaiku Worlds in which I stated that haiku can be read (seen) as a 'Koan', the impossible question which can give Enlightenment. I think that (all) haiku can really be seen as such a koan, but that's just my idea, my vision.

If you're a loyal 'follower' of our Carpe Diem weblogs than you know that we have had a journey to Shikoku in 2014 which started with all daily prompts about the Trans Siberian Railroad straight through the Soviet Union. That journey brought us along the 88 shrines on the Island Shikoku and I told more about the shrines.

I named this special feature "Spiritual Ways" and the goal was to write a haiku, senryu, tanka or kyoka with a spiritual layer in it. With this new feature I hoped to promote the Spiritual Way of haiku and to made you all aware of that 'classical rule'  in haiku. I knew that it wouldn't be easy, but that was the challenge. As I re-read my haiku than I wrote a lot of haiku with that Spiritual Way hidden in it. Sometimes even clear in my haiku, but mostly hidden beneath the surface of the haiku.

Lonely Flower

Let's give it a try to write, compose, a few haiku written with a spiritual layer. First I love to share a few oldies which I wrote in the years laying behind us.

lonely flower
my companion for a night -
I bow my head

© Chèvrefeuille

In this haiku the deeper layer is the 'loneliness' and the 'selflessness' of a Buddhist monk. I wrote this haiku as I was wandering through a big park outside the city where I live. I remember that it was a nice sunny late autumn day and I was completely alone in that park. My thoughts went to a moment back in time in which I felt completely alone. It was not long after that my only brother died of lung-cancer (1995). As my thoughts went on a run with me I saw a lonely flower between the bare branches. It was a, as we call it here in The Netherlands, a 'Hondsroos'  ('dog rose'). I plucked it and took it with me. As I arrived at my home there was nobody at home and I was completely alone, I had only that 'dog rose' and that comforted me.

Another one in which the 'Spiritual Way' was more clear I wrote in response to a photo of praying hands.

strong hands praying
at the corner of the street -
God be with you

© Chèvrefeuille

As you can read in both haiku there's a kind of spirituality in it and that was the goal of this special feature "Spiritual Ways" ... let me share another haiku.

deep silence
only whispered prayers -
the scent of incense

© Chèvrefeuille 

I hope you did like this Tokubetsudesu "Back In Time" episode about "Carpe Diem's Spiritual Ways".

This was the logo of CD Spiritual Ways

This Tokubetsudesu episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until July 31st at noon (CET). I will (try to) post our new episode, Yew, later on. For now .... have fun!