Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #73 Renga With Basho ...

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday February 24th at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

February is an awesome month it's wonderful to read all of your responses in our Tan Renga Challenge Month. This month it's all about Tan Renga, but this weekend meditation I have another nice way of creating Renga.

For this weekend I have chosen for a new "Renga With Basho ..." episode that special feature in which I give you the opportunity to create a Renga together with Basho. For this episode of "Renga With Basho ..." I have chosen six (6) beautiful haiku created by Basho. All the haiku I extracted from Jane Reichhold's "Basho, The Complete Haiku", so all the haiku are translated by Jane Reichhold.

Basho wrote around 1000 haiku during his lifetime and the haiku for this "Renga With Basho ..." he wrote in the last 10 years of his life. In these haiku you can see Basho's "Karumi" (or lightness) his Haiku Writing Technique. (More about Karumi HERE).

Here are the haiku I have chosen for you to work with. You can choose your own "line-up" and add your two-lined stanza to create the Renga With Basho. Try to create a "closed chain" by referring towards your "hokku" (starting verse) in your last stanza "ageku" (closing verse).

first frost
when mums start to feel chilly
I get a cotton waist warmer

moon and flowers
the stupidity pricked by a needle
entering the colder season

slowly spring
is making an appearance
moon and plum

Chinquapin flowers

crane and feathers
in a black robe
clouds of flowers

a traveler's heart
it also should look like
chinquapin flowers

moon past full
the beginning of a little more
darkness

(C) Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold. Extracted from "Basho, The Complete Haiku".

A wonderful series of haiku to work with I think. Have a great weekend!

This Weekend Meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday February 24th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 2nd at noon (CET). Enjoy creating a Renga with the Master of All Times ... Matsuo Basho.