CARPE DIEM HAIKU KAI: Narayanan Raghunathan

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Friday, January 23, 2015

Carpe Diem #654, Sheperd's Purse (Nazuna); Carpe Diem #655, First Calligraphy (Kakizome); Carpe Diem #656 Isle Of The Blessed (Hoorai)

!! This is a extra long post in which I will publish THREE prompts each with it's OWN LINKING WIDGET, because I take a weekend off as you could have read in our last Carpe Diem Extra !!

Carpe Diem #654, Sheperd's Purse (Nazuna)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's a bit strange to prepare this post, because I haven't done this earlier, taking a weekend off, but I am in need of a little bit rest ... so I have chosen to take a weekend off. Of course I will not leave you without the prompts from our prompt-list for these days, so in this post I will publish three prompts (each with it's own linking widget). And the first prompt is Sheperd's Purse (Nazuna) it's one of the seven sacred herbs which are use the make a porridge around New Year.

Credits: Sheperd's Purse (Nazuna)

Sheperd's Purse is a little herb which flowers whit little white flowers and it's leaves look like a little purse that's why it's called Sheperd's Purse. It's a fragile little herb and mostly it's overlooked, but (as we will see) it came under the attention of Matsuo Basho once and he wrote a nice haiku about it. This haiku is a kind of tribute to the beauty of Sheperd's Purse and it shows us how we have to look at nature (as haiku-poets). Even the little creatures/creations are worth writing a haiku about ... as we all know from our "Little Creatures" feature.

furu hata ya nazuna hana saku kakine kana

if you look closely
a Sheperd's Purse flowering
underneath the hedge

© Matsuo Basho (1686)

Really a beautiful haiku if I may say so, because it's really a tribute to the beauty of Sheperd's Purse. To write a haiku about it ... will not be easy.

"look granddad"
my granddaughter shows me Sheperd's Purse
"a money-purse".

© Chèvrefeuille

A nice one ... This part of this episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until January 26th at noon (CET). Have fun! Come on let us go further to our next part of this post, First Calligraphy (Kakizome).

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Carpe Diem #655, First Calligraphy (Kakizome)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I remember that I have mentioned this tradition of writing the first calligraphy earlier here at CDHK, but I can't really say when that was, but it doesn't matter (at least not to me) to do a prompt several times. As I told you in one of the earlier posts of this month the kigo for New Year (the fifth season) are for the main part all things which are done for the very first time.
The First Calligraphy (Kakizome) is also such a tradition. I have found a few nice haiku by Issa on this first calligraphy which most times was written in the mud with a cane, and of course later on paper. Every haiku written as the first haiku of the New Year is special, but the ones I love to share here by Issa are really beautiful.

kakichin no mikan mii mii kissho kana

looking, looking
at the mandarin orange...
year's first calligraphy

tsui-tsui to bô wo hiite mo kissho kana

swish, swish
writing with my cane...
year's first calligraphy

ko-dakara ga bô wo hiite mo kissho kana

the treasured child
writes with a cane...
year's first calligraphy

calligraphed haiku

In ancient Japanese times it was a great honor to write the first calligraphy so that third haiku is very special, because of the fact that this first calligraphy is done by a child, a treasured child. Maybe one of his own children, who sadly all lost their life at a young age.

I haven't really written a haiku with this kigo in it, but I love to share my "first calligraphy's" of 2013, 2014 and 2015 here with you all:

first day of year
bad spirits and ghost defeated
royal fireworks

lives collide
Inner Fire burns
in the Aleph

looking back
2014 has passed away
nice thoughts remain

A nice tradition I think, maybe I have to create an anthology of the first calligraphy's (first haiku) of our haiku family here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

This part of this episode is open for your submissions Saturday January 24 at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until January 27th at noon). Have fun! Now ... let us go on to the last (third) part of this episode, Isle of the Blessed (Hoorai).

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Carpe Diem #656, Isle of the Blessed (Hoorai)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Here it is our third part of this weekend-post, because I take a weekend off. It's not easy to write a post about this New Year kigo, because it's so specific for Japan, but well I have chosen to use it so I have to write it.

This also is such a kigo which looks strange as a kigo for New Year. What has Isle of the Blessed (Hoorai) to do with New Year? I will try to explain that.

Isle of the Blessed is the Japanese equivalent of the Western Elysian Fields or Heavens. In myth and legend, heavenly abodes are abundant. There is the Isle of Avalon where King Arthur still sleeps; the Isle of the Blessed ruled over by the giant Cronos; or the Elysium Fields, a place of incomparable beauty where virtuous Romans went after death. For the ancient Celts, there was the Otherworld, a place hidden from human eyes by a magical mist and visible on only one day of the year, the Feast of Samhain (November l), when the gates to both worlds were open and the souls of the dead were said to roam the earth.

Then, of course, there is the Eden story, the Paradise lost by man with the fall from grace of the first two humans, Adam and Eve. This is a concept shared by the world’s three great monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — though it, too, is subject to much variation.

Credits: Isle of the Blessed (Hoorai)

Interestingly, the most ancient of human civilisations, the Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian, did not believe in the existence of either an afterlife or a heaven. In these technically advanced societies, humans were believed doomed to remain forever in the “house of dust” or darkness, which “none who enters ever leaves”. In this house, the inhabitants find that “soil is their sustenance” and “clay their food” where, clad in bird feathers, they see no light but “dwell in darkness”.

Why is this "Isle of the Blessed" a New Year kigo? I think this had to do with remembering the ones who passed away in the last year, a kind of Halloween, but than on January 1st. Are we not all doing that as New Year's Eve is there? Looking back to what had happened in the last year? And look forward into the future. What a feeling to know that there will be an afterlife ...

I found a nice haiku on "Isle of the Blessed" composed by Narayanan Raghunathan (co-founder of Wonder Haiku Worlds):

I enter the Isle of
the Blessed - a distant
flute plays Bhairavi

© Narayanan Raghunathan

I wasn't inspired enough to write a haiku myself about this "Isle of the Blessed", but I sought through my archive and found another nice haiku about a kind of "Blessed Isle", Holy Isle. Holy Isle is a Buddhist Isle at the Northern waters of the United Kingdom.

painted on rocks
the devote Buddhist monk
Holy Isle

Holy Isle
the Kagyan Tradition
painted on rocks

Well ... I hope you did like this "Triple-episode" and remember every part of this post has it's own Linking Widget. This last part is open for your submissions Sunday January 25th at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until January 28th at noon (CET). Well ... have fun! I will publish our new episode, our last haiku by Sogi, our featured haiku-poet, later on.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Carpe Diem #651, Picking Young Greens (wakanatsumi)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As we are closing in to the end of January our New Year kigo will be more looking like Spring kigo as we have today Picking Young Greens (wakanatsumi) for prompt than we see that spring is coming closer. In this kigo with the "young greens" are meant the seven sacred herbs as we have seen in earlier posts here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.
Today it's all about Jinjitsu (January 7th) on this date there is the Festival of Seven Herbs or Nanakusa no sekku on which the Japanese cook a special seven-herb rice porridge.

The Festival of Seven Herbs or Nanakusa no sekku is the long-standing Japanese custom of eating seven-herb rice porridge (nanakusa-gayu) on January 7 (Jinjitsu).

Credits: Nanakusa-gayu

On the morning of January 7, or the night before, people place the nanakusa, rice scoop, and/or wooden pestle on the cutting board and, facing the good-luck direction, chant "Before the birds of the continent (China) fly to Japan, let's get nanakusa" while cutting the herbs into pieces. The chant may vary.

The seventh of the first month has been an important Japanese festival since ancient times. The custom of eating nanakusa-gayu on this day, to bring longevity and health, developed in Japan from a similar ancient Chinese custom, intended to ward off evil. Since there is little green at that time of the year, the young green herbs bring color to the table and eating them suits the spirit of the New Year.

This is the song mentioned above:

tōdo no tori to,
nihon no tori to,
wataranu saki ni,
nanakusa nazuna,
te ni tsumi-ire te,
kōshitochō to naru

China-land's birds and
Japanese birds,
earlier than bring on their coming,
seven species wild herb,
I pluck them to the hand and
it becomes Neck, Turtle Beak, Dipper and Extended Net.

By the way "Neck", "Turtle Beak", "Dipper" and "Extended Net" are all Chinese constellations.

I found a nice haiku written by Narayanan Raghunathan (co-founder of Wonder Haiku Worlds) with this prompt in it:

cool dawn -
an old Indian picking
young greens

© Narayanan Raghunathan

I found a nice Waka written by Emperor Koko Tennoo

It is for your sake
That I walk the fields in spring,

Gathering green herbs,
While my garment's hanging sleeves
Are speckled with falling snow.

Credits: Chickweed, one of the Seven Sacred Herbs

And I have found a nice trio of haiku written by Kobayashi Issa with wakanatsumi as theme:

kusa-tsumi no kobushi no mae no irihi kana

sun sinking
just beyond the fist
of the herb picker

kake-nabe mo asahi sasunari kore mo haru

dawn sun shining
even on my chipped pot --
this, too, New Year's

waga haru ya tadon hitotsu ni kona ichiha

my New Year's --
one ball of charcoal
a bunch of stunted greens

© Issa

And here is my attempt to write a haiku inspired on this prompt:

late at night

picking young greens in the kitchen garden -

the almost full moon

Well ... a nice post I think. This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until January 22nd at noon (CET). I will try to post our next episode, a new episode of our special feature on Haiku Writing Techniques, later on.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Carpe Diem #650, First Rooster Crowing (hatsutori)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As you all know every new year starts with fireworks, but in haiku every new year starts with kigo like "first moon rising", "first dream" and so on. Today we have such a kigo for prompt. This time it's about Hatsutori, the first rooster crowing. After New Year's Eve and after the fireworks we go to bed, because life starts all over ... and after a festive New Year's Eve it's nice to go to sleep and dream about the future or the past, but than .... the first rooster crows as it starts to become light again. What a short night we had, but that first rooster crowing does help us to remember that life goes on ... nothing has changed, only the year has changed ...

As I was preparing this episode I couldn't find a proper haiku example for this prompt, but after quit a while of searching around on the internet I finally found a wonderful haiku written by Narayanan Raghunathan, one of the co-founders of Wonder Haiku World (a great website).

first rooster -

then one after another
three more

© Narayanan Raghunathan

Credits: Rooster

And another one which is composed by Kobayashi Issa, it's not really a haiku for the New Year's season, but I just had to share it here, because of the scenery it paints:

yûdachi no ura ni naku nari yane no tori

Isn't it a wonderful scene? I can see that rooster upon the rooftop, he has a mighty overlook on the property of his boss, he sees the hens and chickens walk around the house ... and than he crows .... awesome scene ...

daylight brightens

the rooster crows his sun greet -

the silence deepens

In this haiku I just saw that rooster in front of my eyes while I was performing the sun greet, a yoga exercise. And than, as I ended my exercise and the rooster stopped crowing that silence was overwhelming ... an awesome way to start the day.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until January 21st at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, Picking Young Greens (wakanatsumi), later on.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Carpe Diem #598, Large Pink (Nadeshiko) or Carnation, one of the Seven Sacred Autumn Flowers

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What an awesome posts we have had the last few days. The first Tranströmer special and that nice GW-post about Edgar Allan Poe ... and you all are very inspired to write haiku in response of those posts. Thank you all for your participation and contributions. That's what makes Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.
In our last "Just Read" episode I published an article written by Fay Aoyagi of Blue Willow Haiku World about "Moon in the Haiku Tradition". You all could respond on that article by submitting a haiku about "moon". I was really surprised to read all of your wonderful "moon"-haiku and I decided to make an anthology of "moon"-haiku which I gave the title "for the sake of the moon". I hope you all like that idea and I hope that I can and may use your haiku on "moon" for that anthology. I love to make that anthology available next December as an ebook here on Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. Please let me know if it's ok that I use your haiku (of course credited).

Ok ... back to our episode of today. Today I love to introduce another one of the Seven Sacred Autumn Flowers to you all. The "sacred flower" this time is the Large Pink (Nadeshiko) or Carnation and I have found a few wonderful haiku written by Issa, Shiki and Narayanan Raghunathan (co-founder of Wonder Haiku Worlds) about Nadeshiko or Large Pink:

nadeshiko ya jizô bosatsu no ato saki ni

blooming pinks
behind and in front
of Saint Jizo

nadeshiko ya hitotsu saite wa tsuyu no tame

hagi kikyo nadeshiko nando moe ni-keri

bush clover, bellflowers
and also pinks
have sprouted

cool dawn --
the nadeshiko field
sways in breeze

Credits: Large Pink or Nadeshiko

It looks so fragile ... and I think it's a fragile flower. In the Western world we call this flower Carnation and there are over 300 different species of this wonderful flower. In my country (The Netherlands) we see very often Carnations in mourning bouquets, that's one of the reasons why my wife don't want to get Carnations for her birthday or another festive day.

on this grave

next to a little teddy bear

purple carnations

Well ... I hope you did like this episode and I hope it will inspire your to write an all new haiku. This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until November 8th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our next episode, Yellow Valerian, later on. For now ... have fun! By the way I am behind with commenting hope to catch up a.s.a.p.

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