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First my apologies for being late with publishing, but I hadn't time to publish it on time. Today I have a nice quote by the Persian poet Rumi. I think you can remember that we had a month full of Persian poetry last year, so I thought I will use a quote for today's episode. I think it's a wonderful quote to work with:
[...] “There are as many ways of loving as there are people, and that wildflower variety is the great beauty of this dimension of existence.” [...] (Rumi)
Ofcourse there is a small task to work with today. I love to read a lovepoem in which you use love and wildflowers. You can create a haiku, tanka or another beautiful form of Japanese poetry, like Sedoka or Choka.
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 27th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!!
Recently I read a wonderful weblog on spiritual growth and I hope that is a little bit the task of CDHK too. Maybe you are familiar with the idea of spiritual growth and if not .... well no problem at all. We are now living in what is called "the time of Aquarius" this is the time in which (according to astrology) humankind is ascending to another state of spiritual life. This is the time of spiritual growth. As we look around us than we can see that in so many things. For example we can see this in nature, global warming, makes us aware that we have to do something, we have to care for nature. Without nature we as humans cannot live. We need nature, not just for our food, but also for our spiritual health and physical health. Nature ... the major theme for us as haiku and tanka poets. We are the keepers of nature or as I stated earlier this month we are the keepers of Earth. We need her ...
This month I choose for the beauty of Persian poetry and themed this month "praise to the emptiness" and I think that theme was in almost all the poems we have read this month. What is "emptiness"? Well it's one of the pillars of Zen Buddhism and for haiku (and tanka). Every haiku (or tanka) needs that emptiness, not only in its words, but also in its lay-out. In one of my first haiku anthologies I published (back in 1998) I had only one haiku a page ... That emptiness places the haiku at the most important spot ... in the center.
Today I have a wonderful poem by Rumi. This poem titled "departure" is extracted from 'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972 and translated by R.A. Nicholson. As I read this poem I saw dervishes swirl and maybe that makes this poem that awesome. Dervishes swirl, a Sufi way of meditating, to make contact with the Higher Power, with God or Allah or what ever name you will give it.
As I wrote earlier in this post emptiness is very important, but of course there is also need for a nice post to read I think, so I didn't choose for a lay-out with emptiness, but maybe you can use that idea of emptiness in the lay out for your response.
DEPARTURE
Up, O ye lovers, and away! 'Tis time to leave the world for aye. Hark, loud and clear from heaven the form of parting calls-let none delay! The cameleer hat risen amain, made ready all the camel-train, And quittance now desires to gain: why sleep ye, travellers, I pray? Behind us and before there swells the din of parting and of bells; To shoreless space each moment sails a disembodied spirit away. From yonder starry lights, and through those curtain-awnings darkly blue, Mysterious figures float in view, all strange and secret things display. From this orb, wheeling round its pole, a wondrous slumber o'er thee stole: O weary life that weighest naught, O sleep that on my soul dost weigh! O heart, toward they heart's love wend, and O friend, fly toward the Friend, Be wakeful, watchman, to the end: drowse seemingly no watchman may.
What can this poem mean? Reading it and re-reading it It brings me the idea of leaving this world, or in other words ... death. Is this what is meant here? I think it is, but maybe it is also a way of telling that you have to leave your common path and take another route ... or even more in other words ... it is time for changing your path ... to grow spiritual.
Here at CDHK we have had "departure" earlier as prompt. As I was preparing this post I ran into the history of CDHK and found a few nice posts about "departure".
Departure ... is something we see very often in our daily life, not only real departure, but also spiritual departure (as it is meant in the poem by Rumi). Departure is part of our lives. Its included in our life.
This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until April 1st at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, broken heart, later on. For now ... have fun!
Yesterday we had a wonderful poem by Imrani, just to show you that there are more great Persian poets, but today I will return to the three Persian poets who have the leading role this month, Rumi, Hafiz and Saadi.
Today I have a nice poem by Rumi for you to meditate and contemplate about. This poem is titled "a star without a name"
In this poem he describes how humankind came to the world, like a star without a name. As I read this I immediately thought of the idea of "starseeds". I don't now if you are familiar with this idea "starseed"? So I will try to explain the idea of "starseeds".
Starseed
Starseeds
are individuals that originate from far-distant star and solar systems,
planets, and galaxies. These highly evolved souls carry a plethora of wisdom
and special abilities that hibernates deep within the core of their being. All
starseeds are encoded with activation encryptions that will unlock their
knowledge and talents at a pre-determined or spontaneous time on earth, for the
retrieval of this information is to be utilized for very specific purposes.
Starseeds
have an inner knowing that Earth is not their primary source of existence or
identity. They feel like foreigners on this planet, and they find the behaviors
and customs of our world to be perplexing, irrational, and even absurd.
Starseeds innately have extraordinary intuition and psychic abilities, and they
are very adept and attuned to concealed agendas and conspiracies of earthly
societies, however, they are not always aware of their specials gifts. In fact,
many starseeds live in a walking sleep-state for most of their lives.
Fortunately, all starseeds have a built-in alarm clock that is meant to awaken
and activate them from their slumber, to remember who they are and why they
have come to the planet, and thus accomplish their duties which they in fact
volunteered for upon their prior incarnation.
Starseeds carry
the "seeds" of light. They are the indigo's, the forefather's, the
innovators, the galactic ones, the star ancestors, and the true teachers and
inspirations of ascension. But, whatever you want to call them, one thing is
for certain…starseeds are powerful beyond measure; they shine a magnificent
beacon of light and love to propel us all into the Golden Age of inspiration,
creativity, innovation, and advancement.
Starseed
When a baby is taken from the wet nurse, it easily forgets her and starts eating solid food.
Seeds feed awhile on ground, then lift up into the sun. So you should taste the filtered light and work your way toward wisdom with no personal covering. That's how you came here, like a star without a name. Move across the night sky with those anonymous lights.
I hope you did like the read. This poem is surely about something wonderful and magical. Maybe it is about starseeds and if that's true than Rumi was a real awakend poet and he was aware of this "starseed" idea. As I look at myself ... than I think there is something like this "starseed" maybe you and I are "starseeds" ... sounds great!
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March18th at noon (CET). I will try to post our next episode, leaving, later on.
What a joy to read all of your responses on the first posts of this month. It's really a joy to read all of your poems. Everyone creates in his or her way and yet there are so much things the same. It feels like CDHK has really become a family in which we are sharing our love for Japanese poetry but are also sharing unconscious the same thoughts and feelings. You all are such great poets ... who am I that I can and may be your host here ... I am really honored with your warm and loving participation here. Thank you all ...
Recently I read about the philosophy of Nietzsche, he had specific ideas, but over all he shared his thoughts on existentialism. What is existentialism? Let me give you a small explanation for this:
"Existentialism
is the belief
that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the
thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. While the
predominant value of existentialist thought is commonly acknowledged to be
freedom, its primary virtue is authenticity. In the view of the existentialist,
the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called
"the existential attitude", or a sense of disorientation, confusion,
or dread in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. Many
existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic
philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from
concrete human experience." (Source: Wikipedia) What has this to do with the poem for today? Well ... what can I say? In the peom of today Rumi is speaking about "existence" and with that came my "revalation" to tell you a little bit about existentialism, because that was the first thing I thought about. Maybe that's just a coincedence, because I am reading Nietzsche's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" at the moment, one of Nietzsche's most famous works. And existence triggered me to look at existentialism ...
Let me first give you the poem by Rumi which is our source of inspiration for this episode:
We are as
the flute, and the music in us is from thee;
we are as the mountain and the echo in us is from thee.
We are as
pieces of chess engaged in victory and defeat:
our victory and defeat is from thee, O thou whose qualities are comely!
Who are we,
O Thou soul of our souls,
that we should remain in being beside thee?
We and our
existences are really non-existence;
thou art the absolute Being which manifests the perishable.
We all are
lions, but lions on a banner:
because of the wind they are rushing onward from moment to moment.
Their
onward rush is visible, and the wind is unseen:
may that which is unseen not fail from us!
Our wind
whereby we are moved and our being are of thy gift;
our whole existence is from thy bringing into being.
Let us take a look again at existentialism as mentioned above: "Existentialism is the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. While the predominant value of existentialist thought is commonly acknowledged to be freedom, its primary virtue is authenticity. In the view of the existentialist, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of disorientation, confusion, or dread in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world."
Rumi describes our connection in an "absurd" way he compares us with pieces of chess, with banners moving in the wind, but he is right. Our existence is built on that absurdity of the world. Look around, religions fight each other, all from aout an idea of supremacy ... and that is a real part of existentialism. Are we supreme beings? I don't think so, we are all pieces of what I call (as in earlier posts here) "god-stuff", we are all connected with that Being. That Being gives us the opportunity to exist, we are part of that Being and from out Being's unconditional love we can and may use nature, but we also have to care and have respect for nature. Isn't that what existentialism means? We exist and we exist together in a world we have to care for ... an absurd world nowadays.
What a beautiful poem with all those deeper layers, not only spiritual, but also philosophical ... really wonderful. Rumi, in my opinion, is one of Persia's best poets.
It will not be easy to become inspired by this above post, but based on the poem by Rumi I came up with the following:
a game of chess played in the shadow of lion banners - the wind unseen
This episode will be open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 11th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, humble, later on. For now ... have fun!
Welcome at the first episode of CDHK March 2017. After our trip through Japan we are now visiting Persia, today Iran, to explore the relationship with poetry. Recently I read a wonderful article about the love for poetry of the Iranian people. As you all know Iran was called Persia and Persia had great poets for example Rumi and Hafez (or Hafiz). The people of Iran live with poetry. They all can recite the poems of their poets especially the beautiful poems of Hafez (Hafiz), but there were more poets from Persia, so let us start reading the first poem I have chosen for this month. This poem written by Rumi is the "namegiver" for this month. The theme I have chosen for this month is "praise the emptiness" it's from the following poem by Rumi:
This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence: This place made from our love for that emptiness! Yet somehow comes emptiness, this existence goes. Praise to that happening, over and over! For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness. Then one swoop, one swing of the arm, that work is over. Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope, free of mountainous wanting. The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw blown off into emptiness. These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning: Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw: Words and what they try to say swept out the window, down the slant of the roof.
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ("our master"), Mevlevî/Mawlawī "my master"), and more popularly simply as Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century Persian Sunni Muslim poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Rumi's influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians, Tajiks, Turks, Greeks, Pashtuns, other Central Asian Muslims, and the Muslims of South Asia have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats. Rumi has been described as the "most popular poet" and the "best selling poet" in the United States.
Until I started preparing this new month of CDHK I only knew Rumi. I didn't knew Hafez (or Hafiz) and Saadi. I really wasn't aware of other Persian poets than Rumi. So this month will be a real adeventure. We (at least I) will dive into an unknown world of poetry ... will be a great experience I think.
This episode I have called "roses" and it is extracted from another poem by Rumi that I love to share here with you:
O you who've gone on pilgrimage - where are you, where, oh where? Here, here is the Beloved! Oh come now, come, oh come! Your friend, he is your neighbor, he is next to your wall - You, erring in the desert - what air of love is this? If you'd see the Beloved's form without any form - You are the house, the master, You are the Kaaba, you! . . . Where is a bunch of roses, if you would be this garden? Where, one soul's pearly essence when you're the Sea of God? That's true - and yet your troubles may turn to treasures rich - How sad that you yourself veil the treasure that is yours!
A beautiful poem to start this month with. The first poem was to introduce this month, this second poem by Rumi is the poem you have to use for our challenge: Create a haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form from this poem.
Well .... I hope you did like this episode and that it will inspire you to create a new haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form.
This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 5th at noon (CET). I will (try to) post our next episode, nightflower, later on. For now ... have fun!
Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers, We are halfway this month of beautiful quotes for our inspiration. In all the quotes we can find a little bit of "the power of words". And that "power" we use everyday in our personal lives, but also in our haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry forms. In our haiku we share our thoughts, our memories, our ideas and our love for nature. Today I have a beautiful quote by Rumi for you. Rumi (1207-1273), was a 13th-century Persian poet,
jurist, Islamic
scholar,
theologian, and Sufi mystic. Rumi's spiritual legacy is appreciated all over the globe for the past seven
centuries. His poems have been widely translated into many of
the world's languages and transposed into various formats. Rumi has
been described as the "most popular poet" and the
"best selling poet" in the United States.
Rumi
Here is the quote for your inspiration: [...] "Let
the beauty of what you love be what you do." [...] Rumi
