Carpe Diem #1264 Borealis (Northern Lights)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Five years ago I started with Carpe Diem an experiment to inspire the world through daily themes to create haiku. If any one had told me that Carpe Diem would be still alive five years later I would have laughed ... I really hadn't thought to be here alive and kicking.
I am grateful that you, my dear Haijin, have made this all possible. Carpe Diem Haiku Kai has become a great success all thanks to you all. It makes me proud, but more ... it makes me humble. Who am I that I may do this? Who am I to be your host and mentor?

Thank you all for this wonderful journey and I hope you all will continue to go with me on this journey. This month we celebrate our first luster, our fifth anniversary, and I think we will have a beautiful festive month. I have chosen for beautiful music and themes / prompts from our rich history here at CDHK. So this month will be a trip along memory-lane, except the musical prompts those are all new and I am happy that I had the opportunity to share this music with you all.

This month we will have no weekend-meditations, but the weekends will be for the music. This Sunday our first musical prompt is titled "borealis" and is composed by a young composer Peter Crowley. He has composed wonderful music and for sure it's worth to visit and listen to his music on his You Tube Channel.

Listen to his music. It's really awesome and I hope it will be a source of inspiration for you.

Because of lack of time, I am on the nightshift, I have chosen a tanka from my archives inspired on Borealis.

sign of the gods
the night painted in thousand colors -
cracking snow
reflects the 'dance of the spirits'
aurora borealis

© Chèvrefeuille

I think this tanka fits the music by Peter Crowley. Here is another one, in the experimental way:

borealis
light from heaven

God's smile

© Chèvrefeuille

And now it is up to you my dear haijin, visitors and travelers. I am looking forward to this anniversary month and I hope you all do too.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until October 7th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, perfume, later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #1175 Theme Week Hafiz (1) potted plant

  

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the first episode of the Theme Week (new style) in which I bring a week of specific prompts. This Theme Week I love to share only poems by Hafiz and maybe tell you something more about his background, but that's not certain as I am creating this episode.

This Carpe Diem month we have read already beautiful poems by Hafiz and I hope this week will bring you all a little bit more beauty by Hafiz. As you could have read in the earlier posts this month the Persian people often seek answers for their questions in the poems of Hafiz ... so maybe the poems in this Theme Week will give you answers on questions or thoughts you have. If that's what is going to happen than I am glad ... I think the spirit of Hafiz moves around here at CDHK and maybe he will give you the answers you need, but mostly this week is meant to bring the beauty of Hafiz's poems closer to you.

potted plants to decorate the fench

The first poem for this Theme Week is titled "potted plant" and it is taken from "The Subject Tonight Is Love", translated by Daniel Ladinsky.

In this poem we can read how Hafiz is honoring and praising God by taking care of a the earth. In this poem that "potted plant" is synonymous with caring for and cherishing the Earth. He praises the beauty of the moon ... she ... my love too.

A Potted Plant

I pull a sun from my coin purse each day.

And at night I let my pet the moon
Run freely into the sky meadow.

If I whistled,
She would turn her head and look at me.

If I then waved my arms,
She would come back wagging a marvelous
tail
Of stars.

There are always a few men like me
In this world

Who are house-sitting for God.
We share His royal duties:

I water each day a favorite potted plant
Of His--
This earth.

Ask the Friend for love.
Ask Him again.

For I have learned that every heart will get
What it prays for
Most.

© Hafiz (or Hafez) taken from:  'The Subject Tonight Is Love' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Persian nature (photo found on Pinterest)

What can this poem mean, is there an answer for your questions? Let me take a closer look at this poem. As I read and re-read this poem than I read a song of praise for our Creator. In a way in this poem Hafiz shows us the beauty of the creation, and that we have to care for it.
In this poem I also read that our Creator loves us and cherishes us and that He will give us what we need. The earth provides us with all we need, we have to take care of her ... That's a very important issue by the way nowadays.

I could ask the following question: "What can we do to take care of our surroundings, our neighborhood? And ... read this poem again and it gives me the right answer. So ... this is maybe what the Persian (Iranian) people experience as the ask their questions ...

Well ... a poem with a message I would say, a message to us all ... "take care of Mother Nature" and I think that we, haiku poets, can bring that message too. Haiku is ... the poetry of nature.

I dived into my archives and made a little "gathering" of haiku and tanka that fits this poem by Hafiz I think.

wandering through the woods
no paved paths to walk on
bare footed I feel

in the arms of nature
resting like a little child -
scent of fallen leaves

as far as I can see
the blue sea surrounded by mountains
black like the night

 © Chèvrefeuille

Aurora Borealis (photo found on Pinterest)

sign of the gods
the night painted in thousand colors -
cracking snow
reflects the 'dance of the spirits'
aurora borealis

rustling bamboo -
song of a Nightingale fades away
a new day rises
in the mystery of the dawn
the sound of rain

© Chèvrefeuille

I hope I have inspired you with this post.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 24th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, lover, later on.

Carpe Diem's Imagination #10, "Aurora Borealis"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's has been a while ago that I shared an episode of our Carpe Diem Imagination feature, so here it is a new episode of our feature in which the goal is to write a haiku, senryu, tanka or kyoka inspired on a picture, photo, image or painting given.
For this episode I have chosen a photo of 'Aurora Borealis' (or the Northernlight). I came to that choice through a post of Managua Gunn which he posted for our "Prophecy"- episode of today. You can find that post HERE or by clicking on the link in our "Prophecy"- episode.

What is "Aurora Borealis"?

An aurora is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere (thermosphere). The charged particles originate in the magnetosphere and solar wind and, on Earth, are directed by the Earth's magnetic field into the atmosphere.
In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis (or the northern lights), named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas, by Pierre Gassendi in 1621. Auroras seen near the magnetic pole may be high overhead, but from farther away, they illuminate the northern horizon as a greenish glow or sometimes a faint red, as if the Sun were rising from an unusual direction. Discrete aurorae often display magnetic field lines or curtain-like structures, and can change within seconds or glow unchanging for hours, most often in fluorescent green. The aurora borealis most often occurs near the equinoxes. The northern lights have had a number of names throughout history. The Cree call this phenomenon the "Dance of the Spirits". In Medieval Europe, the auroras were commonly believed to be a sign from God.


Aurora Borealis

Its southern counterpart, the aurora australis (or the southern lights), has features that are almost identical to the aurora borealis and changes simultaneously with changes in the northern auroral zone. It is visible from high southern latitudes in Antarctica, South America, New Zealand, and Australia. Aurorae occur on other planets. Similar to the Earth's aurora, they are visible close to the planet's magnetic poles.



Aurora Australis

Well ... enough inspiration I think ... and here is my inspired haiku on Aurora Borealis.

sign of the gods
the night painted in thousand colors -
cracking snow

cracking snow
reflects the 'dance of the spirits'
aurora borealis

Nice set I think ... it's very difficult to write a haiku on such a theme as Aurora Borealis, because I haven't seen that for real, but the pictures give a kind of idea how this would look, so that's why I wrote the haiku as I did.

This episode of Carpe Diem's Imagination will stay on until January 5th 11.59 AM (CET) and I will try to post than a new episode of CD's Imagination. This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions.