Carpe Diem #1410 Rainbow (short-haibun)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our Kai. This month I ask you all to create haibun ... "go and tell your story" you all did a wonderful task in the first weeks April. I am proud ... it makes me humble, because haibun isn't really my "cup of tea" and I am for sure not a great haibun poet.

Today I have another wonderful theme to work with ... "rainbow". Maybe you can remember our "rainbow" Theme Week "color your life" back in 2016. We explored the meaning of the colors of the rainbow and maybe, just maybe it can help you to create your short-haibun this time.

I have a wonderful haiku by Kobayashi Issa for you, that haiku you have to use or at least a "revision" of it. Write your short-haibun, with a maximum of 100 words (including the haiku) and share it with us all.

Here is the haiku by Issa:

evening's fall colors -
the rainbow in the valley
fades away

© Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828)

A real beauty by one of the greatest haiku poets ever. Issa had a tough life, but his poems aren't affected by it.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until April 19th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new weekend-meditation later on.

Carpe Diem Extra May 23rd 2016 New CDHK e-book available

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

During lack of time I will publish our new episode in our Tan Renga Challenge month later on today. I have spend a lot of time to create our new exclusive CDHK E-book of our second Theme Week "Color Your Life", about the colors of the Rainbow.

This new exclusive CDHK E-book is Now Available for download at the left of our Kai. I hope you all will like it.

Namaste,

Chèvrefeuille, your host

Carpe Diem Theme Week #2 Color Your Life: violet

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

This is our last episode of the second Theme Week of Carpe Diem. This week we discovered the deeper meaning of the colors of the rainbow and it was a joy to create this Theme Week for you all. As you all know after the Theme Week I create an exclusive CDHK e-book in which I gather all the posts and your responses on it. If you don't want your haiku (or other shared poem) published in this Theme Week e-book please let me know by sending me an email to  carpediemhaikukai@gmail.com

Today we end our journey along the colors of the rainbow. Our last color is violet. This is the color of the seventh chakra, the crown-chakra.

Violet is the color of good judgment. It is the color of people seeking spiritual fulfillment. It is said if you surround yourself with violet you will have peace of mind. Violet is a good color to use in meditation.

Violet has been used to symbolize magic and mystery, as well as royalty. Being the combination of red and blue, the warmest and coolest colors, violet is believed to be the ideal color. Most children love the color violet. Violet is the color most favored by artists.

Violet is a combination of blue and red. Red is a focusing, dynamic and active energy while blue is cooling, calming and expansive. Violet brings a new dynamic to the expansion of blue and the activity of red. Red brings practicality to the undirected expansiveness of the blue, and allows more creative energy to emerge. For this reason, violet is associated with imagination and inspiration.

Violet is an important energy for those who use blue and indigo skills in the psychic field. The red in violet offers a grounding effect.

a violet mask
hides her red eyed face
lost spirituality

© Chèvrefeuille

in deep silence

I see the violet color
of spirituality

cold and warm colors

fused to deep violet
balanced again

© Chèvrefeuille

A last one on rainbow again, for closure so to say of this wonderful Theme Week about `Color Your Life` at Carpe Diem. Not one by myself but one of Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827).

yûmomiji tani zankô no kie kakaru

evening's fall colors -
the rainbow in the valley
fades away

© Issa

Thank you all so much for participating in this Carpe Diem Theme Week "Color Your Life", I have read wonderful haiku, all very wonderfully composed and colorful. It has been a pleasure to host this Theme Week.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions
and will remain open until March 27th 7.00 PM (CET).

Carpe Diem Theme Week #2 Color Your Life: Indigo

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Our second Carpe Diem Theme Week “Color Your Life” is almost over. We have just two days ahead of us. Today our rainbow color is indigo. What can I tell about Indigo? Let's look at the spiritual meaning of Indigo.

Indigo is the color of the Third Eye Chakra

Indigo is the color of the deep midnight sky. It can have a negative effect when used during a depressed state, because it will deepen the mood. Indigo symbolizes a mystical borderland of wisdom, self-mastery and spiritual realization. While blue is the color of communication with others, indigo turns the blue inward, to increase personal thought, profound insights, and instant understandings. While blue can be fast, Indigo is almost instantaneous. Inventors use indigo skills for inspirations that seem to 'come out of the blue'.

Cosmic Rainbow

spiritual future

called Indigo child
third eye fully open
travel into oblivion
visiting ancestors

© Chèvrefeuille

Indigo ... a wonderful blue color ... strong rooted in spirituality. It's the color of the Third Eye, in the middle of our forehead.

Tomorrow we have our last rainbow color violet and that will close this second Carpe Diem Theme Week “Color Your Life”. It was really a joy to read all your posts on all those wonderful rainbow colors. Thank you all for participating in Carpe Diem.

As you all (maybe) know it’s my intention to create an e-book about this second Theme Week of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. In that e-book I not only wish to re-produce the posts, but also your submitted haiku. Just to give you a present to read again.

If you don’t want to be published in this e-book “Color Your Life”, than please let me know through sending an email to our CDHK email-address: carpediemhaikukai@gmail.com

This episode of our second CD-Theme Week is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 26th at 7.00 PM (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Theme Week #2 Color Your Life: blue

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

In case of you have missed the latest CD-Extra "for closure", you can find that post HERE.

Welcome at this belated Theme Week episode "blue". In our 2nd CD Theme Week we are exploring the deeper meaning of the colors of the rainbow and today that's "blue". Blue is one of my favorite colors, because it fits my idea of freedom. Blue in my opinion stands for freedom, because of the color of water and the sky. To be free like a fish in the ocean or a bird in the sky that's what blue means to me.

At the start of CDHK I have done a "rainbow"-week and to make it myself a little bit easy I have chosen (again) to use that former post on "blue".

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Today it's all blue what we will write for Carpe Diem. Blue is my favorite color. I love blue clothes and therefore I wear mostly jeans. Jeans giving me a good feeling, a feeling of joy and freedom ... and they are almost commonly blue. So this prompt must be an easy one to write haiku about.

wearing blue jeans

sign of happiness and freedom -

bleached with stones

jeans almost falling apart
can't throw them away

Blue ... the color of the sky, the color of the sea, blues the music I love.

Awesome! Blues ... my kind of music ... giving me joy and the feeling of freedom.

blues night
at the pub around the corner
drinking Guinness

patches of clouds
torn apart and drifting away
ah! that blue sky

My brother was a big fan of the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) and they had a song which I listen often. It was called 'Mr. Blue Sky'. It gives me that great feeling that my brother is in heaven. He passed away several years ago died of lung cancer. I miss him every day. So I love to share that song by ELO here:

in memoriam

mister blue sky high in heaven
still missing him

I hope you enjoyed this episode on Blue and I hope that it inspired you all to write wonderful haiku. Please leave a comment after linking.

This episode of our 2nd Theme Week is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until march 26th at 7.00 PM (CET).

Carpe Diem Theme Week #2 Color Your Life: Green

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode in our fantastic CDHK Theme Week about the colors of the rainbow. I have another nice episode for you all, but I have taken the easy way this time. At the start of CDHK I have done a week about the colors of the rainbow and because of the events here at CDHK and in the world (Belgium) I decided to re-produce the "old" episode on "green" here again with you.

Isn't it a great rainbow-week? I love to write all those colorful posts and I shall try to do that today again with green the fourth color of that graceful colored bow ... set as a gift to us by God. It's His promise to the world that He will never leave us alone ... it's a token of His Love.

Green is the color that belongs to the 4th chakra Anahata (at the center of the chest also called Heart Chakra). It's stimulating healing and makes self-love stronger and with that the love for others. As I already mentioned in my 'Red'-post Green is the spiritual color for love. Green is aligned with Venus and the Moon and has effect on our ability to share unconditional love and compassion. Wow! What a strong color!

unconditional love

shared with the world
green heart beats

© Chèvrefeuille

Did you know that there are green flowers? I only know one kind of succulent with green flowers. I don't know the name, but I have it in my garden at the front of my house.

almost invisible

between colored leaves
succulent's flowers

the color of the heart
green and not red as ever
ah! what a shock

© Chèvrefeuille

Green the color of love, the color of the heart. Let the green color sent you unconditional love her strong energy.

Here are a few other haiku inspired on the color green which I extracted from my archives:

touching the spikes
of green barley covered with raindrops -
refreshing tears

on the green paddy
no more rice planting songs -
just rustling of rice

late at night
picking young greens in the kitchen garden -
the almost full moon

© Chèvrefeuille

And to conclude this episode of our 2nd Theme Week I love to share a so called “rengay” (invented by Garry Gay) which I wrote together with my sensei Basho inspired on a beautiful “hokku” by him. (The hokku used is translated by myself)

breathtaking
sprouting green leaves
in the sunlight

sunbeams in the mirror
her smile even brighter

in the mirror
a man in the autumn of his life
his hair turned gray

gray misty morning
cows legs in the meadow
crowing of a cock

colorful field of flowers
finally exposed to the sun

breathtaking
colors sparkling in dewdrops
just one heartbeat

© Chèvrefeuille

It has become a nice episode for our Theme Week I would say and I hope it will inspire you to write haiku, tanka or another Japanese poetry form. Have fun!

This Theme Week episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 24th 7.00 PM (CET). I am looking forward to your responses.

Carpe Diem Theme Week #2 Color Your Life: Yellow

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

We are busy with our second Theme Week here at Carpe Diem and I really love to make this Theme Week, because it makes me somewhat sentimental. Why? Well at the start of CDHK (than called Carpe Diem) I had a "Rainbow"-week too and I have warm memories to that week so that's why it makes me somewhat sentimental.
As I see were I started in 2012 and see now what we have become ... than I am a proud host and a blessed haiku poet.

Introduction:


Today I will look at the color yellow and there are a few meanings which came immediately in my mind. Yellow, is the color of new life, Easter, but also the color of hate and it also means friendship. So these meanings are all very strong, but let us look at the other deeper meaning of this color.

Here is already a haiku from my archive. This one was first published as a "one-line" haiku, but I re-worked it to the three line form.

on the banks of the stream
as far as I can see
a yellow sea of ​​flowers

© Chèvrefeuille

Color Your Life: Yellow


Yellow is the brightest color the human eye can see. It means youth, as we can see in the variety of yellow flowers in spring. It gives you a feeling of joy and happiness. Yellow has to do with learning too, it resonates with the left (logical) side of the brain, therefore you can say that yellow is a male color. Yellow can give a boost to your creativity.

But ... yellow has also a different side as I wrote above it's the color of hate. Here are a few other ideas about the meaning of yellow:

The color yellow puts emotions aside, and thoughts comes from the head rather than from the heart. Yellow color meaning shows that it relies mostly on itself and prefers not to get emotionally involved. It relates to our ego, our self-confidence, how we see ourselves and how others see us.

If you are undergoing major changes in your life, you may find that you will not tolerate the color yellow very well – this will usually pass. It just means that you currently find it difficult to cope with all the new things in your life, and that yellow vibrates too fast for you, making you stressed. Add a little green or a soft orange color in your life for some time to restore your energy balance. It is worth mentioning that many older people do not respond well to large amounts of yellow, because the color vibrates too fast for them. (Source: color meanings)

My response:

Yellow ... not really a color I would wear or use in my home, but of course I enjoy the yellow flowers of spring and yellow light of the sun. Here is another haiku from my archives.

amazing sight
a yellow sea as far as I can see
Safflower field

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 23rd 10.00 PM (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Theme Week #2 Color Your Life -- Orange

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As you could have read I am still a little bit in shock after a publishing permission issue so for this second episode of our second Theme Week Color Your Life I have chosen to reproduce an earlier post on orange. My excuses for that ... it's with tears in my eyes and an aching heart that I have to choose the easy way today.

Introduction:

I have read wonderful haiku on Red and today the second color of our wonderful rainbow-week is on ... that will be orange another nice warm color. In my country (The Netherlands) we have our Royal Family of Orange, orange is a strong color in my country, but orange can also stand for a citrus fruit. Orange flowers and more orange to see around us ... what do you think of a beautiful sunset or sunrise ... well we shall see what I can do with this theme orange ... have to write at least one haiku.

Orange: 

Orange is a very strong color associated with creative energy. Nature grows through the sun (orange?) and therefore I think we will all have a slight reference towards orange as being the color of creativity. We have to cherish that energy, because we need it to create our haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry forms.

Orange combines red and yellow. It contains the fiery energy of red with the wisdom and control of yellow. Orange is a dynamic energy like red but more thoughtful and controlled.

Orange brings about: creativity; playfulness; exploration on a practical level; relief from boredom and equilibrium.

orange chrysanthemums

in full bloom standing proudly
waving in the wind

© Chèvrefeuille

My response:

I have to admit that I never have had seen a orange house, but as I was surfing the WWW I ran into a wonderful picture of a orange house somewhere in Bogota. And I had to write a haiku going along with it.

all day sunrise
what a joy to live in
my orange house

© Chèvrefeuille

And I just had to include a troiku based on “all day sunrise”:

all day sunrise
what a joy to live in
my orange house

all day sunrise
Mother Nature is confused
the longest day

what a joy to live in
a world full of fantasy
patches of clouds

my orange house
save harbor for my children
‘till when will it last?

© Chèvrefeuille

Of course I couldn’t close this episode of our Theme Week without creating a new haiku inspired on “orange”:

after the storm
drinking tea on the porch
royal sunset

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I hope you did like this Theme Week episode.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 22nd 7:00 PM (CET). !!! Beware of the shorter time you have to respond !!!

Carpe Diem Theme Week #2 Color Your Life Introduction

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the first episode of the second Carpe Diem Theme Week. This week (March 20th until March 26th) I love to bring some "Color into Your Life". We are going to explore the deeper meaning of the colors which we know from the rainbow. As I started CDHK back in 2012 I had a week full of prompts about the colors of the rainbow and maybe ... this feels for a few of you ... like a reprise, but ... well our Haiku loving family has grown since we started so there will be new family members who love to be inspired by the colors of the rainbow.

As I did in our first Theme Week I will gather all the posts of this Theme Week including your haiku and other Japanese poetry forms you will submit to create a new e-book, but that's ... not for now.

Introduction:

As I was preparing this first introductory episode the first thing which cam in mind  was God's covenant with Noah after the Flood. That story is told in Genesis and in the following verses from Genesis we can read that covenant:

[... ] God said, "This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. "It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud.” [...] Genesis 9: 12-14 (NIV)

I think you all have seen at least once a rainbow. It's a huge arch of colors in the sky. It's caused by the light from the sun being broken up by water droplets in the atmosphere. The sun's light is "white", but the water droplets break it up into seven different colors, always in this order: RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, INDIGO, VIOLET

It's really a wonderful sight to see the rainbow and it's always a joy to know why it was once placed there according to Genesis, however in our time we know why this colored arch can be seen it is just how nature works ... the rainbow is magical and mysterious and the colors ... well the colors have a deeper meaning. That deeper meaning is the theme of this week that's why I have chosen the title of this Theme Week "Color Your Life". I think through haiku (and of course every other poetry form) we can color our life.

That was my introduction to close this introduction the posts this week are following the order of the colors of the rainbow. So today I start with RED.

Color Your Life ... Red:

The color red is one of the most vibrant colors in the spectrum. Red color has the longest wavelength in the visible color spectrum. It is also the visible light nearest to infrared in the electromagnetic spectrum. Infrared waves produce heat and objects that are very heated eventually become visibly red. It comes as no surprise then to learn that red is associated with fire, burning, heat and warmth.

Being the color of blood, red is also connected to life and that which sustains life. It is associated with living life at to its fullest.

Generally the positive sides of the color red include action, courage, a strong will, honesty, confidence, spontaneity, vibrancy and gratitude.

Everything is in balance in our world, so just as there are positive aspects of the meaning of red, there are negatives associated with this color as well.

Red is associated with danger. Stop signs, stop lights and fire trucks are red.

How to color your life ... with red? Well ... there are so many wonderful red flowers, or the red leaves of autumn, the redness of the sunrise or sunset ... nature's red colors are really gorgeous.

sunset

My response:

Red ... the color of blood ... Red ... the color of love (however in chakra-colors the color for love is green) Red ... a wonderful sunset or sundown ... red peppers, red radishes, well you name it ... must be easy to write a few haiku on Red heh ...

red roses
between gypsophila
on a new grave

"look! a big red balloon"
the little child reaches
to the setting sun

together as one
on a lettuce bed
radish and peppers

© Chèvrefeuille

Well .... I hope you did like this first episode of our second Carpe Diem Theme Week. And remember as I did in our first Theme Week instead of three days you have two days to respond. So this first Theme Week episode of this month is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 21st at 7.00 PM (CET). Have fun!