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's Road to Yesterday Celebrating Five Years of Japanese Poetry #1 Introduction "right from the heart"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Let us take a trip back in time, back to September 2012, especially September 17th 2012. On that day I put Carpe Diem online with a kind of introductory, welcoming episode, for a new daily haiku meme inspired on a few other daily haiku memes in which I participated.

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September 17, 2012:

our first logo

This is my new weblog. I am Chèvrefeuille a Dutch haiku poet. I love to start a new daily meme for haiku poets. This weblog is the base for that haiku meme.
I hope to see a lot of visitors to enjoy the fun of writing haiku, a classical Japanese poem, on a theme given every day.

be inspired
write your little verses
right from the heart

I hope to see you all soon.

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As I look back to that time of preparations for the first ever prompt at Carpe Diem I smile. What nervous I was if it would work, if I could make it happen ... a daily haiku meme ... I was excited as I started, but also anxious ... because it had took me a lot of time and I just hoped it would work, it would become a success ... At that time I thought: "I just will give it a try, maybe it will last only for a few months, but than I have tried it". At that time I really hadn't thought that Carpe Diem would still exist several years later, yes of course I hoped it would be a success ... but there was at first the language. I had chosen to use English, but that's not my maiden language and at that time I didn't wrote a lot in English, but ... during the years I think my English has become better, at least good enough to write the blogs / episodes.

When the preparations were ready I finally could publish the first episode, Waterfall, that was on September 21st 2012, but the submissions started on October 1st 2012.

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September 21st, 2012:

For starters ... I will give the first prompt for this new daily haiku meme today. So you can think about it and be inspired.
Carpe Diem is a new daily haiku meme in which you can share your haiku. The haiku (or senryu) can be a classical or a non-classical one. It's all up to you. The first prompt for CARPE DIEM is waterfall. I think this is a great prompt to start with. Let flow your inspiration like a waterfall and share your haiku with us.

waterfall of colors
leaves whirl through the street -
departing summer

© Chèvrefeuille

Source: whirling leaves

Please be so kind to share a thought in the comment form. Do you have an idea for a new prompt? Well ... share it with us. I look forward to your contributions for this new haiku meme. And I hope it will be a success. I will try this to the end of the year ... so I hope that I can continue this haiku meme in January 2013.

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And so it started ... Carpe Diem, a daily haiku-meme. Back than the most episodes were short, mostly because of the fact that my English wasn't good enough, but also because of me being nervous if this project would succeed.
Well ... next month we will celebrating our fifth anniversary ... and I really hadn't thought that Carpe Diem, nowadays called Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, would be still alive and kicking. CDHK has grown, we are a real family of haiku loving poets, and there are more parts of CDHK and of course there was the wonderful cooperation with Jane Reichhold. She inspired me to go on and was also the one who gave me the inspiration, the idea, to create exclusive CDHK e-books.

Five years after the start of Carpe Diem ... a good reason to celebrate and I have to thank you all, my dear Haijin, visitors and travelers ... you all are my inspiration, my source, my engine to go on with Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

like a family
you my dear friends I embrace -
unconditional love
shared by a bunch of haiku poets
from all over the world

© Chèvrefeuille

I am looking forward to our fifth anniversary next month and I hope you all do too, because we make Carpe Diem Haiku Kai together.

Have a great weekend.

Namasté,

Chèvrefeuille, your host

Chèvrefeuille, your host