Carpe Diem's Vision Quest #1 day 2, "An empty shell"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What an unexpected success this new feature "Vision Quest" I hadn't thought that it would be that great. By the way CD's Vision Quest is a challenge of three days, today we have our second day of this new feature. Tomorrow will follow the third (and last) day of this three-days Vision Quest.

Here is our second haiku for this first Carpe Diem Vision Quest. (See for details here). Remember that you have only 24 hours to submit your inspired haiku. I have found another nice haiku written by myself for our second day of the Vision Quest:

next to my footprint

the empty shell of a hermit crab -
Ah! what a sadness

(c) Chèvrefeuille (2012)

Be inspired and share your "quick"-write haiku here with us all. You have to respond before August 27th 6.00 PM (CET). I will post our last day of this Vision Quest (the third haiku) at that same time. Have fun!

Ghost Writer post not scheduled

Good day dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

This week I have no Ghost Writer Post, I had hoped to publish a new GW-post today, but that's not going to happen. Instead of our GW-post we will have our Vision Quest.
Next week I will have a new GW-post ... and it will be an extraordinary one ...

Warm greetings,

Chèvrefeuille

Carpe Diem's "Vision Quest" #1 day 1 "New Moon"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I think I have created an all new and wonderful feature in which I challenge you to 'quick'-write a new haiku or senryu. In this new feature I will give three days in a roll a haiku for your inspiration. Sounds easy? Maybe it is easy, but the difficulty is in the time you may use to write a new haiku ... just 24 hours.
I have called it Carpe Diem's Vision Quest and I think that's what it is. Let me first tell you a little bit more about what a Vision Quest is.

A Vision Quest is a rite of passage, similar to an initiation, in some Native American cultures. It is a turning point in life taken before puberty to find oneself and the intended spiritual and life direction. It's an ancient way to find your Inner Self and what your task is for this life in the way of opening your eyes to the spiritual world.

Credits: Vision Quest

Of course this is not really what our "Vision Quest" is meant for. The goal is to 'learn' how you, as a haiku-poet, can see the beauty of the moment on which the haiku is based.
For this new feature, which will take three days, I will give one haiku a day for your inspiration. Meditate and contemplate over it, try to see the scene and find the deeper meaning. If you have done that write/compose a new haiku or senryu (no tanka, kyoka, haibun or other form) inspired on the scene and deeper meaning of the given haiku/senryu.
For this feature you have just 24 hours to respond, so tn three days, you have to write three new haiku or senryu. There is no prompt, just the haiku, which you can use for your inspiration. Carpe Diem's Vision Quest will take place once in a season. So this first episode is for summer.
Our next Vision Quests are in:

November 2014 (autumn)
February 2015 (winter)
May 2015 (spring)

After that fourth Vision Quest I will look if I will continue with it or not.

Credits; Vision Quest

For this first Carpe Diem Vision Quest I have chosen three haiku written by myself. I hope you all will like this new feature.
In your response post I hope to read which scene you saw, which deeper meaning it revealed to you and of course your inspired haiku or senryu.

Here is our first haiku/senryu for the first day of this first Vision Quest:

new moon
she, our moon will grow again
a new life cycle

© Chèvrefeuille (2012)

A nice one to start with I think. You have to respond before August 26th at 6.00 PM (CET); I will publish our second day of this Vision Quest around that same time.
For now ... go on your Vision Quest explore the scene and the deeper meaning in your mind and share your inspired haiku with us all. Have a great Vision Quest!

Carpe Diem #547, Flame

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

everlasting flame
burns for those who are unknown
our saviors

© Chèvrefeuille

Flame is our prompt for today and this haiku/senryu was the first thing which came in mind. I remembered the  "Unknown Soldier" and I recall that I have written about him earlier on my personal weblog Chèvrefeuille's Haiku-blog ...

Here is that haiku:

unknown soldier

slaughtered on the battlefield
no more dreaming

© Chèvrefeuille

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Moscow

The everlasting flame? Is that the same flame about which the verse by Khalil Gibran is? Let us look at that verse.

[...] "I am the flame and I am the dry bush, and one part of me consumes the other part". [...]

As we look at this verse, we can say it's not about the "everlasting flame". I think it's more like the "Burning Bush" which Moses encountered in the time before the great Exodus of God's People. Well ... I think I leave it to your imagination this time and I hope this (small) post will inspire you to write new haiku, senryu, tanka, kyoka or haibun.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until August 28th at noon (CET). I will publish our new post, a new GW-post, later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #546, Silence

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

the silence deepens
as the night falls like a blanket
upon a white world

© Chèvrefeuille

Just an impromptu-verse which found me as I started to prepare this episode of our daily haiku-meme. It's a haiku straight from the heart ... and it's about late autumn or winter. Why a winter haiku came up? I don't know. It's still summer here in The Netherlands, but it feels like autumn ... a lot of wind and rain and we even have had the heater on a few days ago. It felt cold and moist inside our home, because of all the rain we have had.

The haiku above was maybe triggered by our prompt for today, silence, based on Khalil's "Sand and Foam". He has a few beautiful 'verses' about silence and they will inspire you I think. Here they are:

[...] "A great singer is he who sings our silences". [...]

[...] "I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers". [...]

[...] "The silence of the envious is too noisy". [...]

Credits: Silence

What is silence? Is it that nice feeling of no noise at all? Or is it that sweet sound of an early morning concert by birds? Or the babbling brook? Or maybe that sweet sound of the rustling wind through the leaves? Silence can be very still, but I like the silence of a babbling brook for example.

How would you describe silence?

the babbling brook

makes me drowsy and happy -

a late summer night

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... let the silence of your soul inspire you to write wonderful, silent haiku.

This episode will be open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until August 27th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, flame, later on.

Carpe Diem Sparkling Stars #2, Kikaku's "The beggar"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I love to publish a new episode of our Sparkling Stars feature here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. It's a bit similar with the CD-Specials, but there is a little difference. In every episode (once a week on Saturday) I will introduce a 'masterpiece' of one of the classic haiku-poets (well-known and less-known) to inspire you to write a new haiku. Here is the difference with the CD-Specials. Those new haiku, inspired on the 'masterpiece', have to follow the classical rules of haiku:

1. 5-7-5 syllables

2. a kigo (or seasonword)

3. a kireji (or cutting word, in Western languages mostly interpunction)

4. a moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water

5. a deeper meaning (could be Zen-Buddhistic or other spiritual or religious thought)

6. and the first and the third line are interchangeable.

Of course I will tell also something about the scene and background of the haiku which you can use for your inspiration. I hope you all will like this new episode.

Many people look upon Kikau as the obverse, or complement of Basho, and there is a good reason for this. He is the non-religious, non-moral poet. He and Basho correspond to Ritaihaku and Hakurakuten in Chinese poetry and to Byron and Wordsworth in English poetry. In the "sparkling star"-haiku hereafter by Kikaku, haiku is doing something which it was never intended, perhaps, to do. There is a similar passage at the end of Soshi; there may be some relation between the two:

[...] "When Soshi was about to die, his disciples wished to bury him in a grand style, but Soshi said, "My coffin will be Heaven and Earth; for the funeral ornaments of jade, there are the sun and moon; for my pearls and jewels I shall have the stars and constellations; all things will be my mourners. Is not everything ready for my burial? What should be added to this?" [...]

the beggar!

he has Heaven and Earth,

for his summer clothes

© Kikaku

What a gorgeous haiku, don't you think too. As we look again at the part by Soshi, than it is obvious that that piece of poetry was his inspiration ...

at the cemetery

beneath cherry blossoms in full bloom

grandmother's fresh grave

© Chèvrefeuille

Step back and look at the scene ... peacefull ...

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will stay open until next Saturday August 30th at noon (CET).

Carpe Diem #545, Tolerance

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

After our little side-walk to Jim Kacian's wonderful haiku of yesterday it's time again for a new prompt based on Khalil Gibran's "Sand and Foam". Today that prompt is Tolerance or accepting how the other is. All around the globe tolerance has to be strong, but ... that's not true as you all will know. In my opinion we have to tolerate a lot, but not everything ... we don't have to tolerate that groups are killing each other, because of their e.g. different religions or sexuality.

Khalil Gibran says in his "Sand and Foam" the following about tolerance:

[...] " Tolerance is love sick with the sickness of haughtiness". [...]

I had to look for the translation of 'haughtiness', to understand what he says here and I think he said it right. Tolerance is like that. Tolerance is based on haughtiness and that makes it that dangerous as it is. Tolerance is great, but we don't have to tolerate everything.

Melting Snow

melting snow
the tears of a child
crystal truth

© Chèvrefeuille

Not a strong senryu, but I think it's true. Tolerance is great, but we have to 'use' it like children. As we grow older, the child within us dies ... we loose that clear plain innocence ... in which tolerance was 100%. As children we accept all and everything as it is, growing older, and becoming wiser, that acceptation, that tolerance is becoming smaller.

It wasn't easy to write this post, because I am a human being which stands in his life out of an idea of unconditional love for all and everything ... and my tolerance is great, but as I look to the world in which we live ... even my tolerance becomes smaller. I am losing my Inner Child and that makes me sad sometimes.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until August 27th at noon (CET). I will try to post our new episode, silence, later on.