Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Carpe Diem #1234 Waves (Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku, Azarbaijan, by Zaha Hadid)


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What an awesome month this is ... modern art ... in all its forms. We have seen sculptures of stone, glass, but also paintings with several themes e.g. geometric patterns. And today I love to share with you another kind of modern art .... this time I have chosen for a wonderful piece of modern architecture, Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku Azerbaijan (former USSR). It's a design of Zaha Hadid Architects and I think it is gorgeous.

Heydar Aliyev Center Baku Azerbaijan (exterior)

The design of the Heydar Aliyev Center establishes a continuous, fluid relationship between its surrounding plaza and the building’s interior. The plaza, as the ground surface; accessible to all as part of Baku’s urban fabric, rises to envelop an equally public interior space and define a sequence of event spaces dedicated to the collective celebration of contemporary and traditional Azeri culture. Elaborate formations such as undulations, bifurcations, folds, and inflections modify this plaza surface into an architectural landscape that performs a multitude of functions: welcoming, embracing, and directing visitors through different levels of the interior. With this gesture, the building blurs the conventional differentiation between architectural object and urban landscape, building envelope and urban plaza, figure and ground, interior and exterior.
Heydar Aliyev Center Baku Azerbaijan (interior)

Fluidity in architecture is not new to this region. In historical Islamic architecture, rows, grids, or sequences of columns flow to infinity like trees in a forest, establishing non-hierarchical space. Continuous calligraphic and ornamental patterns flow from carpets to walls, walls to ceilings, ceilings to domes, establishing seamless relationships and blurring distinctions between architectural elements and the ground they inhabit. Our intention was to relate to that historical understanding of architecture, not through the use of mimicry or a limiting adherence to the iconography of the past, but rather by developing a firmly contemporary interpretation, reflecting a more nuanced understanding. Responding to the topographic sheer drop that formerly split the site in two, the project introduces a precisely terraced landscape that establishes alternative connections and routes between public plaza, building, and underground parking. This solution avoids additional excavation and landfill, and successfully converts an initial disadvantage of the site into a key design feature.
A wonderful piece of modern art architecture ... more about this beautiful piece of architecture you can find here at: Zaha Hadid.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 15th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Tongue of Lucifer, later on. For now .... have fun!

Monday, August 7, 2017

Carpe Diem Extra August 7th 2017 sneak preview October 2017


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As you (maybe know) next October we will celebrate our 5th anniversary and I hope to create a wonderful month a real festive month of course. So I love to give you all an update on the preparations of this anniversary month.
I started this haiku community back in October 2012 and I enjoyed the challenge. First I thought maybe a few months, maybe a year, but I never could have dreamed that CDHK would be alive and kicking five years after the start.
Today I was on a memory tour and read several of the posts I wrote in the past years and I ran into wonderful posts which are ripe to be reproduced another time. So our festive month will be a trip along memory lane and of course a few other surprises.

Namasté,

Chèvrefeuille, your host

Carpe Diem #1233 Geometric patterns


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I had planned to make an episode about geometric patterns, and I am going to do that, but another piece of art than I first had chosen. Today I have a wonderful painiting, with a lot of geometric paintings created by Dana Gordon. Let me tell you first a little bit about it:

One of the great challenges for good painters is to make bad pictures. When an artist shared this observation with me, it sounded so wrong, I realized it must be right. Most of us, of course, are simply bad painters. The great challenge for us would be to paint well, if we even paint at all. Even if we know, or think we know, what a painting should look like, we have little ability to summon up the elusive processes and talents to get there.

For good painters, the challenge is not so much how to reach some visual destination, but rather how not to reach it too quickly—or too easily. For good painters, facility can become facile. The shortcuts of the brush can miss the joys of the journey and the discoveries along the way.

Good painters therefore look for ways at redirection. They will put up roadblocks, obstruct their path, make formulas to complicate their progress. And, perhaps most importantly, once they find they can paint in a certain mode too well, they will simply stop doing it—realizing that pictorial success, overly pursued, will ultimately lead to failure.

Dana Gordon is just such an artist who matches painterly intuition with a philosophical awareness of the great history of art in which he takes part. I can think of few painters who are able to write effectively on the legacy of Camille Pissarro, as Dana has done—or have a history in creating avant-garde film, and sculpture. Dana is one of those creative originals.

Dana Gordon, Light Years (2015-16)
Look at this beautiful painting. I love the geometric patterns which Dana has used, but I also like the colors. this painting is titled "light years" and I think that's a nice title, because of the beauty it is light years away from the beauty of other modern paintings, just because he used these nice colors.

But the title of this episode, is more ... philosophical. At first I thought of the so called "sacred geometry" a philosophy who says that all and everything is the same as we look at the deeper hidden patterns. Maybe you have heard from Drunvalo Melchizedek, an ascended master, who wrote two wonderful books on "sacred geometry" titled "The Flower of Life". Several years ago, I even think back in the last century, I read his books and they were really amazing. Let me give you an idea about "The Flower of Life".

This will be a revelation, but I need a lot of words to explain it. I hope you don't mind.

Sacred Geometry (spiritual science)
What is Sacred Geometry?

Sacred geometry involves sacred universal patterns used in the design of everything in our reality, most often seen in architecture, art, and nature. The basic belief is that geometry and mathematical ratios, harmonics and proportion are also found in music, light, cosmology. It is the invisible patterns that animate our physical world much as spiritual traditions believe that the soul animates the body.

Shapes, patterns, and visual compositions have the capacity to seduce our eyes while captivating our imagination. Whether from masterful works of art or in nature, this entrancement can be so emotionally moving and awe-inspiring that people naturally associate it with transcendence, the super-natural, or spiritual. Beneath these patterns are relationships that can be measured, numbered, replicated, and defined. This mathematical yet esoteric realm of inquiry and observation known as sacred geometry will enlighten and mystify you while inviting you to change the way you look at the world.

The Golden Ratio

Also known as Phi, the Golden Mean, or the Golden Section, the Golden Ratio was revered as the mathematical law or representation of beauty by the Greeks. It is the numerical representation of infinity and an unreachable approximation. This begs one to contemplate the possibility of a transcendent number. From the Golden Rectangle comes the Fibonacci Spiral which is seen in flowers, snail shells, pinecones, and other parts of nature. The Golden Rectangle and Fibonacci Spiral are used in the crafting of musical instruments like cellos, violins, and the tones of musical scales are created using these same mathematical formulas. These formulas have been used in design and architecture going back at least 4,000 years and are seen in historic buildings like the Greek Parthenon.

The Golden Ratio (Nautilus shell)
The Flower of Life

Another very powerful symbol that is found all over the world dating back over 6,000 years and up to 10,000 years is the Flower of Life. This symbol is made of evenly-spaced, overlapping circles with six fold symmetry like a hexagon and looks like a flower, hence the name. It can be found in Egypt at the Temple of Osiris; the Forbidden City of China, synagogues in Galilee, Israel; in temples across India; in la Mezquita, Spain; Turkey, Japan and elsewhere. Leonardo da Vinci spent much time playing with and contemplating the Flower of Life’s form and used its mathematical properties in his art. Just by gazing at the symbol, or trying to count the circles will play tricks on your mind, and there is no wonder that people from ancient times to now are enamored with the Flower of Life.

Within the Flower is the Seed

The Seed of Life is a symbol found within the Flower of Life, as well as many other symbols of great significance including Metatrons Cube. These shapes called polygons are defined by having sides of equal length. This includes the cube, tetrahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron, octahedron and they represent what Plato called the 5 platonic solids. These are visible within the flower of life when straight lines are drawn to connect the center of various circles within it. It is amazing to see all of this symmetry unfold in one succinct pattern which is created by math. Since many traditions believe that circles and curves represent the feminine, while corners and straight lines represent the masculine, this symbol also shows a divine balance of both.

Sacred Geometry (an overview of all sacred geometric patterns)

Spirituality and Sacred Geometry

Higher frequencies of energy and awareness are transmitted through sacred geometry. Sacred geometry reveals that there are mathematical, or abstract patterns beneath everything that we see in the physical world. How might this relate to our own personal journey of integrating science and spirituality? Our internal beliefs create patterns that slowly ripple outward from us and manifest into real world experiences. The invisible informs the visible. Sacred geometry is a visualization and metaphor of the connectedness of all life, the interface between abstraction and physical reality. When we change the mathematical formulas, the relationships, we also change physical form. This is the teaching of many mystics. (Source: uplift)

nature
in its simple form
full of light
geometric patterns grow
everything around us

© Chèvrefeuille

Sorry for the length of this episode, but I just had to follow my heart to tell you a little bit more about the sacred geometry, as part of modern art our theme for this month. I hope you enjoyed the read and of course I hope that I have awakened your muse.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 14th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode, waves, later on. For now .... have fun!


Sunday, August 6, 2017

Carpe Diem #1232 abstract autumn (unknown artist)


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As you (maybe) know right at this moment our Carpe Diem Autumn Retreat is on and runs towards its end. So I thought to choose another nice abstract piece of art, but this time the theme is "abstract autumn". What is abstract autumn? Well ... a painting in which you cannot see its trees or something, but through the colors you know immediately that the painting has to do with autumn. In the modern painting "abstract autumn" you cannot see trees or bushes, but you can see the colors of autumn, red, yellow, orange, brown and all kinds of little differences in those colors ... the colors are autumn and it gives you the opportunity to go with the flow, to think outside of the box to create your Japanese poetry like haiku or choka.

yellow, red,
orange and deep purple
dance


© Chèvrefeuille

What do you see if you read this haiku? I think it's an abstract autumn haiku inspired on the painting I have chosen for your inspiration.

abstract autumn (unknown artist) (image found on Pinterest)
Try to imagine autumn through this painting. Haiku is an impression ... what's your impression?

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until August 13th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, geometric patterns (unknown artist), later on. For now .... have fun, go with the flow, think outside the box and share your impression with us all.


Thursday, August 3, 2017

Carpe Diem Writing and Enjoying Haiku #4 having fun?


!! Open for your submissions next Sunday August 6th at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new edition of our " weekend-meditation", this week a new episode of Carpe Diem's Writing and Enjoying Haiku as a tribute to Jane Reichhold (1937-2016). Jane was a renown haiku and tanka poet and she wrote a lot of books and articles about our wonderful Japanese poetry. She was not only my mentor, but also my friend, my co-host and my source of inspiration. This special feature is based on her book "Writing and Enjoying Haiku", in which she describes haiku as a kind of spiritual meditation that can give you a free mind and a peaceful mind. In her book she really promotes the beauty of haiku (and other Japanese poetry forms).
In the first three episodes of this special feature I followed her book almost by the word, but this week I love to bring an episode based on my own knowledge and feeling towards haiku.

empty sheet of paper

tears fall
on an empty sheet of paper 
a new day rises

© Chèvrefeuille

The above haiku I wrote after an episode of our special feature "Ask Jane ...?", that episode was about the so called Kanshicho-style of writing haiku or in other words "as the Chinese poetry". In that Kanshicho-style you don't follow the rules of haiku, so you can also say "free-style" haiku-ing. I like the "name" Kanshicho-style and I love using it, it sounds better than "free-style" in my opinion, but that's just my feeling.

As I discovered haiku back in the eighties I was immediately caught by the simple beauty of haiku, but also the depth in haiku. Haiku looks like just a small verse, a "doodle", but it is more, far more than that. Haiku is painting with words and it's not only the writer of the haiku, but also the reader who makes the haiku. I have said that earlier this week, but it is true. As I write a haiku than I have seen something beautiful and than I try to catch that in a haiku, but the scene I saw will not be the shame scene as seen by the reader of the haiku.

Let's go back to the above haiku:

tears fall
on an empty sheet of paper 
a new day rises

© Chèvrefeuille

In this haiku you can see more than one scenes. There is that empty sheet of paper on which tears are falling. What can it mean? Well I remember that I wrote that haiku on a day that someone close to me died and I was really broken by that and I tried to catch my feelings, my emotions, in a haiku, but it didn't come, say "my muse wasn't available". It took me a whole night to order my thoughts, my feelings. I tried several versions, but none of them gave room to my emotions on that moment. Finally ... as the sun was rising, dew was sparkling on a spiderweb ... I came up with this haiku. I did re-write it several times before it was the ultimate haiku to share my feelings in ... Finally I could cope with the loss of that close friend ... and tears broke through ... tears that sought there way to the empty sheet of paper ... and than the haiku was there ... spot on.



Do you enjoy haiku? Well .... I do for sure. As I started writing haiku I wrote a lot of haiku-like poems, but at first they never could wear the name haiku in my opinion. It wasn't an easy path that I took to create haiku. And for sure at first I didn't enjoy creating haiku, because they all were not good enough in my opinion, but than ... in 2005 I published my first English haiku

a lonely flower
my companion
for one night


© Chèvrefeuille

With that haiku I became a renown haiku poet. Thank god for the Internet I would say. Maybe you can remember this haiku. In one of the episodes of "Ask Jane" ... Jane re-wrote this haiku after a question I had for her.

Her idea was to leave "lonely" away, because the flower cannot be lonely, that's a human feeling, so Jane gave me the following idea:

a single flower
my companion
for one night

or

a single tulip
my companion
for one night

© Chèvrefeuille (re-done by Jane Reichhold)

I was really happy with this "change", because as I published the original haiku there were several respondents who said it feels like a "one-night-stand", and maybe that is true, but in the original there is nothing that brings that idea in my opinion, but in the second re-done version by Jane Reichhold, that's obvious, because tulips have a sensual meaning. As Jane said: "that second haiku has more connotations. . . even some sexual with single / unmarried and tulip / two lipped!"

roses

Haiku is a really short poem, but as we have seen in this episode (and in all other episodes here at CDHK) it's the "biggest" poem, because we can say so much with less words. And it is a symbiosis between the poet and the reader ... isn't that what we all would like to see in the world? All and everything enjoying each other with respect to everyone's own ideas. Those differences are making us who we are

kissing
tongues melt together
as one

© Chèvrefeuille

Well .... that was my interpretation of "writing and enjoying haiku", what is your interpretation? Do you have fun while creating haiku? That's the goal for this "weekend-meditation" ... step back and look at your haiku (or tanka) what do you see? Change your look and look at it like you were the reader and not the poet. What do you see ... what scenes are coming in mind? 

Have a great weekend!

This episode is open for your submissions next Sunday August 6th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until August 11th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, abstract autumn, around the same time as the start of the submitting period. For now .... have fun, write and enjoy haiku ...


Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Carpe Diem #1231 Serenity (Mystical Threshold by intuitive artist Joan Fullerton)


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Our journey into the modern arts is on full speed, the first week is almost done. We have already seen modern arts sculptures and today I love to inspire you through a painting titled "Mystical Threshold" and it's painted by renown intuitive artist Joan Fullerton. Here is a short introduction by herself:

"Born into a Wyoming ranch family, I grew up with a deep regard for the natural world.  For me the subtle nuances as well as the awesome power of nature's beauty, made the solitude of the isolated prairie sacred.  While raising 3 children, I studied watercolor with Edgar Whitney, Frank Webb, Charles Reid and other nationally known watercolorists.  In 1985 I returned to college and achieved BFA and MFA degrees in painting from the University of Wyoming.  I was a college art instructor from 1990 to 2003 in Cheyenne, WY.  And in 2003 I fulfilled a long-time dream when I moved to Taos, NM, to paint full-time.  After 8 successful years in Taos, I am now in the Denver, CO area, painting and teaching workshops." (Source: Joan Fullerton.com)

Joan Fullerton
I have seen several of her paintings and they all are stunning. They look fragile and mysterious, but always very colorful. I especially like the mysterious landscapes, which she herself calls intuitive paintings. One of those landscapes I love to share here to inspire you with, this painting is titled "Mystical Threshold".

Mystical Threshold (Joan Fullerton) (found on Pinterest)
Let us take a closer look ... It looks like a pond surrounded by trees and bushes somewhere in autumn, according to the colors used. As I saw this painting the first thing that came in mind is "Mists of Avalon" and the legend of "King Arthur". The scene looks mysterious and magical and it seems that at the left side a little bit beneath the center of the paintings something / someone is hiding. I think this is one of her most beautiful mystical landscapes. You really have to visit her own website or her Pinterest account ... then you will discover a lot of beauty ...

"Magical Threshold" has also something of the impressionists, because it is an impression of a lake surrounded by nature in autumn colors. Maybe this makes the connection to haiku. Maybe you can remember that I once said: "haiku is an impression of a moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water" and as we take this idea than I think it's possible to create an impression inspired on this beautiful painting by Joan Fullerton.

mysterious
autumn colors
fade away


© Chèvrefeuille

Avalon
threshold of mystery
deep silence


© Chèvrefeuille

departing
summer ends
colorful lake


© Chèvrefeuille

And to conclude this episode, I recovered a haiku from my archives:

at sunrise
the deep purple of the night disappears
in dew drops

© Chèvrefeuille

I hope I have inspired you.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 9th at noon (CET). Have fun!


Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Carpe Diem #1230 glass sculpture (R.Loy, The Netherlands)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

A new episode on 'modern art', the theme for this month of CDHK. The 'modern art' for today is prize I won back into 1998. I was a participant in an art manifestation in my hometown. I introduced haiku there and it was a great experience. I recited haiku I created in the years before. I had gathered them in a book and had made a kind of hand-out of it in which I had gathered the most beautiful haiku and a few tanka.

At the end of this art manifestation they gave prizes for all the different kinds of arts ... and there was also a prize for literature ... That prize I won ... I was honored ...

glass sculpture by R. Loy
In this glass sculpture you can see all kinds of things, maybe it's elephant or a dinosaur ... I don't know. I like it, not only because of the story behind it, but also because its like haiku ... everyone can sense a different scene by reading the same haiku ... and this sculpture does the same.

young elephant
rolls through the mud
to cool down

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... it was a short episode, but I enjoyed creating it and I hope you can find the inspiration you need to create 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 August 8th at noon (CET). Have fun ...