Carpe Diem Special #103, Jim Kacian's "city morning"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a joy to write another CD Special with a haiku by Jim Kacian, our featured haiku-poet this month. This is his fourth haiku this month and I think it's a haiku which can inspire in many ways. I will not talk long this time, but just share that haiku which I have chosen for this CD Special "City Morning".

city morning

a crane lifts its shadow
up the wall

© Jim Kacian

after a night's sleep
the dawn of a new day -
sounds of traffic

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... a nice haiku I think ... and I hope it will inspire you to write an all new haiku. This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until August 25th at noon (CET). I will try to post our next episode, XXX, later on.
!! By the way ... I will not publish a new Tan Renga Challenge this week ... sorry ... don't have time enough !!

Carpe Diem #544, Mask/Masque

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's an awesome month and I have read wonderful haiku, senryu, tanka, kyoka and haibun in response of Khalil Gibran. And of course there was yesterday the GW-post by Jen ... really a great GW-post and I have read beautiful responses on her GW-post ... I ... however haven't written in response of that GW-post. Maybe a lack of inspiration, but .... well I think that I not always have to write a haiku myself in response of our posts here. Of course I try, but ...

Credits: Masque Venise

Today our prompt is Mask/Masque and it's a wonderful prompt I think. Aren't we all sometimes wearing a mask? It's not a shame to wear a mask, there is not always need to be yourself, sometimes it can be really uplifting to be someone else. In my dreams for example I am sometimes a king, or a master-poet, and in real life I am sometimes, to protect myself, someone else without a mask by the way, but on a distance ... this happens sometimes as I have to tell patients about their illness. Than I have to be professional. Than it is not always possible to be close to my patients ... their emotions are at that moment mostly very strong and of course I feel that, as if my throat is squeezed, but I cannot let my tears go at that moment ... my tears are coming later as I am talking with the patient after that first talk. Than I have to let go my mask and show my patients what I feel .... not easy, but sharing their emotions, weeping together is a relief and makes my work that beautiful.

[...] "Even the masks of life are masks of deeper mystery". [...]

Credits: Masque Venise

unmasking
look into the world -
tears flow

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until August 24th at noon. I will try to post our new episode, our fourth haiku by Jim Kacian, our featured haiku-poet, later on. For now have fun!

Carpe Diem's "Little Creatures" #2, "I dreamed I was a butterfly" (Soshi)

Dear haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a relief it was as I saw all of your wonderful responses on our first "Little Creatures" episode. It was a gamble as I created this new feature. I didn't know how you would respond, because I asked you, in the spirit of Basho and Issa, to look more closely to your surroundings and to point your attention to the little creatures, like bugs and small flowers, of our nature, that wonderful Creation, but I was stunned as I read your haiku, senryu, tanka, kyoka and haibun on Little Creatures.
This episode of Little Creatures could be easily also be an episode of Carpe Diem's "Sparkling Stars", because as far as I know, the haiku by Wafu, a not so wellknown haiku-poet, is just the only one Wafu ever wrote. At least, this haiku is the only one I know by Wafu.
In this haiku Wafu was inspired by a piece of poetry by Soshi (Chuangtse) who says the following:

[...] "Long ago I, Chuangtse, dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting about lightly on if I were really one, happily following my fancies. Suddenly awakening, again I was in the form of Chuangtse. Was it a case of Chuangtse dreaming he was a butterfly, or is it now that a butterfly is dreaming that it is Chuangtse? I do not know". [...]

Soshi's experience of the fact that he and the butterfly were one, has been shared by countless human beings to some degree; for example, Kotomichi (1798-1868):

my heart
that was rapt away
by the wild cherry-blossoms, -
will it return to my body
when they scatter?

Credits: Chuangtse's butterfly (woodblock-print)

What Soshi did was to name it by expressing it. Before it was named, it was formless, like a new-born child, inchoate, a day-dream in the mind of God. But when it had been enunciated, it had a soundless tone that still echoes faintly in the recesses of our soul, a life which still moves to be born again in the womb of our spirit. So Wafu's experience was not only of the butterfly before his eyes, but also of Soshi's, though not of two things. The coming back to himself was a feeling of loss and discomfort, typical of what the soul suffers upon alienation from God.

cho kiete tamashii ware ni kaeri keri

the butterfly having disappeared,
my spirit
came back to me

© Wafu

Isn't it wonderful? Wafu has a feeling of loss, he feels lonely, could be even a 'near death experience', but than, suddenly his spirit returns to him!
Or was it lack of inspiration? And after a while or a long time, his inspiration came back to him. Don't we all have those periods in which we have no inspiration? Don't worry than ... the butterfly will return to you!

wandering through the meadow
following the path of butterflies -
I find my spirit

© Chèvrefeuille

I hope you did like this episode and I hope that it will inspire you to write an all new haiku on a little creature. For now ... have fun!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 28th at noon (CET).

Carpe Diem #543, Wall

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Yesterday I was preparing an episode for our "Tackle It Tuesday" weblog on Wordpress, it was the episode for next week and it was about sincerity. In that episode I mention the wall which we all have around us and which sometimes stands in our way to be sincere. Maybe that wall is also the wall about which Khalil Gibran says the following:

[...] "After all this is not a bad prison; but I do not like this wall between my cell and the next prisoner’s cell; Yet I assure you that I do not wish to reproach the warder not the Builder of the prison".[...]

[...] "Sadness is but a wall between two gardens". [...]

Can we tear down those walls? Can we be that powerful to tear down the walls around us to become finally free? Free to be sincere towards the other? I think so, but it's not easy I think. As I remember the 9/11 attacks several years ago, than I can understand that it's not easy to be sincere. Those terrorists were all under the spell of one aggressor and that aggressor, for sure, doesn't speak for all those muslim brothers and sisters. So don't be afraid to be sincere, be respectful towards the other notwithstanding what others did.

Credits: Quote Khalil Gibran

We have to tear down those walls. If we can do that, we will all be free, we will be all part of a world wide revival of love and peace ... finally world peace will become true. Call me a dreamer or a nutcase, but I think that love can tear down walls which split humanity in several parts. Let us respect the other notwithstanding his/her religion, spiritual ideas, sexuality and so on ... we are all the same, of course we are all unique beings, but we are all human.

tearing down the walls

giving room to wild flowers

to color the earth

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until August 23rd at noon (CET). I will try to post our new episode, masque/mask, later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Ghost Writer #22, Odilon an artist for your inspiration

Dear haijin, visitors and travelers,

A new week has started already and it's time for a new episode of our Ghost Writer feature. This week I have a nice GW-post written by Jen of Blog It Or Lose It and this time she writes about Odilon, a painter. She writes in her post the following "Sometimes when I am feeling low on inspiration, I look to the art world for help". So Odilon can be inspirational ... we will see.
I think we all have once lack of inspiration. I do sometimes have lack of inspiration. To become inspired I am listening to music or I am going to read ... and most times than the inspiration will come back ... and of course my daily life, as a dad, granddad, husband, son, son in law, nurse and colleague can also be a source for inspiration. What are you doing to become inspired when you don't have inspiration?

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Odilon for your inspiration

Sometimes when I am feeling low on inspiration, I look to the art world for help.  It’s fun – and challenging –to unleash the muses and let them crawl around inside a particular painting.  Together we examine a piece of artwork with all of our senses and then wait for that poetic “flash of lightning” to strike.   And it usually does strike because we’re forced to look at something in a totally different manner. 

Odilon Redon (1840-1916) is one of my favorite artists, and I think he might work well for this prompt.  He was a French symbolist painter and draughtsman who said of his own work, “My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.” As such, I don’t think he’ll mind if we use his artwork to generate haiku-moments and impressions.

Take a moment, then, and crawl inside this painting (Flower Clouds, 1903). 

Odilon Flower Clouds 

What does the wind feel like on your skin, in your hair?  Can you smell the salt water, or hear waves lapping at the boat?  Is the boat bobbing gently, rocking two lovers?  Or are they lost on a nearly-motionless sea, worrying about an ominous red dawn?  Do their mouths taste bitter from thirst?  Are you a fish swimming alongside the boat, or a gull disappearing into the clouds?  Or – are you the clouds themselves – and how do you relate to the water or the people in the boat?

Here is my attempt at some Redon-inspired haiku:

chrysanthemum clouds
wilting on a glassy lake –  
cascading petals 

salt and silence – 

no wind in the silent sails
or the orange clouds 

© Jen

Keep in mind – this isn’t necessarily an exercise in writing about one painting, and one painting alone.  [But if you choose to do so, that’s wonderful! It just makes your poem a haiga, not a haiku.]  I’m just asking you to let the painting inspire your haiku in which you capture an imagined instant in time.  (Remember that Buson’s “Spring Water” is an imagined instant in time.) 

Offer the painting as a drink of cool water for your parched muses – and above all, have fun!

http://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2014/07/carpe-diem-extra-8-2014.html

http://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2014/07/carpe-diem-505-buson-1-spring-water.html

http://www.wikiart.org/en/odilon-redon/flower-clouds-1903

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon

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Well ... did you like this GW-post? And did it inspire you to write haiku? I think so ... thank you Jen for sharing this wonderful GW-post with us all here at our Haiku Kai. I haven't written yet a haiku inspired on this GW-post, but I will do for sure ... be patient.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until August 22nd at noon (CET). I will try to post our new episode, wall, later on. For now ... have fun, be inspired and share your haiku with us.

Carpe Diem #542, Tapestry

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I have to apologize to you all. Why? Well let me tell you. As I was preparing our prompt-list for this month I was reading the Dutch version of “Sand and Foam” and while reading it I ran into wonderful prompts for example, in Dutch “kleed” which means “to dress”. I, however, translated it into ‘tapestry’, our prompt for today. So for today I sought the whole book “Sand and Foam” through, but (of course) couldn’t find “tapestry” in it, because I had translated it in the wrong way.
But … I have decided to use “tapestry” for our prompt today and I take the opportunity to lift a tip of the veil to give you all a look inside my personal philosophy. 

Credits: Maximo Laura (Tapestry artist)

 Life is like a tapestry

The creation of a tapestry starts at the beginning with an empty weaving loom. The weaver sits in front of it and meditates and contemplates about what he/she would like to create. Is it just a piece of art-work or does it have meaning? It doesn’t really matter. The weaving technique is the same (I think), but the result can be so much different. After he/she has decided what to make he/she will make a sketch and decides which colours, which material and which technique will be used.
Than he/she starts to create his/her tapestry and while looking at that process one can see how the tapestry becomes as was the idea … the colours are coming together making patterns, creatures, flowers and so on are becoming real … at the end the weaver sits back looks at his/her work and will smile, maybe will applaud and yell “eureka!” Another wonderful tapestry has been created and can be sold … or just put on the wall at their home. 

Credits: Eyes On Nature (In Textile-Art)

What has this to do with that tip of the veil to give a look inside my personal philosophy? Well … I will tell you.

I think that our lives can be compared with a tapestry. As we are born the Weaver (God or Higher Self) starts his work with us. He looks at us and sees our future already, but he doesn’t know how our path would be going … which decisions we make … say ‘karma’ … The Weaver cannot interfere in our life. We are making our own mistakes, making the wrong decisions and so on. But … the Weaver has an idea about our lives. He has a design in mind for us and that design he starts weaving on his weaving loom.

tapestry of life
flamboyant colours all over -
awakening

© Chèvrefeuille

Our life is a tapestry and in every tapestry there are little faults or mistakes, but those faults and mistakes have their charm also, they make the tapestry unique … our lives are unique … we all have goals in our lives and we all hope to reach those goals. Sometimes such a goal is in reach, but it can also be out reach … Than we have to re-design our goals and start all over again with our path … In our life we will come across various paths, ways, waters, countries and crossroads … on every crossroad we have to decide which way we will go … all those choices are part of the design the Weaver has in mind for his tapestry, for us. 

Credits: Pheasants (Japanese Tapestry-Art)

At the end of our lives, our loved ones will look at our tapestry and the Weaver looks at it also. Our loved ones and the Weaver are in my opinion the same entity, the same energy. Because those who are around us, living as well as deceased, are co-workers of the Weaver. I believe that we all are planted in the right surroundings, in the right families, in the right countries and in the threads of the tapestry of life.

tears in my eyes
as I look at my tapestry -
it was great!

© Chèvrefeuille

Well … call me a nutcase or a philosopher, but it’s just my idea about life. And I think it sounds great. Would be awesome to look at that life-tapestry at the end of my life and see what life has done to me … I think I would be proud, I would cry of happiness … because … I lived my life as I had planned.

I hope you did like this post and I hope you will forgive me that I have told you a little bit more about my personal life and philosophy. I had to come up with something ... (smiles), because of my wrong translation as mentioned above.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until August 21st at noon. I will try to post our new episode, our 22nd episode of Ghost Writer, later on.

Carpe Diem's Kamishibai #10, "departing summer"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As I have tried to catch up commenting I ran into several nice haibun written and inspired on the prompts of our Haiku Kai. So I think it's time for a new episode of our haibun-feature "Kamishibai" (which means story-teller in Japanese). The goal is to write a haibun inspired on the given prompt. For this episode that is "Departing Summer". Here in The Netherlands it's still summer, but temperatures are downing and it feels like autumn already. Trees are loosing their leaves already ... so I thought 'this is a great prompt for Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, and for our Kamishibai-feature'.
For this episode I love to challenge you a bit by giving a few rules which you have to use:

1. A maximum of 100 words (don't ask me why);
2. the haiku has to follow a few of the the classical rules:
       a. 5-7-5 syllables;
       b. season word;
       c. cutting word (interpunction);
       d. interchangeable first and third line
3. (Not an obligation) I love to read it in English and in your own language (e.g. for me that would be Dutch)

Here is my attempt to write a haibun "departing summer":

"Look granddad", my grandson yells. He shows me a red leaf from a tree which I don't know. “Where did you find it?”
"It's from a tree I have discovered", he answers. He takes me by the hand. “I will show you were I have found it”. He points at a painting of Van Gogh in the garden of our neighbours.  
"Look granddad, the red leaf fell from that painting".

first red leaves fall
Van Gogh’s painting comes alive
in a child’s hand

© Chèvrefeuille 

Credits: Mulberry Tree - Vincent Van Gogh

And here is the Dutch translation:

"Kijk opa", roept mijn kleinzoon. Hij laat me een rood  blad zien  van een boom die ik niet ken. "Waar heb je die gevonden?" vraag ik hem.
"Die boom  heb ik ontdekt", antwoordt hij. Hij neemt me bij mijn hand.
"Ik zal je laten zien waar ik het heb gevonden”. Hij wijst me een  schilderij van Van Gogh aan in de tuin van onze buren.  “Kijk opa, dit rode blad viel uit dat schilderij'. 

eerste rode blad valt
Van Gogh’s schilderij komt tot leven
in een kinderhand

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... have fun with this challenging Kamishibai-episode. This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 31st at noon (CET)