Carpe Diem #1131 meditation

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Do you meditate? Do you know "agape", the love of the Lord as he radiated to His disciples at the last meal before His trial and crucifixion? That strong love you can feel as you meditate. Meditation is not only something we learn from only the Eastern religions and spiritual movements, it became part of our Western philosophy too. Meditation helps you to focus and come in close contact with the spirituality of nature and the Cosmos. Meditation can give you the peace you need in your life.
I think everyone of us mediates and I believe that everyone has his/her own way (and reasons) to meditate.
To me meditation gives me the peace of heart I need. It makes my mind clear and silent. It helps me to bring that silence into my mind. As you all know I am a very busy person, not only through my work, but also through being your host here and through all the things I love to do. Than there are days that my mind and heart cannot become in peace or silence ... than I meditate.

This is what Paulo learns during his pilgrimage to Santiago and I hope to reflect that here this month while we are walking the Road to Santiago on the virtual highway. Isn't it wonderful that we can enter the whole world through the Internet? We can visit libraries at the other side of the globe, we can visit places and countries everywhere on our planet just by "walking" the virtual highway.
A while ago we visited for example Shikoku Island to walk the once in a lifetime pilgrimage of Buddhists along the 88 temples of Shikoku. We have visited a big part of the European countries. We have conquered the steppes and the taiga of Mongolia and Russia. We traveled along the Trans Siberian Railway without leaving our home, just by "walking" the virtual highway.

The Road to Santiago

This month we are on our way to Santiago walking the Road of Saint James, finding our roots of spirituality, finding the silence and the depths of our heart and mind ... awesome.

As Paulo and Petrus (his guide) are on their way to Santiago they use several exercises to find their deeper grounds. And today I love to introduce to you another wonderful exercise we can do ourselves. This exercise is called "The Blue Sphere Exercise".

The Blue Sphere Exercise

Seat yourself comfortably, and relax. Try not to think about anything.

1. Feel how good it is to be alive. Let your heart feel free and affectionate; let it rise above and beyond the details of the problems that may be bothering you. Begin to sing softly a song from your childhood. Imagine that your heart is growing, filling the room – and later your home – with an intense, shining blue light.

2. When you reach this point, begin to sense the presence of the saints (or other beings) in which you placed your faith when you were a child. Notice that they are present, arriving from everywhere, smiling and giving you faith and confidence.

3. Picture the saints approaching you, placing their hands on your head and wishing you love, peace, and communion with the world – the communion of the saints.

4. When this sensation becomes strong, feel that the blue light is a current that enters you and leaves you like a shining, flowing river. This blue light begins to spread through your house, then through your neighborhood, your city, and your country; it eventually envelops the world in an immense blue sphere. This is the manifestation of the great love that goes beyond the day-today struggle; it reinforces and invigorates, as it provides energy and peace.

5. Keep the light spread around the world for as long as possible. Your heart is open, spreading love. This phase of the exercise should last for a minimum of five minutes.

6. Come out of your trance, bit by bit, and return to reality. The saints will remain near. The blue light will continue to spread around the world.

This ritual can and should be done with more than one person. When this is the case, the participants should hold hands while they do the exercise.

It's a wonderful way of meditating. I will bring you the comfort, peace, love and silence you need to break loose from your daily life. You just have to try it to experience it. It's really awesome.

Meditation ... I love it!

Blue Sphere

magic experience
surrounded by a blue sphere
I find my peace

© Chèvrefeuille

deep silence
closing my eyes
the blue sky

© Chèvrefeuille

What a wonderful experience this was. I hope it will inspire you to create haiku, tanka or an other Japanese poetry form.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 27th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem honors Jane Reichhold (1937-2017) D. a rainbow bridge

photo © Sandra Simpson

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our special theme week around Jane's 80th birthday. Today I have a nice series of tanka for you which I extracted from Jane's "A Gift of Tanka". Jane was not only a great haiku poetess, but also a wonderful tanka poetess in fact she encouraged me to start tanka writing myself. As you all know I do write tanka on a regular base, but I am still very much in love with haiku and that will be my frist love forever.

desert leaving
one of my dream souls
in the lizard
patterns of his back
passport to change

waterfall
torn to ribbons
bright mist
this body someday too
a rainbow bridge

high-tide beach
blue into the clear sky
the openness
for all things to become
the rush of another wave

free to fly
the ocean flows
into a cloud
the spirit released
expands in whiteness

© Jane Reichhold (A Gift of Tanka)

A wonderfull series of tanka I would say, to inspire you to create haiku or tanka in honor of Jane Reichhold.

Here is my humble offering for this episode:

puzzle resolved
the sound of a waterfall
makes me happy
through the thin mist
I can sense her presence

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 27th at noon (CET).

Carpe Diem #1130 Intuition

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

A belated post today, because I am on the nightshift. We are still on our way to Santiago De Compostela following in the footsteps of the ancient pilgrims, but also in the footsteps of Paulo Coelho. Paulo is one of my favorite authors, because of his spiritual novels. While we are on our way to Santiago we are reading one of his best novels "The Pilgrimage".

Today I love to speak about intuition. What is intuition? Intuition is: an immediate cognition of an object not inferred or determined by a previous cognition of the same object;  any object or truth so discerned; pure, untaught, no inferential knowledge.
Every one of us has in a way a kind of intuition. For example: you have only need for a few words to understand what your loved one means. Sometimes intuition gives you the feeling that you know that unknown person you encounter. Intuition can be learned.

In "The Pilgrimage" Paulo learns a beautiful exercise named "the water exercise'. I will tell you a little bit more about this exercise later on, but first I love to tell you what happened berfore Paulo learned that exercise.

Petrus, Paulo's guide, says:
[...] "Call up your intuition again, your secret side. Don’t be concerned about logic, because water is a fluid element, and it does not allow itself to be controlled easily. But water, little by little and in a nonviolent way, is going to build a new relationship between you and the universe." [...] And than he teaches Paulo the "water exercise":

The Arousal of Intuition (The Water Exercise):

Make a puddle of water on a smooth, nonabsorbent surface. Look into the puddle for a while. Then, begin to play with it, without any particular commitment or objective. Make designs that mean absolutely nothing. Do this exercise for a week, allowing at least ten minutes each time. Don’t look for practical results from this exercise; it is simply calling up your intuition, little by little. When this intuition begins to manifest itself at other times of the day, always trust in it.

Paulo himself tells us what he experienced while doing this exercise. It is really a wonderful experience he describes and for sure worth to try yourself.

 

[...] I emptied the remaining water onto the cement and a small puddle formed. I did not have any image or shape in mind, and I wasn’t seeking one. I swirled my fingers through the cold water, and I experienced the same kind of hypnosis that one feels when staring into the flames of a fire. I thought about nothing; I was just playing – playing with a puddle of water. I made some streaks at the edge of the puddle, and it seemed to become a wet sun; but the streaks quickly rejoined the puddle and disappeared. With the palm of my hand, I batted at the center of the puddle; the water splashed away, covering the cement with droplets, black stars on a gray background. I was completely lost in that absurd exercise, an exercise that had not the slightest purpose but was delightful to do. I felt that my mind had stopped working almost completely, a feeling I had previously achieved only after long periods of meditation and relaxation. At the same time, something told me that down deep, in places that my mind could not reach, a force was being born and becoming ready to manifest itself. That puddle of water established a contact – however fragile – with the Milky Way above me. It reflected the stars, created designs I could not understand, and gave me the feeling not that I was wasting time but that I was creating a new code for communicating with the world. It was the soul’s secret code – the language that we know but so seldom hear. [...] (Source: The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho)

This episode is NOW OPEN for yur submissions and will remain open until January 26th at noon (CET).

 

Carpe Diem honors Jane Reichhold (1937-2017) C.) bubbles in ice

photo © Sandra Simpson

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

My excuses for being a bit late, I am on the nighshift, so I hadn't time earlier to publish our new episode(s).
Yesterday I tried to inspire you through tanka by Jane Reichhold and today I love to inspire you with a few beautiful haiku written by her. As you all know, Jane would have become 80 if she was still alive, so therefore I have organized this special week to honor her.

deep in winter
the babbling brook
white as stone

bubbles in ice

bubbles in ice
holding till spring
the voice of the brook

the mountain brook
still with listening
winter winds

© Jane Reichhold

Three nice haiku. I love that 2nd haiku the most. The beauty of still water holding the babbling of the brook ... a little gem ... no a masterpiece I would say.

surreal
bubbles holding the voice
of the stream

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 26th at noon (CET).

Carpe Diem #1129 friendship

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

We all need friends and friendships. Friends are necessary, because in times of sadness and joy you can depend on them. In times of sorrow they will comfort us. In times of joy and happiness, they will be celebrating with us. Friends ... we all need them.

In "The Pilgrimage" by Paulo Coelho, Paulo develops a friendship with his guide Petrus. They are on the Road to Santiago together and they will help each other to conquer the "devils" on their path, but they will also be happy together, or cry together. That's friendship.

Friendship isn't easy, it's a continuous "battle" to keep your friendship alive. Of course there will be friends who don't want to give energy to hold their friendship alive. If you have such a friend, let him go (is what Petrus, Paulo's guide says) he / she is not your friend, at least not your real friend.

In times of sadness you get to know who your real friends are, because they will stay close to you, they will comfort you, they will cry with you and they will give you new energy to go on.
As you all know my dad died last year, as did Jane Reichhold, it made me very sad and I wept a lot, I became depressed and I saw "friends" go, because they couldn't handle my sadness and my tears ... at the end of that period I had only one friend left ... Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. This warmhearted and loving virtual family became my friend ... and that makes me feel alive again.

Friendship ... cherish your friends, cherish them because they will always be there for you not only in life, but also after life ...

Friendship

[...] ‘Once, a poet said that no man is an island. In order to fight the good fight, we need help. We need friends, and when the friends aren’t nearby, we have to turn solitude into our main weapon. We need the help of everything around us in order to take the necessary steps toward our goal. Everything has to be a personal manifestation of our will to win the good fight. If we don’t
understand that, then we don’t recognize that we need everything and everybody, and we become arrogant warriors. And our arrogance will defeat us in the end, because we will be so sure of ourselves that we won’t see the pitfalls there on the field of battle.’ [...] (Source: The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho)

Isn't it wonderful? Friends forever always there to give a helping hand in all things that happen.

raindrops
they fall one by one
and become one

© Chèvrefeuille (from my archives)

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 24th at noon (CET).

Carpe Diem honors Jane Reichhold (1937-2017) B.) musical chord (tanka)

photo © Sandra Simpson

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the second episode of this special Theme Week in honor of the 80th birthday of Jane Reichhold, queen of haiku and tanka. Jane passed away last summer, but if she would have been alive she would have become 80 on January 18th 2017. As you all know Jane is in my heart forever. Without her Carpe Diem Haiku Kai wouldn't have become "the best website on haiku and tanka" on the WWW.

We all know her from her beautiful haiku writing skills, she really has written wonderful haiku. I hope to become that great myself once, but until than I will bow my head in admiration of her beautiful haiku.
Jane didn't write only haiku, she also was a great tanka poetess and a great renga master / poetess. Today I love to inspire you with tanka written by Jane and I hope you all will honor her with tanka inspired on her tanka. I have ran through the many beauties by Jane and I ran into a few wonderful tanka.

flowered wind
in your wild hair
the will of love
as a bright nimbus
frames your rosy face

waves
flowing over the mountains
wind in rain
the moaning of mothers
harsh breath among tears

musical chord
footsteps on the threshold
where growing up
a house once held a warmth
hearts beating alone together

face of the moon
in the hot tub
a swirl of bubbles
where one naked body moves
a liquid night-time sky

moonlight
breaking to bits
fallen leaves
drawn down to earth
a hammered silver circle

© Jane Reichhold (A gift of Tanka)

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 24th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1128 Imagine the Road to Santiago

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I haven't enough time today to create a full episode of today's CDHK month in which we are on our Road to Santiago, a beautiful pilgrimage. While we are walking this Road we are reading "The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho.

I love to inspire you today with only an image, say this is an episode of Carpe Diem Imagination. Here is the image to inspire you. It is taken somewhere along the Road to Santiago.

Somewhere along the Road to Santiago

This "special" episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until January 23rd at noon (CET).