a note

after a bit of soul-searching, i've decided to set aside my haiga for future publication instead of blogging them. my feelings about publcation are complicated, so it's a decision that didn't come lightly. i will resume posting once my 'publication reservoir' starts to overflow.

i leave behind

a quote . . .

our brush against the small and ordinary connects us with the universal and eternal. The absence of the period at the end of the modern haiku is meant to leave the haiku open-ended for an echoing extension into what Blake termed "eternity's sunrise." – h.f. noyes

beyond the trellis

a quote . . .

Creating art allows us to express our deepest feelings and ideas without having to put a name to them. -- Robert Dalton

such little effort

haiku IS

Haiku creates a word-framed void where ISness rushes in.

my burst-out-loud laugh

haiku IS

Haiku are fragmented glimpses of life, glued together by bits of the reader’s self.

waiting for gnomes

haiku IS

Haiku is weaving wonderment into words.

her snow angel

On photographs, haiku and aesthetics:

In Camera Lucida, Barthes assigns two qualities to a photograph. The first is ‘studium’ . . . which he explains as “meanings that are nameable”, “cultural meanings that we understand at once”, “for it is culturally that I participate in the figures, the faces, the gestures, the setting, the actions”. The second is ‘punctum’ . . . explained as “this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow and pierces me”, “that accident which pricks me (is poignant to me)” . . .

the sprout

haiku IS

haiku is a sketch of the things of life allowing us to see into the life of things.

the depth

haiku IS

A haiku is two parts (fragment and phrase) illuminating a whole greater than itself.

how gently

haiku IS

Haiku is the experience of the one illuminating the experience of the all.

the crows too

haiku IS

Each word of a haiku serves as a stepping stone along the ordinary with a nearly imperceptible leap into the magnificent.

one firefly

haiku IS

A firefly glows and is dark. Further along the forest path another glows and then another. This ephemeral illumination . . . this is the haiku poem.

the shape

haiku IS

Upon the great darkness out of which everything manifests -- a handful of words can serve as pinpoints of light suggesting an outline, a constellation of stars, allowing each viewer a personal interpretation of a universal truth. So it is with haiku.

unfurling

haiku IS

haiku creates a sacred space to honor the indescribable beauty of the everyday world.

the owl's call

haiku IS

Haiku is a portal, framed by words, from which the essence of what-it-means-to-be-human comes oozing-gushing-raging out.

finally i get it

a quote . . .

To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervor, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine. --Pablo Casals

the way the ocean

a quote . . .

The sun shines, snow falls, mountains rise and valleys sink,
night deepens and pales into day, but it is only very seldom
that we attend to such things ... When we are grasping the
inexpressible meaning of these things, this is life, this is living.
To do this twenty-four hours a day is the Way of Haiku.
It is having life more abundantly. – R.H. Blyth

absolutely beautiful youtube video

stirring moonlight

haiku IS

Haiku is a few small words giving voice to that which is too large for words

the bark scorpion

haiku is

Haiku is the intellect of the heart putting words to the ‘je nais se quoi’ of the soul

stepping into

a haiku is . . .

Give a haiku-poet a half-dozen grains of sand and you will get back a mountain veiled in moonlit fog.

so many stars . . .

a haiku is . . .

When a handful of words are placed together in such a way that allows the reader to feel, in the silent spaces between them, the breadth and depth of the universe . . . that is a haiku.

a quote

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at . . . -- Diane Ackerman

the hitchhiker

a quote

And verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. -- Pablo Neruda

night fog

a quote

The artist's role is to invent rhythms and forms to reveal a deeper apprehension of reality for the viewer. --Leland Bell

the shapes of crows

a quote

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset. --Crowfoot

her crayon flowers

a quote

“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.” -- T.S. Eliot

the old pine

a quote

. . . it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are—until the poem—nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. --Audre Lorde

ducks come and go

sandhill crane (link to a youtube video)

http://youtu.be/8EbZrvbFvcQ

touching the edges

a quote

the poem is not a thing we see -- it is, rather, a light by which we may see. -- Robert Penn Warren

all the sky

a quote

Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own. - Salvatore Quasimodo

giving voice

a quote

Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry. -- Muriel Rukeyser

opening my heart

a quote

"I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners." ~ Vincent Van Gogh

dandelion fluff

a quote

one could never explain . . . how it feels to be alive, for life is washed in the speechless real. --Jacques Barzun

making room

vagabond haijin. house-sitter/caretaker.

a link . . .

i like this person's lifestyle and her over-all philosophy. check out this article: Your House is My House: How I Became a Free Professional House-Sitter

a quote . . .

The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. -- Jalaluddin Rumi

where

a quote . . .

Basho (and Blyth) considered interpenetration to be the ‘religious’ element in haiku –the element of wholeness, rather than ‘holiness’ . . . All of life at all times, if we could but see it, is interdependently arising, ever in flux and always meriting our attention. -- H.F. Noyes

she tells me

a quote . . .

We should write because humans are spiritual beings and writing is a powerful form of prayer and meditation, connecting us both to our own insights and to a higher and deeper level of inner guidance. We should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. Writing is sensual, experiential, grounding. We should write because writing is good for the soul. We should write because writing yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in. –julia cameron

the rabbit hole

a quote . . .

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" – Mary Oliver

the whisper