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“Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged” ― Rumi
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He created a multitude of mirrors; into each one of them He cast the image of His Face; to the awakened eye, anything that appears beautiful is only a reflection of that Face. . . . -- jami
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Wordsworth’s real God was not the God of the church but the God of the hills. . . . brought from that heaven of the books and dwelt on the downs visible in the faraway distance seen from the top of a hill and in every cloud shadow that wandered across the valley. . . . -- William Hale White (The autobiography of Mark Rutherford)
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"Listen. Can you hear it? The music. I can hear it everywhere, in the wind, in the air, in the light. It’s all around us. All you have to do is open yourself up. All you have to do is listen." -- opening lines from the movie August Rush
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letting go
of the paths not chosen
winter wind
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What are we saying but a gladness of being – coleman barks
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What is communing with nature but communing with ourselves? Nature gives back our thoughts and feelings, as we see our faces reflected in a pool. – john burroughs
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night edging the meadow a child vanishes into fireflies
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Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon;
How much it can fill your room depends on its windows.
― Rumi
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finding her sweet spot --
the clematis quivers
at the butterflys touch
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"People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle." — Thich Nhat Hanh
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for the silence wishing she were still mad at me winter moon
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If you ask me why I dwell among green mountains,
I should laugh silently; my soul is serene.
The peach blossom follows the moving water.
There is another heaven and earth beyond the world of men.
– Li Po
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in our pots and pans
the bang and clang
of words unsaid
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My body is like a drifting cloud. I ask for nothing, I want nothing. My greatest joy is a quiet nap; my only desire for this life is to see the beauties of the seasons. – kamo ; Journeys of Simplicity; Traveling Light by Philip Harnden

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for a moment
I too am cricket song
summer twilight
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everything sacred in this morning light butterfly’s wobbly path
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I feel [haiku] is a spiritual practice that is far more valuable than the poems we get out of it. The most important thing about haiku is the way it makes us look at our lives, to be aware of what we are experiencing at each moment. -- Jane Reichold
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"The word "interbeing" originated with the Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh. It means:
everything is in everything else. We experience this reality through mindfulness, through Being
in the Here and Now. One life-energy is permeating everything.
Haiku means letting this energy/life/reality write itself.
Or, to put it simply: A haiku records an immediate experience of life.
Haiku writing is sometimes called a way of life, rather than an art. It could also be described as a
way of seeing, listening, being." -- Fr. Thomas Hand http://www.mercy-center.org/PDFs/EW/HaikuPath.pdf
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the steeple first
emerges from the fog
winter’s end
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God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.
Each note is a need coming through one of us,
a passion, a longing pain.
Remember the lips
where the wind-breath originated,
and let your note be clear.
Don't try to end it.
Be your note.
― Rumi
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rivers edge / the stone I tossed yesterday / at my feet
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The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life. - William Morris
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the old shed
surrenders to bamboo
all-day rain
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walking on water my prayer crossing this winter river
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momrecoilingthesnakecageempty
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Mu -- an international haiku journal
Thomas Williams Memorial Contest
Haiku in 7 words, 2nd place:

all thoughts
becoming cicada thoughts
relentless heat

Mu's comment: “all thoughts becoming / cicada thoughts” is simply one of the most graceful and affecting phrases we have ever read in the realms of modern haiku. There’s every sense and offshoot of oneness in this phrase that is arrived at time and time again in the many centuries of haiku’s various arts. The influence of summer, and its reigning natures, only adds to the feeling and fruition of inevitable oneness. There seems to be all of life on the brink in this haiku, with the pulse and limitations of life juxtaposed against the brief and regarded unfulfilled life of the cicada—all mortalities understood at once, even the ones affecting seemingly immortal things, like said, thoughts.

Mu's link: http://www.muhaikujournal.com/Mu_Haiku_Journal/Contest_2.html

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