The joy of haiku
Greetings, dear friends. Thank you for being here.
If you’re like many of us, you remember having a unit it grade school where we learned about the Japanese form of poetry called haiku. For many of us, coming up with the 5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable thing was a real chore and we got no joy out of the labor. At that age, in our culture, we were not able to see that what we were attempting was actually an embracing of the beauty of a moment, an object or a state of mind and we were glad to move on to other subjects.
Because of the poetry of one of our tea customers/friends, I began seeing haiku in a different way and began to implement the art as a part of my meditation practice. Following the morning meditation, I pick up my journal and notice the season, notice the feeling, notice what is around me and within me. There is much richness in my life when I see it through the stillness and calm of meditation and there is always something to write about.
In the sitting in stillness with the object or subject of the haiku, I can let the poem write itself, without feeling the agitation that grade school writing would sometimes bring up. You see, we were not taught the stillness part of it. Our culture does not exactly teach us about that most important part of haiku or life in general, for that matter. We end up forcing something rather than allowing it into being and our thoughts and actions are more of a reaction rather than a response.
Haiku is a simple, yet profound practice and you may be delighted at how fun it is to revisit this form of creative expression. If you are like me, you’ll discover great joy in the practice and find yourself seeing the entirety of your life for the rich and beautiful tapestry that it is. Your heart is just waiting for you to sit and let it show you the many things that you can be grateful for.
Here is a link sharing how to get started: https://www.powerpoetry.org/actions/how-write-haiku-poem
Grab a pot of tea and your journal and enjoy the ride. Be kind to yourself and recognize that there is no wrong way of doing this. Life is meant to be a joyful experiment and haiku can be a peaceful variable for us to tweak in that experiment.
With warmth and gratitude,
Garret