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Thanks, snowbird. I really like the idea of the tree being a hymn to itself.

Hi Mark - Good point about the first creation story (the "seven days" version) as being a more hierarchical version. I agree; the story is from what some have termed the exoteric tradition as opposed to the esoteric (or mystical) version. Regarding mysticism, I am reminded of one interpretation I read that goes something like this: In the pagan/aboriginal world, early humans experienced the world as one. In the later monotheistic tradition, humans felt themselves as separate from nature and the world (i.e. a dualistic and hierarchical world). Mysticism seeks to bridge, or repair, that separation and return humans to that first experience of one-ness with nature and the world.

If I've correctly understood, I agree with both you and Alan that most ELH poets approach the world (or endeavor to) from the non-hierarchical point of view. However, as I argue in the introduction, most people in the West grew up within the Abrahamic tradition and so the hierarchical view remains in our outlook to some degree, whether we are aware of it or prefer it or not.

Merlot,

I think your haiku stands in a long tradition of honoring everything as emanating from the divine, including (especially?) the unattractive realities of life. In my view, this is one of haiku's strengths. By the way, I like the language in your haiku.

Regarding "the despair and alienation" that some have observed as inherent in modernity... this topic may arise at some point in my column, maybe in regards to mysticism. Some have argued that mysticism intends to address this alienation, and this could certainly play out in haiku with a mystical bent.  

Mark,

Wow. I love all three of these; it's been a long time since I've read the first two. For me, too, these perfectly convey that interdependence. Also, your first two examples have got me thinking: poverty is actually another subject where I've often seen the idea of unity in haiku. It may be that confronting poverty leads to empathy (there but for the grace of God go I), which is a short step toward that sense of oneness. On that note, this haiku by H. F Noyes came to mind:

homeless beggar—
the itch of his clothes
all down my spine

 

Hi Gael,

Yes, I think this feeling of "at one-ness" will be a general feeling, not necessarily tied to the religious concept of it (from any tradition). I think that it's only after we experience it that we then try to understand or explain it conceptually.

Snowbird - Do you mind sharing the hawthorn tree haiku?

Hi Snowbird,

I tend to agree that explicitly trying to use a particular religious principle, whatever it may be, will often end in failure and is beside the point. As I think you are saying, that's not the point of haiku. I do think that, in our day-to-day lives, we sometimes have experiences that we interpret (consciously or not) through a religious/spiritual lens. For example, when people I know tell me about something good they did, they'll sometimes say that they hope it's good karma. That may not be the best example, but I enjoy finding these convictions and concepts in haiku.

The creation story in the Hebrew Bible is well known: God created the heaven and the earth in six days. Curiously, there is a second creation story in Judaism, this one from the Kabbalistic tradition. When God created the world, He needed to make space to do so; after all, God was everything. In order to make the world, then, God withdrew "in all directions away from one point at the center of its infinity, as it were, thereby creating a vacuum. This vacuum served as the site of creation."(1)

Of course, God did not withdraw completely. The divine presence remained ubiquitous, tying everything together. Underneath the surface distinctness of things, an essential unity is the immutable reality. The Koran says, "Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of Allah."(2) Buddhists bring their palms together to represent overcoming surface duality.(3)

downpour:
my "I-Thou"
T-shirt (4)

Raymond Roseliep

Grounded in the natural world, the interdependence of all things—living and non-living—is a theme of many contemporary haiku.

out of the hermit thrush
out of the valley
one song (5)

Laurie Stoelting

As K. Ramesh notes, we sometimes become aware of this reality in the most unlikely of places.

dusk—
a chatter of frogs outside
the teacher's house (6)

R. H. Blyth wrote that haiku is imbued with "that state of mind in which we are not separated from other things, are indeed identical with them, and yet retain our own individuality and personal peculiarities."(7) Haiku offers us—as readers and poets—the joy of experiencing this reality. We appreciate and delight in the unique ways that other poets experience this—and reflect on the ways that we ourselves do.

Is the idea of interdependence or unity important for your appreciation of haiku? In my reading of haiku, this idea is usually grounded in an experience of nature, as we see in the examples from Laurie Stoelting and K. Ramesh. Have you seen this concept approached from other avenues?


Notes

1 Daniel Matt, The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 15.

2 James Fadiman and Robert Frager, eds., Essential Sufism (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), 228.

3 Huston Smith, The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 388.

4 Cor van den Heuvel, ed., The Haiku Anthology (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), 163.

5  Laurie Stoelting, Light on the Mountain: Selections, ed. Vincent Tripi (Greenfield, MA: Tribe Press, 2008).

6 K. Ramesh, Soap Bubbles: Haiku (Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2007).

7 R.H. Blyth, Haiku: Eastern Culture (Hokuseido, 1960), iii.

Today, haiku is being written all over the globe. The Winter 2010 issue of Frogpond, for example, featured poems from twenty-one countries. These poets naturally bring their own cultural and religious inheritances to the haiku tradition.

Religion, of course, has influenced how each of us views the world and our place in it. This is true not only for "believers" who subscribe to a specific religious tradition, but also for those who are broadly religious but do not follow a single religion, are agnostic or indifferent, or are even staunchly anti-religious. The constellation of our ethics and values; sense of community; understanding of the meaning and purpose of the world; perception of reality and time; and much more are grounded in the religious-cultural heritage of the society in which we have been raised.

How are these assumptions, attitudes, and beliefs carried into haiku? What are the key ideas and concepts of the major religions, and how do haiku poets today reflect and elaborate these? These questions will be the mandate for this column.

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