Mystery

[DavidGrayson]

Religion tells us that the world is grounded in mystery—and cannot be wholly understood rationally or empirically. The Muslim scholar Muhammad Asad wrote, "Man is unable to explain to himself the mystery of life, the mystery of birth and death, the mystery of infinity and eternity."(1)  

pulling light
from the other world ...
the Milky Way(2)

Yatsuka Ishihara

Flannery O'Connor wrote that the aim of writing is to embody this mystery.(3) We need not venture far to be touched by the experience; small daily events can open the door to us.

                                                        how deer
                                                       materialize
                                                        twilight(4)

                                                      Scott Mason

Mason appreciates how the deer seems to materialize from nowhere—almost as if by magic. He appreciates the unique, inbred skill of the animal. One can imagine the questions that follow such an encounter: How was this marvelous animal created? What about the countless other creatures in this world?  For that matter, how was the world created?

Of course, the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have seen immense advances in science. Some have observed that modernity and science have predisposed us against mystery. But science, while shedding light on many unknowns, at the same time offers new avenues of wonder about the nature of life and the universe.

Venus and
the paying mantis
born from the foam(5)

Takenami Akira

How important is the element of mystery to your reading and appreciation of haiku? Is it a theme that crops up (or that you develop) in your haiku? The practice of suggestion is a hallmark of haiku. Rather than explicitly providing a meaning to the reader, the haiku approach encourages the reader to engage with the poem, and help contribute to its meaning. It can be argued that this approach makes haiku more hospitable to mystery than other poetic forms. Have you found this to be true?



Notes

(1) Muhammad Asad, Islam at the Crossroads (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus Ltd, 1982), 3.

(2) Yatsuka Ishihara, Red Fuji: Selected Haiku of Yatsuka Ishihara, trans. and ed. Tadashi Kondo and William Higginson (Santa Fe: From Here Press, 1997), 73.

(3) Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, ed. Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001), 124.

(4) A New Resonance 6: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, ed. Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts (Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2009), 109.

(5) Takenami Akira. World Haiku Association website. http://www.worldhaiku.net/poetry/jp/a.takenami/a.takenami.htm. Accessed September 9, 2010.

[Billie Wilson]

David, thank you for your thoughtful new discussions.  With regard to this particular discussion, I would respond by acknowledging that I am especially drawn to haiku that contain an element of mystery. Not just that they invite the reader in to be part of the experience, but that even as the reader enters, they are not precisely certain that they can solve every aspect of the mystery that is there.  The haiku remains open and inviting -- and mysterious.

I am not certain about the appropriateness of posting another poet's work here without their permission, but I'd point to a couple of pages in the Haiku Registry: Christopher Herold's "almost dawn" and Carolyn Hall's "so suddenly winter" are just two quick examples of haiku that continue to pull me into their mystery in a fully satisfying way.

Often, part of that element of mystery is a sort of minor-key melancholy that has always lured me, whether in music or novels or poetry.  Certain poems by W. S. Merwin.  The novels of Hermann Hesse.  Too many examples to include here.  Whether there was already something within me that responded naturally and inevitably to this mystery - or whether the mystery itself pulls me in - I do not know.  But that it influences my work seems obvious to me when I look back through my notebooks. 

I'll include one of my own that might be appropriate (or not):

what's left of my faith:
light from one star
in a blue-black sky

Billie Wilson
The Heron's Nest XII:2 (2010)

[Don Baird]

An interesting topic.  Thanks for posting.  

I believe it is a natural phenomena for us to be attracted to mystery.  They say "curiosity killed the cat" but more importantly, "curiosity attracted the cat" ... lets leave it there for the sake of the cat!  :)  Mystery is a fabulous tickler of curiosity.  It draws our interest.  We wonder what more is there.  Mystery stimulates us to ponder and to search.  

Haiku are particularly great if they have an air of mystery.  I'm not saying the others are less for not having so.  But, there is a greater draw of the human psyche by the ones that do.

One to share:

settling ...
shadows deepen
in the lake

and on a spiritual note:

settling ...
His shadow deepens
in the lake

An enjoyable thread.  I hope I haven't messed it up with my ramblings ...

all the best

Don

[DavidGrayson]

Hi Billie,

Thanks for your observations. Your comment about the haiku remaining "open and inviting" reminds me of an observation in an essay from Paul Williams, "Engagement and Detachment in Haiku and Senryu." Paul wrote: Haiku writers "know often that what they write hangs in the air, with the feeling of meaning, with what has been called mystery. We do not 'get it,' though we know something just out of reach is there to get, and this uncertainty, pregnant with possibility, swells with life and so with satisfaction."

I really like your haiku from The Heron's Nest. For me, it nicely reflects the fact that faith is a process -- sometimes fading, and sometimes strengthening.

[DavidGrayson]

Hi Don,

I like this idea of mystery as a natural attractive force for us. I hadn't thought about it in this context before.

I like both versions of the haiku.

David

[Don Baird]

You know, David ... this is a really attractive piece on many levels:

Venus and
the praying mantis
born from the foam(5)

Takenami Akira


When I read it on my visit earlier, it struck me:  now that I read it again, it strikes me more.  This poem is really something!  I'm deeply enjoying your topics.  If I'm not writing here, you can be sure I'm still reading. Thanks for an area for such special appreciation of these gems and ponderings.

all my best,

Don

[colin stewart jones]

I like mystery
for me that is the beauty of life. If it were possible to know everything then that would be truly dreadful because there would be nothing left to exist for.
Plato said "know thyself" and i believe that is the goal; if we can truly gain an understanding of self then perhaps we may just have some insight and empathy for the plight of others. Of course, the path to understanding self is to first deny self but putting others before yourself is contrary to modern living.
Anyway I am happy that I see through a glass darkly and God is unfathomable because if he wasn't then he would be redundant.

blue sky
before me
beyond me

colin stewart jones: A Seal Snorts out the Moon (2007)

[Gael Bage]

Just as it is impossible to know everything outside ourselves, it is also I believe impossible to know all that is within ourselves, because we have imagination, and potential,and evolution if we doubled our lifespan, my feeling is we would still surprise ourselves every now and then. As above so below....  for me this speaks volumes for the intelligence and love behind the whole of creation and there is no way i can give it a name, I respect all other religions but to me they are flowers in the whole garden of all that is. There are times when my mind is idling and empty that a hint of this love and intelligence is felt and recognised and it feeds the love in me for it's unfathomable mystery and all within the totality. This probably sounds like rambling... so hard to put into words... like Colin somehow I am content to exist in this mystery and it brings to life more love and trust, more love for all...
ps

but putting others before yourself is contrary to modern living.

thinking about this... a question?
if love lies within self would it not be painful for self to deny that love inside ?
....and maybe more so if that love inside is unconditional love ?

[Don Baird]

mystery ...
a shadowless
shadow

[DavidGrayson]

Hi Don,

The Takenami Akira poem is a stunning one for me, too. He's able to address an intellectual, scientific topic -- something not usually approached successfully in haiku. And it's a simple, declarative sentence!

And thanks for the interest in the column!

[DavidGrayson]

Colin and Gael,

Thanks for the very good point about internal mystery. It reminds me of endeavors like psychoanalysis -- the time and work involved in learning about one's interior life.

And Colin's point that "if we can truly gain an understanding of self then perhaps we may just have some insight and empathy for the plight of others" is absolutely true. I also would say that this self-knowledge, and the capacity to empathize that is derived from it, is necessary for haiku poets. A haiku poet (or poet or artist in general) that cannot empathize with others will probably write one-dimensional poems.

[snowbird a/k/a Merrill Ann Gonzales]

These discussions of internal and external mysteries are interesting to me.  It's one of the reasons I tend to navigate to haiku that's nature based...it allows a certain view point that seems to me to allow things to be shared and explored without knowing the answers.   

[hairy]

For me, the best haiku/senryu are those that are multi-layered and have an element of universality and for which I keep returning because they remain mysterious. Like Chinese boxes fit one into another but never quite reaching the last one. The unknown is the mystery (once you thoroughly know something it is no longer a mystery ) I further believe that it is possible for me to know something--but it does require me to travel inward (I believe what I see outward is simply a reflection of what's going on inside.) For me, it's an involutionary journey --a matter of becoming who I already am by eschewing the obstacles that seem to separate me from the universe--and a multi-level haiku poem can bridge the gap.


diving inward
no distance now between
me and the moon

                 --hairy

[ericcoliu]

Al, I like your Chinese box metaphor.

Read in the context of Japanese haiku, one of its poetic characteristics related to our discussions here is "yugen."

The compound "yūgen" 幽玄 (lit., depth and mystery) is made of two Chinese characters: "Yū" means "faint, dim," and also "deep;" "gen" indicates the black color, the color of heaven, something far away, something quiet, and an occult principle. We find the character "gen" used in the Tao te ching (Classic of the Way and Integrity) to describe the "Way:

These two—the nameless and what is named—emerge from the same source yet are referred to differently. Together they are called obscure (Ch. xuan; Jpn. gen), the obscurest of the obscure, they are the swinging gateway of the manifold mysteries.1

Thus, "yūgen" is something well beyond the reach of man's immediate perception and understanding, since it is too deep and too far for humans to reach, even conceptually. In ancient China, yūgen came to indicate the other world, as well as the Taoist Way and Buddhist enlightenment.2

-- Yūgen by Michael F. Marra

The first book on this topic is Peipei Qiu's Bashō and the Dao: the Zhuangzi and the transformation of Haikai.

And the contrasts/comparisons in your haiku are impressive.

Here is my response haiku:

the distance between
my attic and the moon --
April rain

(alluding to T. S. Eliot's The Burial of the Dead)


Chen-ou

[hairy]

Thanks, Chen-ou for your contribution here and your thought-provoking response ku. I never knew that my Chinese Boxes metaphor had such a profound and far-reaching meaning beyond just the literal.  The named issuing forth out of the nameless, both from the same source. Wow. Thanks for shedding some light on those Chinese Boxes--I realize now that they have a significance beyond the decorative. Live and learn.

Al