Unity

[Mark Harris]

Hi all,

and David, you write, "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."

To parse those words even more finely, I think very few people, wherever they live, approach the world from a "non-hierarchical view." It's my impression that many (certainly not all, but possibly a majority of) haiku poets endeavor to communicate such a view (for some, a living philosophy) through their haiku. I'd be interested to hear other opinions on what might be a misconception on my part.

[DavidGrayson]

Hi Al,

I like your poem and the immediacy of the feeling. I also like what's not in the poem: your description of how you felt better after giving the money.

[DavidGrayson]

Hi Mark,

I wholly agree. I think many of us approach, or try to approach, with a non-hierarchical view. Few of us (in my opinion) can achieve that consistently.

[colin stewart jones]

honey drips
that would satisfy all...
how sweet the rock


one of my haiku
based on a proverb from the bible
i forget the chapter and verse

but i think this could be seen in both the hierarchical and the elh context

cheers
col

[Mark Harris]

Absolute consolation--the spiritual experienced through the sensual, as is fitting for haiku. Thanks for sharing that, col

[colin stewart jones]

thank you Mark

nice to meet you

col :)

[DavidGrayson]

Col,

I think it's Proverbs 16:24? King James version: "Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones."

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

David

[colin stewart jones]

hi david and thanks

sorry though
i think i put you on a bum steer by saying this was from proverbs
i had to look up my bible to check this and it is in the Psalms

loosely based on Ps 81:16

...and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.

nice to meet you also

col :)

[colin stewart jones]

hey folks

i had an idea a while back for a book of "Holy Haiku"

I have some but do not have enough poems on religious/spiritual topics
any of you guys out there got any?
would a collaboration / anthology be a possibility


thoughts people

col :)

[Mark Harris]

nice to meet you, col  :)

your proposed title reminds me of an author who lived north of you, George Mackay Brown, a native son of Stromness (he preferred the older norn name Hamnavoe). On a ferry to Orkney this year, I saw a poster of one of his poems and snapped a picture of it.

The old crofts ride the green hill surges.
Long arks; man and beast under one roof.

from his chapbook Haiku for the Holy Places

it's unlike much of what's called haiku these days, and also interests me for that reason.

[Gael Bage]

I am not particularly religious and not a buddist, and yet I recognise my intelligence is nothing compared with the intelligence and love I discern underlying everything contained withinin the universe  in my experience of unity when we experience in total that oneness - it is indescribable and defies being encapsulated within a haiku or indeed in any words. The world would be a totally different experience if we could hold that unity, being human it tends to be transient, a bit like slipping in and out of another dimension.  When we can describe it we are pretty damn close to it though. ;)

[carmensterba]

David, I admire you for leading the discussions on Religio. This is a subject
that is very important to me, but I have struggled to express my spiritual traditions
and faith in an undogmatic way. My passionate interest in Japanese history and literature
was not fueled by an interest in Buddhism or Shinto. I think that many haiku poets
love of haiku is interwoven with interest in or belief in Buddhism. I'm sure that my
desire to go to Japan as a college student and live there for 31 years had more to do
with my fascination with Japan and the affinity I felt with the Japanese (and in some
respects Asian) way of presenting the natural world through their art, poetry and gardens.

Mark Harris remarked the following:

God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." A world view at odds with the one usually communicated through contemporary elh?

In my view, I interpret "have dominion . . ." as "be a caretaker . . ." Like a lot of people from many parts of the world, I was fortunate to grow up in rather pristine nature as a child and was able to freely roam the acre of our home on a lake by myself at a very young age. I felt completely in tune with nature. In the woods near my home, I also sang my heart out in hymns and made-up songs. For me a love of natural creation and my childlike faith was not and is not at odds.

Back to the struggle with haiku and spirituality. I don't mind that it seems acceptable to write about the Buddha in English-language haiku because some of the Japanese masters did. However, I find it can look as imitative of Japanese haiku as writing constantly about cherry blossoms. On the other hand, for many of the Gendai haiku poets in Japan, writing about the cross or Mary & Jesus, like Arima Akito does, seems modern and cosmopolitan in Japan. It is an odd thing about culture, so in a way Elh often mirrors a desire for what is outside of Judeo-Christian culture. I understand that and respect that. There is always a desire in mankind to search for "greener pastures" and believe that another culture is somehow more gentle and deep. I have met so many Japanese who are in love with Western culture and/or who became Christians through their search for more meaning.

I'll end with two haiku that are published in my only chapbook: sunlit jar. I feel they express faith and tradition without being dogmatic. I am part Jewish, so the first one is about Passover. The second has Christian symbolism that will work for some people, like snowbird said, who have the same worldview/faith.

Passover week
a mother's gaze lingers
on her first born son

spring roads
after a three-day absence
the beloved returns

Carmen Sterba

[chibi575]

Hi Carmen and Happy Holidays,

Your reply broadened my thinking and is insightful about Japanese culture and cultures in general.  You to a large extent have lived my wish about being in Japan.

I like the idea of "stewardship" or as you put it "caretakers".  I look at it a little differently but draw the same conclusion that there is binding (both meanings of the word) between our superior and inferior perspective on nature.

I feel we all share this planet in a intricate and intimate way.  Poetry, for me, is a venue to express this feeling; and, short poetry suits me best within that venue.  I love haiku and its surrounding literary collateral.

Seasonal wishes to all.

Sorry I have modified this reply because part of it was meant for a different topic.

[DavidGrayson]

Hi Carmen,

Your observations reminded me of something. When I was an undergraduate at San Francisco State University, I took a class that was taught by a renowned philosophy and religion scholar, Jacob Needleman. Entitled "Hasidism and Sufism," the class focused on the mystical strains of Judaism and Islam, respectively. Towards the end of the class, I remember a couple of Jewish students saying that they had been attracted to and studied Buddhism because they had not known about Kabbalism, Hasidism, etc. They wished that they had learned earlier about the religious approaches in their own tradition.

I'm not advocating one approach over another (exploring your own tradition vs. another), but I was struck by this.

David

[DavidGrayson]

Following-up on my previous comment, I was reminded of this haiku by Jeremy Pendrey (who has often written haiku with a Buddhist slant):

downward dog
yoginis stretch
their tattoos

(from Mariposa 22)

I really like the juxtaposition of the Indian/Hindu yoga image with the Western image of tattoos. The yoginis are -- literally and figuratively -- stretching between traditions.

David