|
|||||||||
|
To support the development of this site and the work of soul friendship you are invited to express your appreciation through the spiritual practice of Dana
When we compose a haiku we are saying, "It is hard to tell you how I am feeling. Perhaps if I share with you the event that made we aware of these feelings, you will have similar feelings of your own." -William J Higginson The Haiku Handbook
-------------
On the Poet’s TrailFootsteps fall
softly
|
|
||||||||
|
Basho –
Soul Friend - Mo Anam Cara
Like most poetry forms, haiku has had its high moments of invention and resurrection as well as times when the form fossilized. Poetry forms are only a structure for the poet to pour into their unique variety of creation.
Matsuo Kinsaku (1644-1694) is better known by his pen name Basho, which translates as a banana like variety of Japanese plantain. The plant rarely bears fruit and rarely as luxuriantly as its tropical brethren. His pen name originated from the basho plant that grew beside his hermitage.
Through him haiku, already a popular indigenous verse form in Japan, took on new vigor. He used the formal rules but the haiku he wrote vibrated with life and spirit.
It is said that he was a Zen monk, but we must not project upon him an over austere persona. Like many monks he is thought to have tried marriage at some point. From his haiku you glimpse riotous renga parties attended as well as saki hangovers. Basho may have been a spiritual seeker but he was not precious or over pious.
He is thought to have had a great friend in the son of his Master's house where he served as a young page. And like many young men in his twenties there are plenty of rumors about paramours. Needless to say, what his likeable about Basho is that he seems to have had warm relations with his peers. Although living three centuries ago, we can glimpse something universal in his experience. But his most salient characteristic seems to have been his need to travel and explore as well as write. Many of his haiku can be considered verse postcards from his travels. Samurai life could not contain his spirit.
Yet, he also had this need for solitude, to be out on the road rather than opting to live in a monastic community. He chose to live as an itinerant poet tutor and often lived in leaky huts, like the one beside the eponymous basho tree where his sole companion was a she cat.
Girl
cat, so
What opens my heart in Basho is this very human combination of needing both solitude and companionship. This is true of the spiritual journey as well as in our every day 'ordinary' lives.
While we do not necessarily need to embark on long physical journeys like Basho, many spiritual seekers begin their inward yearning and learning with outward travel.
Suddenly
the sun rose -
In this haiku there is an illumination. Through the conventions of Japanese haiku we know from the plum blossoms that it is springtime, a time of renewal. We are gifted the "perfume" of the experience on a mountain path, a way into higher states of consciousness.
Basho had poetry students in his time. He still is teaching with the legacy of his 1,000 haiku and his travelogues. His patient and compassionate eye on nature - without an explicit preservationist or conservationist agenda - makes his best haiku a direct experience of our essential oneness with all of creation.
After I viewed the moon my departing shadow followed me home
© Bee Smith 2008
Simply
Haiku: A Quarterly Journal of Japanese Short Form Poetry THE ANAMCARA INVITATION The invitation to Soul Friendship is always available. There is, however, a price to pay. You are invited to trade rags for riches. You are invited to give away doubts, fears, sorrows and other rags for the diamond that you already are. There is no greater invitation than to become an Anam Cara - a friend to your soul. To learn more about this radiant diamond within and how to awaken your beauty from its sleep of many years you are invited to subscribe to our FREE weekly Newsletter entitled The Anamcara Experience This Newsletter includes articles which invite all the experiences listed above. These articles include spiritual stories, articles about songs - modern and old, articles about the power of spiritual poetry and many other aspects of spiritual development and much more. As a thank you for being willing to accept this invitation you will receive a short but powerful FREE REPORT entitled "7 Ways to a Wonderful Life." Simply subscribe now without obligation and begin today the journey into a wonderful life of an Anam Cara - soul friend
| |||||||||
