in the dark

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spring sunset -
the larger part of me
in the dark


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My dear Shoma kun, get well soon !



Read my Haiku Archives from March 2007


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Ego Zen Trick

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EGO zen trick ego ZEN trick ego zen TRICK

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Egocentric ...

EGO and HAIKU Some thoughts ...



Read my Haiku Archives from March 2007


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Frosty morning

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frosty morning -
half the roof white
half dripping


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The eastern side toward the bamboo grove is already warming up and the frost of the roof melting, whereas the open western side is still in the grips of father frost. One side still white, while the other is already dark brown.

My daily walk up the hill to get the morning paper. Always full of little uneventful events !


More haiku about our large ROOF ! 屋根

After typhoon Nabi in 2005 !



Read my Haiku Archives from March 2007


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Polishing leaves

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ancient tea garden -
polished leaves sparkle
in the spring sun


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The entrance garden (roji 露地) to the tea ceremony house of the Yabu-no-uchi school is planted with many shrubs not flowering in any particular season, all having large green leaves of various shades. Before entertaining visitors, the master of the ceremony wipes and polishes these leaves carefully and sprinkles some with water, to create an atmosphere of purity and freshness.

This is one way of the master to show his "heart set to entertaining the visitors", motenashi no kokoro, which is a special training of the attitude of a tea master.

While the guests wait in a small hut before proceeding, the master will clean the stone handwash basin (tsukubai) in the next small garden and fill it with fresh water, thus providing the waiting guests with the sound of coolness. The waiting process gives the guests a chance to leave their everyday worries behind and clear their own minds and hearts.

Entertaining the five senses is one of the aesthetic purposes of the tea ceremony.


In the garden there is a large stepping stone with three protruding corners (三小袖石), said to be a present of Sen no Rikyu to the first master of the Yabu no Uchi tea school. The family owns a large ground in the middle of Kyoto, almost like a private forest, so you can enjoy the quietude and peaceful atmosphere of nature in their splendid surroundings.


Yabunouchi is the smallest of four great schools of tea in Japan. The others are Urasenke, Omotesenke and Musha-no-kōji.



© PHOTO Copyright 2001 NAKANE
Garden Research & Landscape Consultant


This famous water basin (tsukubai) was once part of the grave stone of the ascetic Buddhist priest Mongaku. Imagine what it must feel like to wash your hands in the momories of this place !
More about Mongaku is below.



NHK is running a four part program on this tea ceremony school.
NHK March 2007 : 五感で味わう茶の湯

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Yabunouchi En'an (En An, En-An), or Swallow Hut
designed by Furuta Oribe, a relavite of the first Yabunouchi tea master.

This "hut" for the tea ceremony has many windows and is quite light and large. The ceiling is high and has another window. Your spirits are uplifted once you enter this tea room.


薮ノ内燕庵と古田織部
藪内流. やぶのうちりゅう Yabunouchi Ryuu


Click HERE to see some photos !


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Mongaku (1139-1203 文覚 )
was originally a samurai, Morito Endo by name, in Kyoto serving the Imperial Guards in the late 12th century.
He fell in love with a married woman named Kesa.
She was so beautiful and charming that he wanted to marry her by all means and proposed to her. His proposal was too persistent for her to decline.

Kesa finally replied to him that she would marry him if he could kill her husband, and suggested to him that he visit Kesa's house at one designated night when the couple are asleep. Following the suggestion, Morito broke into her house the night and slain Kesa in bed.

The person he killed, however, was not the husband but Kesa herself. Kesa had given him wrong advise by design and was in bed in disguise of her husband. She had preferred death to the second marriage. Morito immediately took the tonsure for atonement and entered the temple Jingoji in Kyoto, changing the name to "Mongaku".

What made him famous was his strict and ascetic disciplines after he entered priesthood at Jingoji.
Priest Mongaku's saga often appears in the ancient stories and was dramatized into Kabuki and Noh plays.

More is here:
Priest Mongaku and Temple Fudarakuji


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My LINKS

Tea Ceremony Saijiki 茶道の歳時記　

Oribeyaki ― Daruma of Oribe Pottery　織部焼と達磨


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The ceremonie continues here

Charcoal Setting (sumi temae　炭点前)


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Wind rings bell

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spring storm - the wind rings our visitor's bell

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Read my Haiku Archives from March 2007


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right or left

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summer sunshine - does the snail turn right now or left ?

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classical Japanese haiku and
modern American haiku poetry ...

worlds of differences



Read my Haiku Archives from March 2007


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Haiku Riddles and Ego

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About EGO and HAIKU, see below.

... ... ...

"I personally have a problem with haiku-riddles.
And I want my haiku to be understood - otherwise,
why to write, to please yourself only?"

a haiku friend asked.

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Ambiguity and yugen (depth and mystery) are wonderful tools.
Most good haiku have more than one level of meaning.

Take for example, this haiku by Basho:

an octopus pot ---
inside, a short-lived dream
under the summer moon



What one person perceives as clear may not be clear to another with a different cultural memory and social context.

a haiku friend answered.

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These octopus pots are quite common for fishing in our area in the Seto Inland sea. In some parts, the coast is littered, so to speak, with the bones and souls of warriours from the Genpei war and others.

This haiku by Basho is rather clear. It is not a riddle to me, but full of cultural allusions and information.
It also reminds of the haiku about the dreams of ancient warriors in the summer grass of Hiraizumi.

Maybe our problem with the haiku riddles result from our different cultures where we originate?

Yugen (yuugen　幽玄) is part of many arts of Japan, not only haiku. It is part of the aesthetic aspect of many things here. Especially in the Noh Theater, we see a lot of yugen but that is not identical with riddle, it is much more subtle than that and involves a lot of the common cultural understanding of a man of letters (bunjin　文人), reaching back to ancient China and its early influence on Japan.

Maybe more later.... now is time for

drinking hot sake
from the old teacup -
memories and dreams

Gabi


Read the details about
the octopus pots, takotsubo 蛸壺!



. Basho and the Old Pond .
Three choices !


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Compiled by Larry Bole:


From Jane Reichhold's essay "Haiku Techniques:"

The Technique of the Riddle - this is probably one of the very oldest poetical techniques. It has been guessed that early spiritual knowledge was secretly preserved and passed along through riddles. Because poetry, as it is today, is the commercialization of religious prayers, incantations, and knowledge, it is no surprise that riddles still form a serious part of poetry's transmission of ideas.

One can ask: "what is still to be seen"

on all four sides
of the long gone shack

The answer is:
calla lilies

Or another one would be:

spirit bodies
waving from cacti
plastic bags

The 'trick' is to state the riddle in as puzzling terms as possible. What can one say that the reader cannot figure out the answer? The more intriguing the 'set-up' and the bigger surprise the answer is, the better the haiku seems to work. As in anything, you can overextend the joke and lose the reader completely.
The answer has to make sense to work and it should be realistic.

Here is a case against desk haiku. If one has seen plastic bags caught on cacti, it is simple and safe to come to the conclusion I did. If I had never seen such an incident, it could be it only happened in my imagination and in that scary territory one can lose a reader. So keep it true, keep it simple and keep it accurate and make it weird.

Oh, the old masters favorite trick with riddles was the one of: is that a flower falling or is it a butterfly? or is that snow on the plum or blossoms and the all-time favorite "am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man or a man dreaming I am a butterfly."
Again, if you wish to experiment (the ku may or may not be a keeper) you can ask yourself the question: if I saw snow on a branch, what else could it be? Or seeing a butterfly going by you ask yourself what else besides a butterfly could that be?
http://www.ahapoetry.com/haiartjr.htm


From an essay by Jaroslaw Kapuscinski,
"The Future of Music:"

I will read to you a haiku by my favorite master, a contemporary of J. S. Bach, Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) (the example below was translated by Lucien Stryk in a Penguin collection of Basho's haiku called "On Love and Barley").

"In my new robe
This morning
Someone else"

Let me read it once again but with the lines backwards:

"Someone else
This morning
In my new robe"

There are only three lines, but what richness of meaning. To achieve it Basho uses a well-known haiku convention that is most important to us here. Not all haiku use this principle but most do. It is called the principle of internal comparison.

You compare the meanings of the three lines and consider that they all refer to the same thing, in our terms that they are all "sides" of one hand. This technique gives haiku a unique quality of growth -- an ability to convey so much more emotion than is expected at a first reading.

You generate a whole space of meaning or experience in a dimension that is well beyond that of the three images defined in the three lines individually. Haiku may seem small, but in their case it is certain that size does not matter.

This haiku does not only grow, but actually reverses its meaning back and forth as you keep rereading it.

"In my new robe"
(We think of a new look, something you have not worn before, external appearance, surface...)

"This morning"
(A new day, a beginning...)

"Someone else"
(Me or not me or just a new me...)

But a morning is only one of many mornings; it is the morning after a day and before another. The whole concept of the new, fresh, or of a beginning, is suddenly put in doubt and reversed. "Someone else" seems to sound like an irony for a moment. But if you insist on the "not me" interpretation of "someone else" then you realize that there is never a morning or a day that is a copy of another, and the newness resurfaces again. And so it continues...

The triangle of images seem to be representing aspects of the same experience but they pull us into a paradox, they present a contradiction that cannot be reconciled. Like a koan, this haiku is a riddle that has no static answer. You can only understand it in a dynamic, constantly changing way.
http://www.rogerreynolds.com/jarek/jarek.html


Now granted, this last example may be stretching the meaning of riddle, but riddles don't necessarily have to have answers in order to be riddles.

Definition (2) from Webster's New World Dictionary, College Edition, 1962:
"any puzzling, perplexing, or apparently inexplicable person or thing, as a difficult problem or enigmatic saying; enigma."

And from "The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics," 1974 edition:
"RIDDLE. Essentially a metaphor which draws attention to likenesses between unrelated objects..."


However, in an essay by William J. Higginson, "Haiku Clinic #2" from "Simply Haiku," he warns against using the riddle technique "when a first or last line seems to answer a riddle posed by the rest of the poem."

In "Haiku Clinic #1" (ibid.) Higginson writes, "...the setup and delivery mode, or riddle and solution, a kind of logic, still doesn't work very well in haiku."

I would tend to agree with the last statement. However, I propose that the technique is viable, as Reichhold suggests, if instead of answering the posed riddle explicitly, the haiku leaves the answer up to the reader.

Although I'm sure there will be disagreement, I see the following by Basho as a type of "riddle" haiku:

'Greeting the New Year near the capital'

the man wearing
a straw mat, who is he?
blossoms in spring

komo o kite tarebito imasu hana no haru
straw-mat acc. wearing what-person is blossom 's spring

tr. David Barnhill

Barnhill writes:

"In commenting on this hokku, Basho lamented that he lacked the ability to distinguish a mere beggar from a sage, who may live in poverty."

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We must also distinguish between a riddle and
something plainly not understandable.
Sometimes it is only because of not enough cultural knowledge, sometimes something expressed in words toooo poetic to fit a classical Japanese haiku and reads like a mix of modern European haiku poetry.

Creating depth or confusion ? The haiku poet is always challenged to choose his words carefully!

Something beyond the concept of simple shasei, sketching from nature, turns the real into the irreal, something strongly filtered through the phantasy and psyche of the poet.
Maybe we could call it : surreal, as in a painting of Salvadore Dali. You can almost see the beard on the face of the smiling me/frog

an old pond . . .
the frog jumps
through me

... ... ...

a sound of water
from the old pond -
I am the frog

Gabi
SNAPSHOTS
about shasei, sketching from nature without phantasy or ego

In Zen, we train to loose the EGO, or rather, feel one with the ALL. In that sense, I am the FROG! I am the butterfly and the dandelion by the roadside. So there is no need to state that in every haiku.

My above poems are examples for a way I think
HAIKU should NOT BE written.

Short poems or verses like this, yes, but why name it haiku?

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For a number of years I have argued against the lack of punctuation in modern genre haiku. It allows for an ambiguity which is unnecessary and which contrasts with the subtle allusiveness of classical Japanese haiku.

Full discussion is here :
Hugh Bygott, August 2007


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Another example

four legs
in my kitchen -
spring morning

Well, I find this plain confusing. It could be so many things, from animals to furniture. I do not think this poem creates any depth by being so vague.

four small legs
in my kitchen -
spring morning

Any better?
Two little chicken? Or one kitten? The chair for our firstborn son? A tiny table for the grandchildren who are coming for Easter? A cockroach where the kids have torn out two legs and left the poor corpse on the table?
Still too much to think about and not much to enjoy easily as an image.

What inspired all this was a movie about a rural family with a very small pony as a family member.

having breakfast
with our new pony -
spring morning

Now things are clear, I feel. Now the reader can understand what I am showing and create his own story about the scene, dream his own dream about living with animals ...



This is an example of . AIMAI 曖昧 . , translated as
ambiguous, unclear or vague.


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Ambiguity in haiku is sometimes useful, but simple confusion is usually not and does not help to produce "depth", but leads the mind straight to its intellectual side, trying to figure out what is going on, who is doing what ... and so missing the initial situation, not being able to see the initial image clearly.

Gabi Greve


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Now a bit more on

................................... Haiku and EGO

Quote from "Speculations of Robert Spiess"

608
A genuine haiku is the 'testament' of an aspect of the world process itself, apart from any intervention of human ego.

627
As human nature tends to be deflected from its original unity and simplicity by ego and its constrictive and seductive illusions, haiku are salutary in mitigating this tendency, and to bring our nature back to its original mode.

653
The haiku poet does not need ego in order to be self-aware.

717
Haiku poets should be aware of the tyranny of the ego, for it clings to its obsession with being special.

726
By forgetting one's ego, the haiku poet's true being is confirmed by all things.

867
In a haiku’s now-moment (whether immediate or from memory) the ego and the intellect are to be left behind.

871
In genuine haiku the heart annihilates the ego.

Speculations of Robert Spiess
long-time editor of Modern Haiku.

... ... ...

Bruce Ross identifies a "tendency in the fourth generation of American haiku writers of the late seventies, eighties and early nineties unfortunately to frequently offer catchy moments of sensibility that often rely on obvious metaphoric figures.

These American poets desire to create 'haiku moments'. But a subjective ego, call it sentiment or call it imagination, intrudes upon their perception of the object".

In Zen parlance there is no need to "put legs on the snake" - not even poetic metaphysical ones.

The insight of the haiku moment is fresh, new-minted perception, though it may be so ordinarily expressed as to risk failing the "So What?" test unless the reader's reception is similarly attuned.

Haiku offer a glancing opportunity, without the poetic prompting of another, to accept for ourselves how it is.

Blyth says:
"Where Basho is at his greatest is where he seems most insignificant, the neck of a firefly, hailstones in the sun, the chirp of an insect ... these are full of meaning, interest, value, that is, poetry, but not as symbols of the Infinite, not as types of Eternity, but in themselves. Their meaning is just as direct, as clear, as unmistakable, as complete and perfect, as devoid of reference to other things, as dipping the hand suddenly into boiling water."

Zen is commonplace: the ordinary is extraordinary when we are jolted out of our habitual selves; there is no need to hype it up.

Read this most interesting article HERE !
Zen and the Art of Haiku. Ken Jones

... ... ...

In Japanese haiku, the ego is to be not-present.
According to the masters of Japanese Poetry, good haiku may only be composed in a state of egolessness. The Poet and the subject of the poem must become one, in a state of thoughtless awareness (meditation).

The loss of ego-
The sea falls into the drop
So why speak of loss?

Graham Brown, Australia

... ... ...

The Healing Spirit of Haiku
by David Rosen

In particular they address the need to react to and relate with other human beings as well as nature. Rosen and Weishaus emphasize the interconnections of haiku with Zen Buddhism, Shintoism, and Taoism. This is not a book about the history of haiku or how to write them.

This is not a self-help book in the usual sense, but rather a non-self (beyond the ego) healing volume that ideally helps one to realize that we are alone only in the ways we choose to be. This book values haiku moments and creativity and underscores the philosophy: "Moments, moments, that is life."
Amazon. com



ego ZEN trick

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“The tree manifests the bodily power of the wind;
The wave exhibits the spiritual nature of the moon.”
Zenrinkushu

Blyth tells us in response,
“If the tree were strong enough it would manifest nothing.
If the wave were rigid, the moon’s nature could not be expressed in it.”
snip
In other words, Blyth is saying that the writer of hokku must “empty himself” of the desire to “express himself,” to “become a poet,” to “make a name for himself,” and it is only because of that emptiness — like the emptiness of a mirror undimmed by dust — that the writer can truly experience and express the “things” that are the primary matter of hokku.

LISTENING TO R. H. BLYTH
source : David Coomler, Hokku


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quote
Traces of Dreams - Haruo Shirane
Cultural Landscape
... Spring rain, for example, became associated with soft, dreamy thoughts; the wet season, particularly that of the Fifth Month, implied a sense of unending depression; and the intermittent showers of winter connoted impermanence and uncertainty.

These poetic topics and their associations are, in a fundamental sense, imaginary worlds, which join the poet and the reader, and represent a communal, shared imagination. In writing about the scattering of the cherry blossoms, the Japanese poet is not just writing about a specific, direct experience; he or she is writing a supplement to or a variation on a commonly shared body of poetic associations with respect to the seasons, nature, and famous places based on centuries of poetic practice.

Here, as in the allusive variation (honkadori),
originality or individuality is not the touchstone of literary genius, as it often is in the Western tradition.
Instead, high value is given to the ability to rework existing subject matter.
source : books.google.co.jp


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Danjuro XII and the freedom in Kabuki acting

Freedom is fine; but I get the feeling that many modern-day Japanese have forgotten that freedom comes with responsibility. This concept is found in kabuki, so people who come to watch it will be exposed to the responsibility of freedom as well as freedom's limits.

Think of freedom as a dog that feels free to run around a fenced garden. It feels satisfied because it is not stuck in the house, even though it doesn't have the freedom to go outside the garden.
Freedom exists inside the garden as well as outside.
But there is a barrier.
Nowadays, there is no such barrier.
I think kabuki expresses the freedom that exists within a barrier.

DANJURO XII
Destined to act wild ... read the full interview!



This is almost the same as my haiku teacher told me when I asked her about expressing my individuality within the many guidelines of Japanese traditional haiku!
She also said

"Find your own voice within the limits!
Express yourself within the promises (yakusokugoto) of haiku!
And if you can not or do not want to do that,
write free poetry. "


Gabi Greve


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Now, is this one surreal, irreal, methapyhsical, phantastic or
plain sketching from what is before my eyes?

getting older -
even the gods
need glasses

Jizo, a god wearing glasses






Here you can look at some of my
sleeping stones !

Gabi


Read my thoughts on
Yugen (yuugen 幽玄)


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the following is a qoute from
source : www.roadrunnerjournal.net :


SURREALISM & CONTEMPORARY HAIKU
~ OR ~
SURREAL HAIKU?
by Philip Rowland


Other examples of somewhat surrealistic, classic haiku include Bashō’s:

tsuki izuku kane wa shizumeru umi no soko

where is the moon?
the temple bell is sunk
at the bottom of the sea


Shuson’s commentary on this haiku underlines its highly subjective and imaginative (even “fanciful”) power: “In his mind Bashō saw the light of the full moon and heard the faint sound of the bell. Although there was no moon in actuality, its absence led him to fly on wings of fancy to a mysterious but concrete world in his imagination.”
Shuson’s comment is a useful reminder that the “mysteriousness”of a perception need not detract from its vividly “concrete” poetic rendering.

Philip Rowland


my comments are here:
. The mystery background story
of the war bell at the bottom of the sea



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. The Point of Ego and Individuality .



. . . . . BACK TO
My Haiku Theory Archives 　



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Rosebuds in snow

rosebuds in snow - the softness of his hand on my shoulder

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紅梅や雪の中も咲きにけり red plums - you don't mind blossoming in snow

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cold feet and a freezing head - ah ah ah ah ah

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Read my Haiku Archives from March 2007

rose
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Spring Storm

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spring storm -
the tall pine leans
toward the short


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Two Pines



Read my Haiku Archives from March 2007


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Two Pines

winter whispers ... two solitary pines keep company michele a loving couple at the end of the journey - Hinomisaki gabi

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Michele wrote her haiku in the Simply Haiku Forum, March 2007 .


It reminded me of our trip to Hinomisaki 日御碕, where the photo was taken.
Hinomisaki is a small peninsular at the far end of Honshu, the main island of Japan. The sunset is quite spectacular. The area vibrates with the energy of the Gods who fished the Japanese islands our of the sea from here. The great shrine of Izumo, Izumo Taisha, is close by to celebrate the gods.


Izumo Kaido, The Old Road of Izumo 出雲街道 ... leads very close past my present home in Japan. I am trying to write about it here.



Read my Haiku Archives from March 2007


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White Plums

強風に　抱いておくれよ　梅白し　 hold me tight in the strong storm - white plum blossoms

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Plum blossoms (ume) Many related kigo.

..... Plum blossom fragrance (ume ga ka) Japan.


Read my Haiku Archives from March 2007


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Pollen Sneezing

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花粉の飛ぶ　風の高さや　ハクチュウム


strong wind
blows the pollen high -
haku-chuuuum !


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Pollen, a kigo for spring


Another of my POLLEN haiku from 2007 !



Read my Haiku Archives from March 2007


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WKD - Sleep ... in various seasons

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春眠や　古井戸の水　ピチャピチャと shunmin ya furu-ido no mizu picha-picha to sleepy in spring ー the water of our well drips steadily

The color code is 9ec2be, Japanese water's color
水色（みずいろ）.


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KIGO for all spring

sleepy in spring, spring sleepiness,
spring slug-abed 春眠 shunmin
..... shunsui 春睡（しゅんすい）
..... haru no nemuri 春の眠（はるのねむり）sleep in spring
..... haru nemushi 春眠し（はるねむし）

asane 朝寝 (あさね) sleeping late in the morning

haru no yume 春の夢 (はるのゆめ) dream in spring


.SAIJIKI ... HUMANITY
Kigo for Spring 　


kigo for SPRING
Früjahrsmüdigkeit


虫売のかごとがましき 朝寝哉
mushi uri no kagotogamashiki asane kana

The insect seller
Pretends it's summer, or so it seems, and
Sleeps in this morning.
Tr. Thomas McAuley

This is a pun on kago 籠 cage for insects , kagotogamashi かごとがまし someone who likes to complain and kagoto 託言 someone who has to comment on anything.

. Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村 in Edo .


. mushi-uri 虫売り dealer for insects .
kigo for autumn

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.First Dream, hatsu-yume　初夢
sleep and dream kigo for the New Year　


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kigo for all summer


. hirune, hiru-ne 昼寝 (ひるね) nap, Mittagsschlaf
gosui 午睡（ごすい）afternoon nap
hirunezame 昼寝覚（ひるねざめ）wake up from a nap
hiruneoki 昼寝起（ひるねおき）get up from a nap
hirunebito 昼寝人（ひるねびと）person taking a nap
sanjakune 三尺寝（さんじゃくね） "short nap"
lit. "as long as three shaku"






nebie 寝冷 (ねびえ) getting chilled whilst sleeping

nebieko 寝冷子（ねびえご） child getting chilled whilst sleeping
When children move around while sleeping, they loose the cover and their sweaty bodies in the cooling air get cold, chilled and they easily catch a cold. Now with airconditioning this is a severe problem, so mothers watch over the little ones and put the covers back in place.


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kigo for late summer

sotone, soto-ne 外寝 (そとね) sleeping outside
On the veranda or in a cool place of the garden.



. SAIJIKI ... HUMANITY - - - Kigo for Summer 　


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- quote - Susumu Takiguchi about Ono Rinka 大野林火 (1904～1982)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . my peaceful slumber


"It is only in modern times that the Japanese became conscious of the question of 'ego.' [I wonder if this is really true.] This is mainly because the concept was brought to Japan from the West when it opened its shores in the mid-19th century, ending a seclusion policy that had stood for generations.

"The question of whether or not to bring ego (subjective viewpoints)into haiku became acute with Shiki Masaoka, one of the pioneers ofintroducing Western learning and culture. It was Kyoshi Takahama whoperfected the theory that haiku should be directed by objectiveviewpoints and that it is only through an objective sketch of what one sees that one's subjective view will be given the chance to manifest itself. Others were not that bothered by the ego issue. One such was Rinka Ohno (1904-1982). He was convinced that haiku started from 'self.'

mi o tsukarasete/shunya o nemuru/sube oboe

learning the knack
of sleeping on a spring night...
making myself exhausted

"Spring is a sleepy season. For most people, that is. Therefore, something must be wrong with a person who has insomnia in spring. That is why this haiku becomes very personal, talking about the author's personal circumstance. I have done exactly the same thing he describes, doing something to make myself so tired that I cannot but
go out like a light when I hurl myself into bed. However, I have never thought of making it into a haiku."
quoted from Yomiuri Shinbun, 2007



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- - - - - haiku topics involving sleep - - - - -

marune まる寝　a good "round" sleep

足洗うてつひ明けやすき丸寝かな
. ashi aroote tsui akeyasuki marune kana .
- - - - - Matsuo Basho


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tabine 　旅ね寝 sleeping on the road

. Matsuo Basho - tabine 旅寝 haiku collection .


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wabine 侘寝 to sleep alone, to spend a lonely night
It was quite common to share a futon bedding with another person, especially on a cold winter night, to keep warm.

暮れ暮れて餅を木魂の侘寝哉
. kure kurete mochi o kodama no wabine kana .
- - - - - Matsuo Basho


嵐雪とふとん引合ふ侘寝かな
. ransetsu to futon hiki-au wabine kana .
- - - - - Yosa Buson
(more about futon bedding on this link !)


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- - - - - MORE about sleeping by
. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .

. mizu samuku ne-iri kanetaru kagome kana .
(winter) cold water and sea gull. it can not go to sleep

. sake nomeba itodo nerarenu yoru no yuki .
(winter) snow at night. when I drink sake I can not sleep

. samukeredo futari neru yoru zo tanomoshiki .
sleeping together is quite a pleasure
(spending the night with his good friend, - Tsuboi Tokoku 坪井杜国 -

. uma ni nete zanmu tsuki tooshi cha no keburi .
(autumn) moon. horseback. I sleep. dream. smoke from tea

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. Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村 in Edo .

抱籠やひと夜ふしみのさゝめごと
dakikago ya hitoyo fushimi no sasame goto

Sleep with "daki kago"!
As with a one-night harlot at Fushimi
Exchanging lovers' talks.
- Comment by Shoji Kumano


. "hug basket" dakikago 抱籠 .
kigo for all summer




hana ni kite hana ni ineburu itoma kana

To cherry blooms I come,
and under the blossoms go to sleep--
no duties to be done!
Tr. Henderson




ichi wa kite neru tori wa nani ume no tsuki

What bird comes
And sleeps there alone?
An apricot in bloom and the moon.
Tr. Nelson/Saito



inemurite wareni kakuren fuyugomori

Going off to sleep,
I want to hide in myself--
winter isolation.
Tr. Sawa/ Shiffert

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子を寐せて出て行く闇や鉢たゝき
ko o nesete dete yuku yami ya hachitataki

he puts the child to sleep
and goes out into the dark -
hachitataki prayers
Tr. Gabi Greve


waga yado no hiru o karine ya hachitataki

during daytime
he sleeps in his home -
hachitataki prayers
Tr. Gabi Greve

. hachitataki, Hachi Tataki 鉢叩 鉢敲, 鉢扣　prayer for Saint Kuya 空也上人 .
kigo for the New Year

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kutabirete ne ni kaeru hana no aruji kana

exhausted he leaves us
to go to sleep
the blossom lord
Tr. Robin D. Gill



matsu mo toshi wasurete neru ya yoru no yuki
(1768)

this pine tree
also sleeps to forget the old year -
snow at night
Tr. Gabi Greve



村々の寝ごころ更けぬ落し水
muramura no negokoro fukenu otoshimizu

Night deepens,
And sleep in the villages;
Sounds of falling water.
Tr. Blyth

. otoshimizu, otoshi mizu 落し水 draining water from the paddies .
kigo for mid-autumn




negurushiki fuse yo o dereba natsu no tsuki

Unable to sleep,
going out from the cottage--
the summer moon. [
Tr. Sawa/ Shiffert



noki ni neru hito ou koe ya yowa no aki

Asleep in the shelter of eaves,
he is chased away by a voice--
autumn midnight.
Tr. Sawa/ Shiffert



okite ite moo neta to iu yosamu kana
(1776)

Though awake
"Asleep already," say I
The night chill.
Tr. Nelson/Saito



to ni inu no negaeru oto ya fuyugomori

Sound against the door
A sleeping dog rolling over--
Winter hibernation.
Tr. Nelson/Saito



妻や子の寝顔も見えつ薬喰
tsuma ya ko no negao mo mietsu kusurigui

wife and children asleep
he also glances at their faces -
eating medicine
Tr. Gabi Greve

. kusuri gui 薬喰 "eating medicine" .
kigo for all winter



釣鐘にとまりてねむる胡蝶かな
. tsurigane ni tomarite nemuru kochoo kana .
a butterfly sleeping on the temple bell




yoru no yuki nete iru ie wa nao shiroshi

snow at night -
the sleeping home
looks even more white
Tr. Gabi Greve



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Rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep)
is a normal stage of sleep characterized by the rapid and random movement of the eyes. REM sleep is classified into two categories: tonic and phasic.
It was identified and defined by Nathaniel Kleitman, Eugene Aserinsky, and Jon Birtwell in the early 1950s. Criteria for REM sleep includes rapid eye movement, but also low muscle tone and a rapid, low-voltage EEG; these features are easily discernible in a polysomnogram, the sleep study typically done for patients with suspected sleep disorders.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !






Rapid Eye Movement
Arboreal Reverie
Flora Fauna Fuse

- Shared by Samuel G. Fields 09/17/12 © -
Joys of Japan, September 2012


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. HUMANITY KIGO - for all seasons



[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO　　TOP . ]
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Plum Pinks

梅が香や fragrant plum blossoms　- a whole world of pink explodes fragrant plum blossoms - too many pink thoughts on my mind

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梅が香や 色めく想い 浮かびけり

ume ga ka ya
iromeku omoi
ukabi keri

Nakamura Sakuo

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Plum blossoms (ume) Many related kigo

...... Plum blossom fragrance (ume ga ka)



Read my Haiku Archives from February 2007

Read my Haiku Archives from March 2007

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Spring Walk

春日差し　道端にある　なにかしら spring sunshine - the little somethings by the roadside ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo spring sun on the new green - I bend deeper ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo spring sunshine - see you tonight on the dinner table

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More Photos are HERE !


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The foundation of greatness
is honoring the small things
of the present moment,

instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.

Eckhart Tolle
http://www.eckharttolle.com/home.php

The foundation of haiku
is honoring the small things
of the present moment !


This is such a co-incidence, getting this "word of the day"
after publishing the above haiku sequences !


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Read my Haiku Archives from February 2007


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