6/19/2007

Buddha and Rain

  
  



rainy season
the first drop
on the Buddha's head











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Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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rose buds

  
  






raindrops
on the rose buds -
a letter from home










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Comments from HH Members!

Very nice, Gabi. Your third line makes me think that the letter's arrival is as nurturing as the raindrops on the rose. I really like this.

.....

Roses are for remembrance and love _ your 3rd line is most appropriate!
Lovely poem!

.....

well done, enjoyed the moment.

.....

i enjoyed to read your haiku, Gabi! very nice!
.....

Nice one, Gabi . . . and always lovely to get a letter from home.

.....

What I like about it is the way it lets go of the first image.
We are often so focused on playing off of that first image, resonating with it, or paralleling in some way -- prescribing, if you will, some sort of unity. This haiku is totally unforced, unconstructed I guess you could say, but nevertheless, a unified whole.
I learned from this one. Thank you for posting it.

..... GABI says:

Guard well your spare moments.
They are like uncut diamonds.
Discard them and their value will never be known.
Improve them and they will become
the brightest gems in a useful life.


Ralph Waldo Emerson

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your spare moments
your treasure moments
your haiku moments


.....

Gabi,

I am aware that you practice shasei, because you linked to my short analysis of Joan Payne Kincaid's shasei in your blog http://haikutopics.blogspot.com/2006/07/shasei-sketch-from-nature.html

I've been meaning to thank you for that.

Anyway, even in shasei, take Joan's as an example, there is often an authorial "construction." I don't really have appropriate language to express this. I mean some sort of intervention or interpretation. The haijin has selected the elements with an eye towards, I don't know, cleverness maybe, or beauty sometimes -- towards INTENTIONAL resonance in either case

I often feel that I can't "get" a haiku on a given day; that I can not espy some interesting elements to connect, and so, have nothing to write.

Your haiku makes no attempt tat intentional resonance.. It "let's go" (again, suffering from lack of useful phrasing) of the first image entirely, instead of try to hinge upon it or play off of it. Personally, from where I am at in my development as a haijin, I just find that very instructive and I thank you for it.

I also enjoyed the quote from Emerson, by the way, and intend to pass it along to a friend who is having a bad day today.

..... GABI says:

Dear T.,

the difficult part is really to let go, the timing ...
After practising Japanese Archery, Kyuudoo for more than 30 years, I have come to value the exercise as a means of taiken 体験, physical experience, much more than the philosophical bubbles about it.

If you are not absolutely with the action, the bowstring will soon punish you, so to speak, with a bruise on the arm or broken spectacles or whatever ... ...
any intentions (will people like my haiku? will it go published here or there?) will hamper the natural flow ... so you have to experience the

aiming without aiming ...

I might try and put my thoughts about this

............ Japanese Archery and the Art of Haiku

one of these days, haha, if my arrow hits my haiku or vice versa ...

a bit of it is here
http://haikutopics.blogspot.com/2006/04/target-mato.html


.....

Thank you, Gabi, that was interesting.

For me, whether someone else will like and certainly not whether it will ever get published, truly never enters my mind. It's more "Is there something WORTHY here?" Either something remarkable or a way of showing it remarkably or perhaps, does some align with something else in a way that is, well, remarkable. See what I mean?

But I do appreciate your thoughts about the arrow, which I take to mean, the direction of one's consciousness.

.....

This is a perfect moment... captured so well, Gabi!

.....

I agree...one of those rare perfect moments captured perfectly --
in awe..... xxx applauds

........................................



Read my Haiku Archives 2007

rose
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6/16/2007

meditation

  
  



morning meditation -
a gray spot
on my gray carpet





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If you find the SPOT in the box above, contact me!



Read my Zen Haiku Archives


Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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6/14/2007

Lilies in the rain

  
  







iris in the rain -
a bright star in the
flower heart






  
  







little spider -
trying to peek
in the flower heart ??





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Flower-Heart (hana gokoro) and haiku


more . SPIDERS in my Paradise !


Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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Rainy Season

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rainy season -
I join my cat
for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG nap






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Cats in Paradise ..
O-Tsu and Haiku-Kun お津と俳句くん



Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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6/13/2007

Fireflies

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shizukesa ya tani o mau no wa hotaru dake

静けさや 谷を舞うのは 蛍だけ



this quietude -
only fireflies dancing
in the valley



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Fireflies (hotaru) (Japan)



MORE !
my fireflies haiku




Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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6/12/2007

Thirsty Butterfly

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watering flowers -
a huge butterfly waits
for his turn



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Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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6/08/2007

Wetterleuchten

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sheet lightning -
the frogs are quacking
louder tonight


sudden thunder -
the frogs suddenly stop
quacking right now




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Wetterleuchten -
die Froesche quaaaken lauter
heut nacht





Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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6/07/2007

Firefly

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稲妻は 遠くなるや 初蛍


lightning
still so far away -
first firefly




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The weather has been quite unstable, but here we are with our FIRST visitor!
Looking up and then down in the valley ... what a light show !




Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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6/06/2007

ants

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dinnertime -
four tiny ants drag
a huge caterpillar



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mid-day heat -
four tiny ants drag
a huge caterpillar


Watching such scenes in Kenya, I am inclined to interpret the ants' unco-ordinated dragging as the will to co-operate, handicapped by lack of overview...!

Here is a recent scene from Japan :

shinkansen platform --
a woodlouse goes its way
undeterred


Right among the passengers' big feet...!

Isabelle.

... ... ...


Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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6/05/2007

Summer day

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summer morning -
another weed blossoming
by the roadside



summer lunch -
a beetle dives
into the curry pot



summer eve -
a badger nodds
its "good night"


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The badgers always trodd along when we have dinner outside. They stop, watch us for a while and then start nodding their heads before they move on ...


Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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AHA the moment

[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO  TOP . ]
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I guess many expect tooooo much of the

AHA moment.

For me, it is just the little things in daily life that catch my attention at any moment, on the daily walk to the letterbox all these flowers by the wayside, my cat sleeping happily in his box, a mosquito trying to pierce the window pane, the raindrops still rolling down of leaves after the rain has stopped ... the problem is to be attentive to these small things.

Once you are attentive in every moment, you see sooooo many things to add your AHA ! Sometimes I can,t stop to use the shutter of my mental camera to catch all these little bits and pieces ... just, they are not GRAND in any way, not spectacular, not sensational, but they ARE !

I have learned to be attentive during the practise of Kyudo, Japanese archery. It is the same awareness, now clad in words, not in arrows ... hahaha


a last drop
from the bent leaf ...
summer rain is over



GABI responding to some discussions about the moment.



New Year's morning -
I wipe some dirt
from my glasses

January 2011



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Tempted to go on by so many reactions ...

aaa, the "haiku no shunkan 俳句の瞬間、あああの瞬間" as it would be in Japanese, has never come to my attention yet !

It seems the term was coined by the haiku translators, like Kenneth Yasuda and R.H. Blyth.
source : simplyhaiku.theartofhaiku.com


The other day a group of rakugo tellers would make senryu starting with

aa, arara

to express surprize at something


a-a arara
another forum
to spent my time


XYZ-Forum

No, I did not write WASTE ... hahaha

.....


My Japanese haiku sensei would say:

genba ni tatte ... write from the place where you are ...
from reality and experience, as opposed to composing solely from your desk.

That is maybe misinterpreded as
show, don't tell
in the ELH world.
I still have not found a Japanese equivalent for this kind of advise.


Childhood memory ...

I guess when something was so unforgettable that you still remember now, it must have been quite a strong impresison at its real time ... therefore, somehow, you are still back there in the moment ... sort of a time slip moment ... dont know how to put that into English.

I think there is a difference between something you really experienced (either now or in the past)
and something you just make up, as you would write a novel or fiction.

I love to read biographies of famous people, but novels about nonexistant personalities are usually kind of boring ...

For me, the real quality in haiku, maybe shasei is the better word for that, brings it to live and makes it so unique.


Should we use imagination when composing a haiku?

For me, Japanese haiku is a snapshot of a moment of real life, presented without judgement or imagined embellishing whatnots ... indeed, that is the most important part of haiku training for me. This is where I find haiku so much different from Western poetry. It teaches me to be attentive, without being judgemental, philosophical or hunting for special effects.
Maybe we should go back and examine the motives of WHY we write haiku
and not any other kind of short-form poetry.

More about this in my LINK about shasei, sketching from real life.

My Haiku Training, My Haiku Doo  俳 句 道


There are of course other attempts when composing haiku,
shasei is not the only one.


Poetry is
the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings:
it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."

William Wordsworth


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Matsuo Basho to his student Hattori Doho :

If you get a flash of insight into an object,
record it before it fades away in your mind.


- Reference - Blyth on Basho


. Hattori Dohoo 服部土芳 .



Matsuo Basho also has two haiku by himself, where he uses the expression
. - shibaraku wa しばらくは for a while - .   


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a moment of experience

In Japanese, we sometimes call it TAIKEN 体験, experience with your whole body ... children are great at this!

Of course I KNOW that the charcoals are hot, but only when I touch them ... hopefully by accident ... can I experience this physically.
and then write my haiku about it ...

lunchtime -
a hot potato
on my plate


My husband does the cooking and I burn my fingers on the hot potatoes ... grin grin ... got this hot one before putting it into my mouth.

a "moment of real experience" is wonderful and alive and right here and now.
But stretching this to a moment of "temporary enlightenment" and then "Zen enlightenment" ... is something quite different.




Take your time to check this discussion

Susumu Takiguchi : Aha, Just A Moment, Please 



Not 'Here and Now' but
'Everywhere and Everywhen'

Haiku Time versus Newtonian Time
WHR Susumu Takiguchi


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Beyond the Haiku Moment
Haruo Shirane


If Basho and Buson were to look at North American haiku today, they would see the
horizontal axis, the focus on the present, on the contemporary world, but they would probably feel that the
vertical axis, the movement across time, was largely missing.

There is no problem with the English language haiku handbooks that stress personal experience. They should. This is a good way to practice, and it is an effective and simple way of getting many people involved in haiku.

I believe, as Basho did, that direct experience and direct observation is absolutely critical; it is the base from which we must work and which allows us to mature into interesting poets. However, as the examples of Basho and Buson suggest, it should not dictate either the direction or value of haiku. It is the beginning, not the end. Those haiku that are fictional or imaginary are just as valid as those that are based on personal experience. I would in fact urge the composition of what might be called historical haiku or science fiction haiku.


As I have shown in my book Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho, Basho believed that the poet had to work along both axes. To work only in the present would result in poetry that was fleeting. To work just in the past, on the other hand, would be to fall out of touch with the fundamental nature of haikai, which was rooted in the everyday world. Haikai was, by definition, anti- traditional, anti-classical, anti-establishment, but that did not mean that it rejected the past. Rather, it depended upon the past and on earlier texts and associations for its richness.


Read more HERE
Beyond the Haiku Moment:
Basho, Buson and Modern Haiku myths

Haruo Shirane



More Reference


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quote
A Moment in the Sun: When Is a Haiku?
The “now” of haiku isn’t quite as simple as many haiku poets think. Is it the original moment of experience? Is it the moment of inspiration when you are moved to write about an experience, regardless of when that experience happened? Is it the “moment” that is captured within the poem, that may or may not have actually happened, but that readers believe happened, or could have? Or is it the moment when the reader “gets” the same experience upon reading the poem, upon realizing that he or she has had the same experience? It’s easy to say “all of the above.”
And perhaps that’s the fullest answer, but not every haiku poet believes that each of these possible “moments” has equal value. Some believe that haiku must be about direct personal experience, and that you must not alter any of the facts.

Michael Dylan Welch
source : graceguts/essays


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inazuma ya kinoo wa higashi kyoo wa nishi

Enomoto Kikaku  


flashes of lightning -
yesterday in the east
today in the west


Tr. Gabi Greve

We might wonder if this is one moment or longer ...
I remember a terrible summer in our valley, with one thunderstorm chasing the other for about two weeks. Sometimes three separate thundres would show up in one evening and keep us awake and shaking, since the thunder really reverberates in the valley, in the house and in your own body after a while ...

I would have written a haiku like this one too, after two weeks of constant fear and shaking, and still within the limits of this one moment when the thunder would come back again ... aaaa, here we go ...


flashes of lightning -
yesterday to the right
today to the left



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Quote from the SHIKI archives

What is for YOU the 'aha moment' ?

Perhaps it's the moment when one recognizes what meets the eye as being more than what meets the eye. For me that can happen in the immediate moment, but also after the fact, upon reflection. It's also the awareness of a single moment in which one or more elements are encompassed, and which may be in striking (and sometimes ironic) contrast with one another.
- - -


Is it for you an important, an indispensable part of the haiku ?

Yes; without the 'aha' moment, it is just an interesting three-line poem.
The degree of the 'aha'-ness (!) might vary, but there is always something that makes you aware of more than just the description of the moment at hand. Here are two examples by Issa translated by Robert Hass. The first is more descriptive and pastoral, to my mind, than the second. which is more immediately striking; yet it makes me think on it longer:

snip snip

Can haiku be a neutral description of the world ?

Yes, it can be, but it is usually much more, because although a haiku poem is often a description of something (for instance) in nature, or of a single event, we bring our mind and our ability to make connections and recognize allusions and parallels elsewhere in our experience to our reading of the poem. And so the depth of it's 'description' increases. But I think Marjorie Buettner has put it much better than I.... :-)

susan bond
© Read more in the SHIKI archives




railroad crossing
their goodnight kiss
one hundred boxcars long


Edward

Free Format Theme: Time
Shiki Monthly Kukai April 2010



. . . . . More LINKS about this subject !


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The Haiku Spirit

another topic often quoted in English language haiku theory.

俳句スピリツ ???

I wonder what this would be in Japanese?

quote
俳句随想―海外の俳人と共に俳句を考える 
烏山九齊

「芭蕉の言葉」

一、俳諧の誠(俳諧という言葉は俳句と置き換えてお考え下さい)
見るにあり、聞くにあり、作者感ずるや句となる所は、即ち俳諧の誠なり。
解説」自分が見聞きして、感動したことがそのまま句となるのが、俳諧の誠なのである。
俳諧の誠とは、俳諧の精神 ・価値 というほどの意味で、今の言葉で言えば、詩性とでも言うのでしょう。対象に直面したときのその場の生きた感覚に重きを置き、それが作品となるところに俳句の価値があるというのです。

1. Haikai no makoto (sincerity of haiku)

A haiku poet needs to feel inspiration from the varied emotions and impressions inspired by nature via looking and listening. It is the haiku true mind. Without sincerity, there is no haiku spirit. And without the spirit, a haiku is not a haiku.

俳諧の精神 ・価値 haikai no seishin to kachi

bilingual source : 烏山九齊



The Fishing Cat Press
Thanks to webmaster Gilles Fabre, the "Haiku Spirit" begun by Jim Norton and Sean O'Connor lives in a new form.
Haiku Spirit
in English and French ... www.haikuspirit.org/



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MacDonalds
MacZen
MacHaiku


further thoughts

Imagine a Catholic mass celebrated with green tea and rice crackers.
Or
a Zendoo with chairs and everybody drinking coffee.

It is the essence, not the form, you might say.
But sometimes I wonder, if the simpler item, the form, does not even fit, how can the essence be the same?
If you do not make the effort and communicate in Japanese, live in Japan, how do you really expect to UNDERSTAND the essence of Japanese Zen or Japanese Haiku ?

. My Musings about cross-cultural understanding .


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ZEN and HAIKU ... and the moments inbetween


MORE
about writing haiku ...
in the moment


Sketching from Nature , SHASEI 写生



Rakugo ... comic storytelling performances 落語


. . . . . BACK TO
My Haiku Theory Archives

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some comments from friends

Some tend to say that the moment is less of an "aha" than "ah."
I also think there is some confusion as to whether the moment is in the haiku or prior to it. The former view leads, I think, to greater emphasis on rules, the latter to greater formal flexibility.

.....

"show don't tell" is what they tell me often when workshopping. "show the moment".

Dear friend
this is a piece of advise I have not yet heared from my Japanese sensei. I guess it is a misunderstanding of the shasei concept of sketching from nature.
But there are many ways to write haiku, shasei is just one tool to use.
Gabi


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haiku moments -
in the temple garden
stones asleep


Shikoku, Summer 2005



[ . BACK to DARUMA MUSEUM TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

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6/04/2007

Beetles

  
  



blackberry flowers -
the biggest beetle
chases its rivals









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More bees and butterflies are here
My Summer Flowers





Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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6/02/2007

Picnic

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The days are getting warmer.

We have started cooking outside in the garden, enjoying the splendid view of the green mountains while food is simmering.
The big hawk and his wife are circling slowly over our valley.


summer picknick -
a bird dropping right into
the cooking pot



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Read my Haiku Archives 2007


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WKD - Millipede Mukade

[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]
. mukade 蜈蚣 と伝説 Legends about the centipede .
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signs of summer -
a centipede
in my bathtub
2007
and 2020, May 02

.


a centipede
takes its morning walk -
aah, my kitchen table
2009




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The messenger (retainer) of the deity
Bishamonten was thought of as a centipede!

Bishamon and the Centipede
Daruma Museum


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millipede, centipede
kigo for all summer


mukade 蜈蚣 むかで
"one hundred legs" mukade, hyakusoku 百足虫(むかで)

red centipede, aka mukade 赤蜈蚣(あかむかで)
red-headed centipede, akazu mukade赤頭蜈蚣(あかずむかで)
blue-green headed centipede, aozu mukade 青頭蜈蚣(あおずむかで)
centipede with a bird-head, tobizu mukade 鳶頭蜈蚣(とびずむかで)
"one hundred legs" mukade 百足虫(むかで)




yasude 馬陸 (やすで) millipede
yasude 馬蚰(やすで)
. . . CLICK here for Photos !
aka yasude 赤馬陸(あかやすで)red millipede
shiro yasude 白馬陸(しろやすで)white millipede
tobi yasude 鳶馬陸(とびやすで)
tama yasude 球馬陸(たまやすで)round millipede
enzamushi 円座虫(えんざむし)
kusamushi 臭虫(くさむし)"stinking insect"
osamushi 筬虫(おさむし)
amabiko 雨彦(あまびこ)
zenimushi 銭虫(ぜにむし)

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.. .. ninehundred-nine times tock
.. .. one time tack -
.. .. centipede with a wooden leg


Gabi Greve, 2005


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Print by Tsukioka (Taiso) Yoshitoshi (1839-1892)

Fujiwara no Hidesato - Tawara Tota Emaki
俵藤太絵巻
is shooting the centipede at the Dragon King’s Palace
近江国三上山の百足退治 Omi, Mount Mikawa


- quote
Fujiwara no Hidesato (赤堀 藤原秀郷)
was a kuge (court bureaucrat) of tenth century Heian Japan. He is famous for his military exploits and courage, and is regarded as the common ancestor of the Ōshū branch of the Fujiwara clan, the Yūki, Oyama, and Shimokōbe families.

Hidesato served under Emperor Suzaku, and fought alongside Taira no Sadamori in 940 in suppressing the revolt of Taira no Masakado. His prayer for victory before this battle is commemorated in the Kachiya Festival. Hidesato was then appointed Chinjufu-shogun (Defender of the North) and Governor of Shimotsuke Province.

Hidesato, also called Tawara no Tota, is a popular figure in the Japanese legend, such as
"Tawara no Tota Conquering the Giant Centipede on Mount Mikami"
Mukadeyama むかで山 / 百足山 "Mount Centipede".
Since he drove away the mukade with his arrow, there are now no people in the village who can see clearly with both eyes.
© More in the WIKIPEDIA !


Mikami Jinja 御神神社 Mikami shrine at the foot of the mountain 三上山.



. Tawara Toota Hidesato 俵藤太秀郷 Tawara Tota .
Tawara Tōda, "Lord Bag of Rice"
Tawara Tota Emaki 俵藤太絵巻 scroll


. mukade 蜈蚣 と伝説 Legends about the centipede .


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Fukushima 福島県 Tabitomura 田人村

Once Sarumaru Daiyu was hunting a white deer and came down all the way to Nikko. The Huge Mukade 大ムカデ from Nikko eats the children of the white deer, this deer mother had called the famous arrow shooter Sarumaru to help.
He put some spittle on his arrow and shot the mukade dead.
Even now if people want to kill a mudake, they use spittle.


. Sarumaru Daiyu 猿丸大夫 waka poet .


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quoting from Zhunagzi - Chuang Tzu

quote
The unipede K'uei (Kui) envies the millipede, the millipede envies the snake, the snake envies the wind, the wind envies the eye, and the eye envies the mind.

The K'uei said to the millipede,
"I have this one leg that I hop along on, though I make little progress. Now how in the world do you manage to work all those ten thousand legs of yours?"

The millipede said,
"You don't understand. Haven't you ever watched a man spit? He just gives a hawk and out it comes, some drops as big as pearls, some as fine as mist, raining down in a jumble of countless particles. Now all I do is put in motion the heavenly mechanism in me - I'm not aware of how the thing works."

The millipede said to the snake,
"I have all these legs that I move along on, but I can't seem to keep up with you who have no legs. How is that?"

source : ramblingtaoist.blogspot.jp


. Chinese background of Japanese kigo .




KUI
Classic texts use this name for the legendary musician Kui who invented music and dancing; for the one-legged mountain demon or rain-god Kui variously said to resemble a Chinese dragon, a drum, or a monkey with a human face; and for the Kuiniu wild yak or buffalo.
© More in the WIKIPEDIA !


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. ANIMALS in SUMMER - - - SAIJIKI


. Legends about animals 動物と伝説 - centipede .

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