single rose
on the pavement-
crossroads
May15
Tag Archives: sun
May14
New moon
the moon
waxes and wanes-
samsara
May13
Happy Mothers Day
every breath
is a gift-
spring morning
May13
Buddha smiles
children plant
flowers in temple garden-
Buddha smiles
Today the dharma school children planted in the garden. It was a joy to watch them interact with the Earth.
May12
sleepless night
artillery fire
disturbs my slumber-
monsoon season
May11
excruciatingly real
storms rips the
tree out by its roots.
wave after wave
Today’s posting is quite a bit late but as I am still working on my 365 haiku a day challenge I pushed to get this one in. After a few weeks of relative pain free days I was hit with serious waves last night. If you have ever seen the movie “Predator” and the scene where the alien is ripping the spine out of its target then you know what I felt like last night! But, since all things are impermanent I knew that it would pass. Meditating on the pain, stretching and rest helped it pass. This was the first time I was able to meditate and focus on such levels of pain. The experience was interesting to say the least. At first the pain was overwhelming but slowly I was able to look at it and soon I the pain, while still there, seemed to be outside of me and not as intense. The focus this took was exhausting so I took some medication and a nap. I am happy to say that the pain today reminded me of the reality of impermanence and I am grateful for this lesson.
Apr29
Metamorphosis
shoes piled
by the temple door-
discarded cocoons
Apr28
Chicago Haiku Fest
Today I had the wonderful opportunity to hear some great haiku read. The Haiku Society of America held a festival in celebration of National Poetry Month. The organizer Charlotte Digregorio did a fantastic job on organizing the event and the Skokie Library graciously allowed use of one of their conference rooms.
The event kicked off with Charlotte giving a short lecture on haiku and a discussion on 10 haiku that members of the Haiku Society had written. Next we had members of the Midwest chapter do a live reading of some of their work that had been published in the past year. The names of those who read is as follows: Amelia Cotter, Lidia Rozmus, Mac Greene, John Han, Tom Chockley, Alicia Hilton, Joanne Crofton, Tomoko Hata, Heather Jagman, and Dan Schwerin.
Finally we ended with a haiku contest where nonmembers got to compete for prizes.
I truly enjoyed myself and look forward to more events in the future. The gallery below is from the event.
Apr27
Visual noise
screaming and shouting
they intrude upon my serenity-
billboards
Apr26
Toy soldier
sitting quietly at
the barred window-
discarded soldier
