Raindrop

one of many tears
trickling down the window pane
mirror of heartache

Kim M. Russell, 2017

My response to Carpe Diem Namasté the Spiritual Way #2 pilgrimage

For this special feature, Chèvrefeuille has given us three days to respond, instead of five as the regular prompts. He has explained that Namasté, the spiritual way, is a new feature in which we are exploring the spiritual side of haiku and tanka. One of the classical rules of haiku is that there has to be a deeper meaning, mostly based on Zen Buddhism, but it can also be a Hindu meaning, a Christian or Muslim meaning, because haiku has no boundaries towards religions and spiritual beliefs.

This episode of Namasté is entitled pilgrimage because we are going on an inner pilgrimage. We are on our way to our Inner Self, as the inside of a shell. We encounter a scene, a short moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water and that brings us to the final frontier – the creation of haiku or tanka. Chèvrefeuille quotes Fredrick Franck, a Dutch philosopher, writer, painter known as The Renaissance Man:

[…] “That I speak here of art as a Way, gives away that I see the way of the artist as a kind of pilgrimage. When you go on a pilgrimage, you set out from where you happen to be and start walking toward a place of great sanctity in the hope of returning from it renewed, enriched and sanctified. However far you may walk, every pilgrimage is a safari into your own dark interior, an inner journey.” […]

The challenge for this week’s episode of “Namasté” is to look around us with the eyes of Zen and try to catch the beauty of that moment. 

in the puddle
the fragile beauty of clouds
a broken rose

© Chèvrefeuille