Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (4) colorful rays

Dear friends,

Yesterday I started the 5th Theme Week at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, my daily haiku meme, in this Theme Week we will dive into the mysteries of the Ascended Masters and Ascension. In today's episode I offered a haiku, which I love to share here (in a slightly different form) also as my 4th submission for the Summer Retreat.

in the low sunlight
crystal clear water breaks
colorful rays

© Chèvrefeuille

See you tomorrow. Feel free to participate in the Summer Retreat at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

Namaste,

Chèvrefeuille

Carpe Diem Summer Retreat 2016 (3) ripe cherries

Dear friends,

Here is my thrid haiku for the Carpe Diem Summer Retreat, a nice one I would say.

ultimate love
flowers and bumblebees
ripe cherries

© Chèvrefeuille

The circle of life partially caught in this haiku, a symbiosis between flowers and insects ... and the benefits for humans. Really one with nature.

Summer Retreat (2) a pebble

Dear friends,

The Summer Retreat of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai has started. The Summer Retreat is an all new feature at my daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai ... and you are invited to participate in it. This first Summer Retreat is themed "One With Nature" and you have to write a haiku (or tanka) every day inspired on your adventures in nature. The Summer Retreat runs to August 15th 10.00 PM (CET). Yesterday I started myself too ... so here is my haiku "One With Nature" - themed for today:

hidden
a pebble
in mud

© Chèvrefeuille

A sweet little surprise ... a treasure found, a white pebble. This haiku is very minimalistic it's created in the way of Santoka Taneda, a classic free-styler haiku poet.

Carpe Diem's Summer Retreat 2016 "One With Nature"

Good day dear friends and followers,

Maybe you know that I am the host of the daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai or else you know it now. At Carpe Diem Haiku Kai I have started the first Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Summer Retreat. This Summer Retreat will take 30 days and the goal is to write a haiku (or tanka) a day, so at the end of the Summer Retreat I will have created 30 new haiku (or tanka).
For this first edition of the Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Summer Retreat the theme is "One With Nature". As you maybe know haiku is known as the peotry of nature, so a lot of the haiku poets are living close to nature and respect the beauty of our Earth's nature.

This Summer Retreat will be awesome I think. So let's go ...

Here is my first haiku for the "Summer Retreat":

deep silence -
the sound of a fountain
and the song of birds

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... it has started ...

I am excited and I hope to read a lot of beautiful haiku or tanka themed "One With Nature".

Tuscany

Dear friends and followers,

As you maybe know I am the host and owner of the daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. This month we are on a "ginko" (a journey) straight through the countries which are part of the European Union.

Today we visit Italy and specifically Tuscany. Tuscany is a wonderful part of Italy with its capital Florence. Tuscany has a lot of beautiful places, but especially the sunflower fields are in my opinion the most wonderful of Tuscany.

one yellow sea
as far as I can see
sunflowers

on the piazza
drinking wine with my love
sunflower field in front

© Chèvrefeuille

Not as strong as I had hoped, but these two haiku give in my opinion a nice feeling of Tuscany. I hope you did like this post.

Have a wonderful Sunday.

The sound of the sea

Dear friends and followers,

It has been a while before I could find time to publish here again on my personal weblog. As you maybe know I am a busy guy and I enjoy that very much. Next to this personal weblog I have a daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai ... a weblog that takes really a lot of my time.

Recently I had a Theme Week about the "Latifa Prayer", maybe you know that wonderful and powerful Sufism prayer, maybe not ...

I wrote several haiku (and a tanka) during this Theme Week which I love to share here too:

lotus flowers
rising from the depths of the pond
everlasting love
like a river flows onwards
uncertain of its goal

© Chèvrefeuille

Love is about your deepest desires, let your heart speak ... and not your mind.

in deep prayer
eyes closed in devotion -
Lotus starts to bloom

dancing dervishes
reflecting movements
Lotuses dance too

© Chèvrefeuille

And in our last Carpe Diem Kukai "New Life" I also submitted a few haiku:

dark wintertime
searching for new life
snowdrops bloom

beneath the shroud
a pharaoh travels to the stars
everlasting life

she is lovely
the first full moon of Summer
the sound of the sea

© Chèvrefeuille

Well I hope you did like this post. Have great weekend.
 

New E-books published on Carpe Diem Haiku Kai

Dear friends and followers,

Recently I created three (3) e-books which are published and free for download on my daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai (CDHK). The e-books are all anthologies of the Theme Weeks I have had on CDHK.
I also published the first real edition of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai's own e-zine Souchou at CDHK.

It's a joy to read the e-books and it gives you a great feeling as a haiku poet (and publisher) to hear all the positive responses.

Feel free to visit the Carpe Diem Library too.

Namaste,

Chèvrefeuille (penname of Kristjaan Panneman)

MindLoveMisery's Menagerie Photo-challenge 98 "mate"

“Mate” by Anne Worner CC BY-SA 2.0

Dear friends and followers,

It's really a joy to visit other weblogs. One of the weblogs which I am frequently visiting is MindLoveMisery's Menagerie, a weblog where I am a co-host too, has several challenges. One of them is the photo challenge and that's the item where this post is about.

The above photo by Anne Worner is the source for the inspiration. What do I see? I see a public chessgame somewhere on a square. This woman and her boyfriend (?) are playing a game of chess. As I look at the title of this photo "mate", than it can mean that the game is over, but it can also mean that this woman and the man have just met eachother, or he is her mate or vice versa ... it's a nice scene and it inspired me to write the following haiku:

a game of chess
while a skylark sings it's song -
I lost the game

© Chèvrefeuille

A nice one I think, several of you will know this haiku I think, because I used it earlier at my daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.
See you next time.

Chèvrefeuille

Time is on my side

Dear friends and followers,

Finally I have found a little bit of time to publish here at my personal website. As you maybe know I am a very busy guy, because next to my job as an oncoloy nurse I am host and owner of the daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai (CDHK). Last year (or was it in 2014?) I published an "essay" based on a quote from Khalil Gibran which I love to share here with you all.



Credits: Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

Khalil Gibran, a modern times (end 19th and begin 20th century, must be modern heh) philosopher has written really awesome books. His thoughts were very much different as the ideas of the government in his country Lebanon and so he had to fled to the United States were he became a great man and author in the same league as Shakespeare. It's awesome to read his thoughts and ideas ... I can emphatize with him, because he has in a way the same thoughts and ideas as I have, but ... I cannot really give the right words to it ...

Today I have another wonderful saying of him to share here at my personal weblog ...

[...] "We measure time according to the movement of countless suns; and they measure time by little machines in their little pockets. Now tell me, how could we ever meet at the same place at the same time?" [...] 

Time Is Chaos

"Time is on our side", we say, but that isn't true, because, as I look at myself, I don't have enough time. Several times I had to post a short message on Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, because of a delayed post by lack of time. And then we say "Time is on our side". Bull....

What is time? It's the movement of our wonderful planet Earth around the sun. A day has 24 hours, must be enough I thought, but why do I have a shortness of time than? I think I know it ... I just do like to much activities. All my activities are sucking my time. I don't have enough time! I need more time! Why has a day just 24 hours? Because that's the time Earth needs to complete his journey around the sun. Why not 48 hours?

Hm ... that's an issue! As a day would last for 48 hours our lives would be slower, we would be younger. Picture this (sorry I can't help it I love that sentence "picture this", it's from The Golden Girls TV-series, Sophia uses it to tell her stories. I like that TV-show) a day lasts 48 hours. (Do you have that picture?) I am now 52 yrs, as a day would lasts 48 hours, I would be 26 yrs! Awesome! I would be still a young guy and would have time enough.
Would that be true? Of course not as the days lasts 48 hours (a day) than I would still have a shortness of time, because I still like what I do. I would have more time for my patients. I would have more time to compose haiku and share them at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai or here on my personal weblog. I would have a lot of time, but more time brings me more energy, more ideas .... and for sure I would have to little time. What, in Gods name, is my problem!?
 

 
I think I have an idea to become rid of my problem ... I just throw my watch away and let those
countless suns make my day. I have to adapt to nature's time, I don't need to stay awake until 2 o'clock in the night. I just have to go to my bed as the evening falls and get out of bed as the morning rises. Wouldn't that be awesome? Just going with nature and the way of the sun ... That's the time of a haiku-poet. As I stated in another episode at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai haiku-poets are the poets of nature, they are the keepers of nature ... so I have just to listen again to my own words and the words of our classical haiku-poets. We just have have to listen to our ancestors ... Did they have a shortness of time? I don't think so.

A lack of time is an "illness" of modern times ... I am a guy who lives in the modern time, but does that mean that I have to confirm to the fastness and lack of time? I don't think so.
From this moment on ... no time problems anymore. I just go with the flow, just go with the movement of countless suns and with the tides.

changing tides
my restlessness has gone
time is at my side

© Chèvrefeuille

Khalil Gibran has said it in the right way ... we don't need those little machines in our little pockets or around our wrist.

Well ... I hope you did like this post.

Namaste

BEST WISHES

Dear friends and followers,

I hope 2016 will bring you all good fortune, good health, much love and especially a lot of inspiration. I hope to post more often here this year if time is at my side. As you all know I have a daily haiku meme Carpe Diem Haiku Kai and that takes a lot of my time.
Recently I launched "Souchou" an e-zine about haiku, tanka and all other Japanese poetry forms. The first "try-out" issue is NOW ONLINE and you can download it for free at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

Wish you all a great weekend,

Namaste,

Chèvrefeuille