Buoyant blog of septuagenarian Kanadian poet and haikuist Chris Faiers/cricket. People's Poetry in the tradition of Milton Acorn, haiku/haibun, progressive politikal rants, engaged Buddhism and meditation, revitalizing of Callaghan's Rapids Conservation Area, memories of ZenRiver Gardens and annual Purdy Country LitFests (PurdyFests), events literary and politikal, and pics, amid swirling currents of earth magick and shamanism. Read in 119 countries last week - 5,387 readers last month.
Join us for the launch of “A National Awakening” on Tues. June 25 from 6 to 8 p.m.
At the Great Canadian Theatre Company, 1233 Wellington Street W. Ottawa.
“Robin Mathews was a man for his times, rabble-rouser, shit disturber, provocateur, patriot, silver-tongued orator, and a fearless in-your-face public intellectual butting heads with Canada’s elites,” writes Daniel Drache, a contributor to this collection of original essays, discussing Mathews’ remarkable influence on the awakening of a distinctly Canadian identity.
For more than two decades, Mathews was a force to be reckoned withas he criss-crossed the country, often at his own expense, talking to students, professors, politicians, and artists about the need to establish and support a unique Canadian identity and politics and, what he termed, “promoting cultural literacy.” His personal charisma coupled with his boundless energy is the narrative thread of this collection: an activist and public intellectual with the compelling idea to establish a public movement to transform Canada into a culturally literate and economically sovereign nation.
Duncan Cameron, Pat Smart, Daniel Drache, Bill Law, Susan Crean, Misao Dean, Alvin Finkel, Errol Sharpe, Sinclair Robinson and Donald Smith.
Sabrina Mathews will be speaking and members of the Mathews family will be in attendance.
JOYCE WAYNE, the editor of this collection, studied with Robin Mathews in the English Department at Carleton University during the 1970s. She went on to become the editor at Quill & Quire, Editorial Director of non-fiction at McClelland & Stewart Publishers and a professor of journalism at Sheridan College. Her novels, The Cook’s Temptation and Last Night of the World were published by Mosaic Press. Recently, she has written a series of essays published in The Literary Review of Canada including “All the Kremlin’s Men,” which was chosen for Best Canadian Essays 2021
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the wind touches me--I’m inside of things --Giuliana Ravaglia (Bologna, Italy)
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taking a breath from the outside in the ex-premier --John Hawkhead (Bradford-on-Avon, U.K.)
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sudden gust the fence gate swings open and closed --John Zheng (Itta Bena, Mississippi)
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Blizzard-- mandarins on a colorful platter --Marek Printer (Kielce, Poland)
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Even a strong wind making a detour to winter roses --Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)
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heritage city pastel doodles on the wall --Aparna Pathak (Gurugram, India)
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after a sudden storm-- wisps of steam from my teacup --Malcolm MacClancy (Greenore, Ireland)
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old computer and I losing functions --Chris Faiers (Marmora, Ontario)
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falling bombs on Gaza the weakness of the winds coming from afar --Marie Derley (Wallonia, Belgium)
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last breath-- dad silently let go of my hand --Mona Bedi (Delhi, India)
------------------------------ FROM THE NOTEBOOK ------------------------------
flag tree the king finds himself alone or nearly --Jerome Berglund (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
The haikuist alluded to Shakespeare’s “King Lear” when he saw a lopsided tree with branches blowing like a flag in strong winds. The playwright suggested the king’s daughter should not be judged based on words, but by her actions. Danijela Grbelja’s haiku questions whether professing one’s love speaks louder than a thunderclap in Sibenik, Croatia.
dragon’s heart who is still afraid of thunder?
Satoru Kanematsu was lured by a row of colorful advertising poles waving outside a shopping mall in Nagoya.
First spring gale-- opening sale banners fluttering
Robin Rich caught sight of a red dragon billowing on the green and red striped flag of Wales. Pamela A. Babusci brightened her home in Rochester, New York, with a wax taper and strung colorful flags outside in hopes that her mantras for peace would be blown by the winds.
the dragon heads into the wind Cymru am byth
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windy stars across prayer flags i light a candle
Mike Fainzilber in Rehovot, Israel, was astonished to find that he might have been befriended by a Korean rapper, singer and dancer in the 2017 film, “The King,” who goes by the name of a guardian deity of the sea in Japanese mythology.
whispering waves three lines on a page Ryujin is my only reader
When Los Angeles, California, was deluged by a huge atmospheric river, Stephen J. DeGuire read biblical verses 6:13-22 in Genesis.
first spring storm no one around who owns an ark
Kimberly A. Horning beachcombed in St. Augustine, Florida.
turning over a conch shell the anole’s tail disappears
Barbara Anna Gaiardoni couldn’t fathom why she was feeling sad in Verona, Italy. Mel Goldberg found an amenable psychotherapist in Ajijic, Mexico.
Verona Arena during the winter a bit of melancholy
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I tell my troubles to my dragon she listens
Today marks the Ides of March, when Brutus and his co-conspirators killed Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 B.C. Maurice was sure of what the sea was warning. Horst Ludwig shared a biblical warning from the desert.
rumble of the wind foam on the crests of the waves tell me about you
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Old, contemplating that hadst thou sprung in deserts, where no men abide
Jessica Allyson took her skates off after receiving a storm warning at the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, Canada. Afterwards, she took home a flat pastry topped with lemon sugar, noting bittersweetly that the world’s longest skating rink had “only been able to be open for skating for a couple of days this year, although that’s more than we’ve had the last two years!”
alert on phone skateway closed by freezing rain
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non-skaters braving the canal for beavertails
Kanematsu shivered at the news of storm winds blowing from Des Moines, Iowa. Lori Kiefer reported on inclement weather in London, England.
Kicking off Trump’s roaring campaign first spring gale
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spring morning stormy with a chance of crows
Aldo Schwartz found respite at an ancient Buddhist temple located in Asakusa, Tokyo.
senso-ji in a storm of new faces my quiet pleasure
Babusci wrote this haiku to reveal “the kind of abuse that doesn’t leave external scars, just internal ones.” Further explaining “now, she is free and regained her strength and power that she forgot she had.”
leaving her abusive boyfriend regaining lost power
Luciana Moretto traveled to see frescoes at a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Romania.
the damned and the devils in hell fire ... painted monasteries of Bucovina
Archie Carlos sent a warning from St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Shakhawat Tipu was not sure whom to believe in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
new epoch layer after layer of plastic
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A sigh-- Among thousands of fictions --unspoken
T.D. Ginting stood mouth agape as he took in the surroundings of Medan, Indonesia.
field fence the cows g(r)aze...
Daniel Birnbaum reached the vertex of two hyperbola in La Bouilladisse, France.
climbing to the top the sky and the void meet
Having realized the inevitability of death at the age of 90, Katsushika Hokusai perfected the essence of ukiyo-e art when every single detail came to life in his masterstroke 1849 scroll “The Dragon of Smoke Escaping from Mount Fuji.” Kanematsu’s haiku suggests that in death, the printmaker became the dragon.
Hokusai’s last Mount Fuji art dragon cheers
Monica Kakkar in India and Slawa Sibiga in Poland, respectively, have been brushing up their ink-painting skills.
treasure of techniques… how Year of the Wood Dragon swirls in sumi-e
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black on white on the first sumi-e dragon’s mark
In Beesenstedt, Germany, Ramona Linke marked her forehead with ashes in the shape of a cross on the first day of Lent, a holy day of fasting and repentance.
Ash Wednesday a flock of cranes crosses the hamlet
Knowing the value of religious art pieces, Horst Ludwig appreciated a reprint of Albrecht Durer’s original (1498) woodcut print.
A flea market print St. George Killing the Dragon sure not a bad grab
While pulling on a pair of brand-name pantyhose stockings, Susan Burch added a parenthetical phrase to this line: hatching dragon (l)eggs
Afterwards, the haikuist simmered down in Hagerstown, Maryland.
dragon meditation-- doing it until I stop exhaling fire
A sore throat ravaged Alexander Groth with burning pain in Neuenkirchen, Germany.
becoming a dragon just for two weeks --tonsillitis
Kanchan Chatterjee admired a chameleon in Jamshedpur, India.
lingering day-- on the rooftop, the dragon keeps changing colors
When David Brydges put the cat out on his deck in Cobalt, Ontario, they simultaneously looked at the full moon.
winter night fuller eyes brighten
Micheline Comtois-Cecyre looks forward to springtime in Boucherville, Quebec.
it’s snowing here too happily, the Japanese cherry blossom is for spring
Emil Karla loves Paris in the springtime.
new love-- sun and rain mingling and a lot of wind
Nuri Rosegg fears bruising her pure-white petaled tree in Oslo, Norway.
magnolia buds tiptoe around stormy spring
Alan Maley took a cue from nature in Canterbury, U.K.
ripples on the lake-- the wind ruffling the water: I ruffle your hair…
Rosemarie Schuldes sang nursery rhymes while looking for four-leaf clovers in Mattsee, Austria. In Treviso, Italy, Luciana Moretto likely sang: “ladybug, ladybug fly away home.”
lucky pig and clover war is over!
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out of thin air a ladybird on my hand... assured windfall
Birnbaum posed this rhetorical question.
a bird passes me by is there always a hurry in the sky
The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Mar. 29. Readers are invited to send haiku about a starting new job on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or e-mail to (mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp).
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David McMurray
David McMurray has been writing the Asahi Haikuist Network column since April 1995, first for the Asahi Evening News. He is on the editorial board of the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, columnist for the Haiku International Association, and is editor of Teaching Assistance, a column in The Language Teacher of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).
McMurray is professor of intercultural studies at The International University of Kagoshima where he lectures on international haiku. At the Graduate School he supervises students who research haiku. He is a correspondent school teacher of Haiku in English for the Asahi Culture Center in Tokyo.
McMurray judges haiku contests organized by The International University of Kagoshima, Ito En Oi Ocha, Asahi Culture Center, Matsuyama City, Polish Haiku Association, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seinan Jo Gakuin University, and Only One Tree.
McMurray’s award-winning books include: “Teaching and Learning Haiku in English” (2022); “Only One Tree Haiku, Music & Metaphor” (2015); “Canada Project Collected Essays & Poems” Vols. 1-8 (2013); and “Haiku in English as a Japanese Language” (2003).
Attention astrologers; please relocate this new moon as per your coordinates.
We can carry in our hearts and minds and spirit the new opportunities presented by every new Moon cycle. As the Buddhists say, the world changes 10,000 times every time we blink.
A very long time ago my younger brother asked me if I remembered what I said seven years previously; I told him plainly that I didn’t even remember what I had for breakfast. A friend confronted me recently about what I had said in politics two years previously. I don’t know, and I didn’t know. The world as it presents itself to us exists in the eternal here and now. We never step twice in the same river.
Thus every new Moon gives us the opportunity to begin again. This new Moon in Taurus presents to us the charms of beauty and sociability of Venus. To enjoy living especially in the five senses. For the next 14 to 28 days meditate on what the five senses present. I prefer to imagine that these sensual emanations are the gift, the gift of taking us away from the insanity of the mind.
Mars was the premier planet of April’s eclipse in 2024. The North node was in Aries ruled by Mars, conjoined by the sun and the moon in Aries. As the sky above symbolized weapons of war, chaos, and bloodshed, our earth below we saw an amplification of Violence in Gaza, setbacks for Ukraine in it’s war with Russia as well as Russia’s escalation of the conflict, record-breaking floods throughout the Middle East from Qatar, the UAE, to Saudi Arabia, and other mind-bending events leading up to the eclipse from the Baltimore bridge collapse to earthquakes near Northern East Coast cities.
This new Moon in Taurus exchanges Mars in April for Venus in May. Venus also rules Taurus, as well as the sign of Libra. While she can be tempestuous, Venus is well known symbolically for decorum, beauty, sensuality, and being social. Mars in mythology was well known for murdering even his friends, while Venus stresses connection to others. In earthy fixed Taurus she expresses — at least in the Northern hemisphere — the release from winters icy barren grip to the revolution of nature bursting back into life.
One of the many values of being a student of astrology is the complete knowledge that pain is temporary, and that things change. It can be said that change is all there is.
Please note this is the opposite of that mental state called depression. Depression casts a dark gray fog of sameness over the inner life. It’s been said that depression is a sharp focus on a very narrow aspect of living. The sign of Taurus for approximately 22 April until 21 May, represents indestructible Life returning in its myriad forms. Trees, Grass, flowers, insects, lizards, salamanders, birds, and mammals, bursting back to life, a flurry of scurry in a hurry.
Taurus is a middle sign sandwiched between a Cardinal sign and a mutable sign. It represents the fixed nature all middle signs, the others are; Leo — middle of summer, Scorpio, middle of Autumn, and Aquarius, the middle of winter.
Fixed signs are one of the three modalities of the zodiac, along with cardinal and mutable signs. They are the signs that occur in the middle of each season, and tend to sustain energy. The fixed signs are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius, corresponding to the four elements of earth, fire, water, and air. Fixed signs are very determined, stable, and set in their ways.
This past cycle of the sun passing thru the sign of Aries was externally tumultuous. With the new moon in Taurus, we will in the main, experience difference; calmer waters, less world wide aggression, and a kind of everyday and global stability; perhaps not total peace but less new waves of violence; a lessening. Cardinal signs, in this case Aries, initiate — while fixed signs ie, Taurus sustain.
In your new Moon meditations just now, you might include the miracle of your being and the miracle within you and beyond you. You can begin by listening to this — your next breath.
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