Haguro San

Yamadera

Yamadera, meaning Mountain Temple, is where Basho wrote a celebrated haiku. It's written on this straw hat. It reads:

静けさや岩に滲み入る蝉の声

shizukesaya iwa ni shimiiru semi no koe

such stillness, sinking into these stones, the sounds of cicadas

Takasaki

漂泊者
ひょうはくしゃ
a vagabond
someone who moves without direction
a person who floats on water
who leaves their body to the wind
a person moved by the wind

Haiku-kai

North of Kamakura station, the mountain temple, Hase Dera, with shrine after shrine and a view of the beach. It's built on top of a hill. I came here with my father three years ago. It's early July and the hydrangeas have started to brown, but on some shaded slopes, they are still blooming.

coming back to Hase Dera
hydrangeas
linger in the shade

***


trees, apartment blocks, whole towns
in a green blur
Kamakura to Tokyo


***

At the Meguro haiku group we talked about the upcoming conference. I suggested I talk about ways to link ideas in haiku and when that didn't fly, I suggested talking about Hass' Essential Haiku as the most popular English language haiku volume. That didn't fly either. Midori's idea is that I talk about kigo (season markers) and why foreigners don't understand their importance. Everyone seemed to think that would be fascinating.

Basho traveled / To make a stone smaller

to wash off the grime of the city

to fold a song in two

to mark the places where battles were lost

and sisters turned into trees

he went to the places Saigyo went 

a stone in the river

Du Fu, Li Po, Saigyo, Basho, Kiyooka

he went to see friends (living)

he went to visit friends (long dead)

a stone takes on the shape of the river
water burrows, insistently, as hard as it can

Niko - two disasters
Nikko - sunlight

traveler as different from tourist

Died while traveling:
Tu Fu 712-770
Li Po  701-762
Saigyo  1118-1189
Sogi 1421- 1502

Kamakura

the sky of wu

- some far away unknown place

Butoh Workshop with Yoshito Ohno

Zen Calligraphy Vocabulary

The Hitsuzen meeting starts with hanging calligraphy scrolls on the walls. We study each word and evaluate them on a sheet of paper.

Here are some of the categories for the rankings:

(working between two dictionaries to try to translate them)

　

　

Category	Term	Individual kanji	pronunciation	meaning
	墨気		ぼっき Bokki	Ink energy
天然			てんねん tennen	nature, spontenaiety
	靭性		じんせい jinsei
		靭	ジン　うつぼしな	soft, pliable, quiver
		性	せい	nature, unchanged by external influences
			しなやかさ	flexiblity
	温順		おんじゅん onjyun	obey – restraint?
		温		warm
		順		order, docile, obey
	洗練		せんれん senren	polish, refinement
	規模		きぼ kibo	scale, scope, plan, structure
	貫禄		かんらく kanraku	presence, dignify
構成			こうせい kousei	organization, composition
	変化		へんか henka	change, variation variety, diversity
気脈			きみゃく kimyaku	blood vessel, conspiracy, collusion, secret communiation (this is my new favorite word)
	字間		じかん jikan	space between letters or characters
	行間		ぎょうかん kyoukan	spacing in text, between the lines
	リズム感		リズムかん rizumukan	rhythmical sense
余白			よはく yokaku
			らかん
		落	おちる	fall, drop, come down, village, hamlet
	署名		しょめい shomei	signature
	印		いん in	hanko – seal, name stamp
		調	チョウ　しらべる	tune, tone, meter. writing style, prepare, exorcise
		和	わ	sum, harmony, peace, Japanese style
調和			ちょうわ chouwa	harmony
	紙墨の和			the harmony of ink and paper
		境	キョウケイ　さかい	boundary, border, region
		涯	はて　ガイ	horizon shore
境涯			きょうがい kyougai	circumstances, situation,  one’s lot in life
	心境		しんきょう shinkyou	mental state
	自然さ		しぜんさ shizensa	naturalness
	幽玄		ゆうげん	subtle grace
	簡素		かんそ yuugen	simplicity, plane
		枯	コ　かれる	wither, dry up
素材			そざい sozai	raw material subject matter
		題	ダイ	topic, subject
	題材		だいざい	subject, theme
		題材　字、句		theme of word/character or verse
表装			ひょうそう hyousou	mounting, binding
保存			ほぞん hozon	preservation, storage, does it feel old?