HAIKU AS DAILY PRACTICE
For the past several months - I've been writing morning haiku. Haiku is a traditional Japanese three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count. Traditionally, it evokes images of the natural world and is written in the present tense. I hold those two rules lightly - but stick to the 5/7/5. Much like any mindfulness, sacred pausing, prayer, contemplation practice - reading and writing Haiku - supports me, as I awake each day, to be more present and attuned to whatever is arising in my mind/body/heart. I can then carry this morning intention through my day. It's easy to forget what is most essential in the flurry of a busy life. Since taking up a Haiku practice - I have noticed that I'm beginning to perceive the moments of my life - from a reference of haiku. Every experience, inner and outer, is filtered through the impulse to capture the essence of it's fleeting qualities in 17 syllables. Life becomes an intimate felt-sense of each
