Like Words Together Reflections from the deep end of Practice.

As a Result of Poety

I really thought I'd written about haiku, learning the form. It is a cherished memory and activity from the year I was nine. Generally that year was one traumatic event after another, but I also was taught the form of haiku that year. It is a form of poetry I've returned to over and over in my life, although I really moved away from in during my twenties. When I started practicing yoga and zen I noticed that haiku just started to appear in my mind.

And that brings me to this past Friday. My love of haiku has borne fruit, as it were. I am being given a pair of tickets to see the production of 'Snow Falling on Cedars' at Portland Center Stage as a prize for a winter haiku I wrote! They sponsored a concert on Twitter for the best winter-themed haiku, or "snowku" and I submitted this:

Bare branches rattle.
Evergreens shiver and sway.
Winter's breath blows cold.

On Friday they posted a message that I'd won. What a delightful surprise to see appear on my computer screen while working! CK & I'll be going on the 30th and are very much looking forward to it.

I'm trying to take this into my practice too. Ango is approaching and I'm given the gift of a chance to remember the focus Hogen gave me during my first Ango: Appreciate my accomplishments.

I discount my writing a lot while at the same time am anxiously attached to it. I minimize my poetry. I even diminish the accomplishment of having my writing appear in ZCO's publication, Ink on the Cat.

"After all, they're your Sangha, they have to act like they like your writing." says my Inner Critic.

This little surprise of winning these tickets is pretty hard for even my Inner Critic to diminish. I mean someone in the "real world" liked something I wrote. Gosh.