I Quote, You 'Ku - Day 22

"Jung observed that dreams perform restorative, corrective, compensatory, prophetic, and developmental roles in our psyche; that to attend to our dreams is to attend to the cry of the soul."

~ Jill Mellick in The Art of Dreaming 

Your challenge is to write a haiku or tanka (or choose one of your previously published works) that has a connection with the themes/feelings/images of the above quote, without just restating what has appeared in the text, to create a haibun. Play around with it and see what you come up with. Enjoy!

Click here for the first post on how I Quote, You 'Ku works. Every poet who posts a poem this month will be entered into the draw to win a copy of A New Resonance 8.

 

These are a few of my favourite things...

Haiku and dreams. Dreams of the night variety, that is. Both are equally important to me, although I'm not very diligent about writing my dreams down each day, whereas I will almost always write down my haiku. I hope to get much better at this, as I value highly what my dreams are telling me. Below is my favourite quote about dreams that sums up my feelings exactly:

Suppose someone told you

that there was something that spoke to you every night,
that always presented you with a truth about your own life and soul,
that was tailor-made to your individual needs and particular life-story,
and that offered to guide you throughout your lifetime,
and connect you with a source of wisdom far beyond yourself.
And, furthermore, suppose that all of this was absolutely free.
Naturally you would be astonished that something like this existed.

Yet this is exactly the way it is with our dreams.  ~ John A. Sanford (1975), Dreams and Healing, Paulist Press, NY

My blog title actually comes from a dream: In it I was literally swimming in lines of haiku and only awoke, with a sudden start, when I heard hubby's whispered exclamations as he'd hit his leg on the way into the bedroom (or something similar). I love water and swimming, so swimming in lines of haiku was a wonderful experience for me. I'm currently searching out dream haiku for my month as one of The Haiku Foundation's Per Diem: Daily Haiku editor's with my chosen theme of 'Dream Speak', the title of which I took from one of my own haiku: 

          dream speak...

          sunlight on the opening

          tulip's tips

DailyHaiku Cycle 12 (November 4, 2011) 

So, I thought it was about time I wrote a haiku about my above dream, and came up with this on Friday:

          even in my dreams

          swimming in lines

          of haiku

I'd wanted to change my blog's welcome picture ever since I moved last November, as the iconic Mount Manganui and beach scene was now in a different region to my new home. As of Friday, I have a very cool photo of rippling water, which I took some years ago in this region (Waikato) with the well-known Kiwi icon of a silver fern floating under the surface. And I've added my new haiku into the mix to convey my two favourite things as well as to give readers, old and new, some insight into me and my blog's title. I've always liked the image and am happy to be able to give it a fitting home at last.

During my dream haiku search, I came across the book Inside Out: Haiku and Dreams by Joseph Kirschner (Deep North Press, 2003). I was overjoyed when, on contacting Joseph and telling him what I was up to, he kindly sent me a copy of his book as a gift! Gosh, how I LOVE our haiku community :) I am thoroughly enjoying reading Inside Out and am grateful to read the haiku, dreams and explanations within it. (You can read a review by Modern Haiku here.) I will certainly look at writing more haiku from my dreams: It could definitely be a good way to get me to write at least some of my dream/s down each morning! After all:

Jung observed that dreams perform restorative, corrective, compensatory, prophetic, and developmental roles in our psyche; that to attend to our dreams is to attend to the cry of the soul.        ~ From The Art of Dreaming by Jill Mellick (Conari Press, 2001)

The Start of a New Month - The Start of a New Challenge

National Poetry Month in April, being American, hadn't really come up on my radar. It was brought to my attention this year via a post on The Muffin - the blog of the WOW! Women on Writing team. I decided then that I'd do it. (You can read that post here, which has info on other writing challenges throughout April.)

The link they gave is to Poetic Asides, which give daily prompts throughout the month. Having never had anything to do with Poetic Asides before I was going to wait and see what they're prompts were like. (You can read their guidelines for the 2011 April Poem-A-Day Challenge here.)

Then I came across InkSeeds - a blog that is giving poetry prompts for April around Personal Mythology, and I knew this was the place for me. Mention Jung, dream work, writing as a spiritual practice and I'm there! Check out the post here. (Thanks to Fiona Robyn for posting this link on Facebook.)

I've also listed my blog on the NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) website. You can submit yours too and check out other participants' sites that are following the PAD (Poem-A-Day) Challenge. I will post mine daily here on Swimming in Lines of Haiku.

I'm just home from holiday and about to check out the first prompt. You can join me here. I'm very interested to see what I come out with. Happy writing this April :)

For my fellow haiku writers: You can also find prompts for writing a haiku-a-day during April on the NaHaiWriMo page on Facebook.

Found Poem Friday

I haven't written any poems this week, nor done any craft work: my concentration has been on dream work. I am using the four-step approach found in Robert A. Johnson's book Inner Work: Using Dreams & Active Imagination for Personal Growth.

• Step One: Associations
• Step Two: Dynamics
• Step Three: Interpretations
• Step Four: Rituals

I have previously done dream work with a Jungian analyst, but this will be the first time I've taken a dream through these four steps at home. It is focused work, demanding of the mind, which wants to wander terribly and do anything but explore the truths that lie in the unconscious.

Jung observed that dreams perform restorative, corrective, compensatory, prophetic, and developmental roles in our psyche; that to attend to our dreams is to attend to the cry of the soul.

The above is from the other book I use in my dream work, The Art of Dreaming: A Creativity Toolbox for Dreamwork by Jill Mellick. And this brings me to Found Poem Friday...

Four and Twenty post a daily prompt on their facebook page and Friday is always found poem day. So, today I wanted to share this found poem I wrote from The Art of Dreaming as it perfectly sums up my week.

Receive Dreams as Messengers from Another Realm

Dreams haunt us.

Their images, words, sounds, feelings.
They disturb, amuse,
intrigue, inspire.
They are messengers
from another realm
with their own logic.

The narrative structure of the soul –
a logic that dispenses
with cause and effect,
exists in a timeless
spatially unbounded universe
where we are allowed
to do the impossible:

occupy two time frames or places at once.

What if we pay attention to our dreams...
Let their images feed our imaginations...

The heart of the dream will beat
in our actions, and lead us onward.

Copyright © Kirsten Cliff
First published in the Bay of Plenty Times 'Poets Corner', Saturday 19 September, 2009