#awakened haiku masters

[konmarkimageswords]

Pairing contemporary haiku by poets from around the world with classical Japanese haiku, The Awakened One offers us a poetic dialogue on the nature of awareness across culture and time. Modern haikuists from the UK, the US, Croatia, India, Nigeria and a dozen other countries converse via haiku with Japanese masters, like Basho, Issa and Buson, sharing moments of insight expressed in poetry of a single breath.

[helloliriels]

LIRIELS MASTER POST

Headers link to read (*indicates WIP, or may be cont.):

LIRIELS CHAPTERED FICS (5k+)

L.O.V.E. - John Watson wanted a soulmate. His sister ... just wanted this game to be over. Enter Sherlock Holmes. Fate it seems, has it's own plans ... and the game? Is never over! (27k, M, Only You AU, Italy, fortune teller, ouija board)

*(I Love You) Infinitely - With a snap of his fingers, Thanos caused the heartache and loss of half a planet's population ... and Watson of all people, could kiss the glove that did. (19k+, T, Infinity War, Post-TRF)

*Christmas in Honeycutt - John's publisher invites a sailor out to his idyllic estate for a Christmas worthy a hero ... only ... John doesn't have an estate. Or a wife. Or a child. He just writes about them! (25k+, M, WWII, spy, codes)

Give My Love To The Chef - John visits the restaurant after the Fall. They serve him the perfect dishes. Dishes that make him feel homesick and happy. Somehow ... the chef always knows what he wants before he asks ... (18k, M, Post-TRF, Fix-it)

Playing Cupid - What if Sherlock sent Mike out to bring Watson back? What if he was taking no chances on that chance meeting? (ASIP fix-it, canon complicit)

Spin The Bottle - Have you ever played this game before, Sherlock? (8k, M, S1-2ish, Strip Games)

*What If I'm Not? - Maybe in confessing why he's not o.k. ... he is really pushing Sherlock out of his life for good. How could such a disclosure not? (5k+, correspondence fic, fluff collab)

LIRIELS SHORT FICS (up to 5K)

PAYPHONE - (<2k ea., post-TRF alternates)

Keep Us From Falling - (5k, T, Una Stubbs tribute)

*Love Potion No. 9 - (5k, G, HP au, complete as-is)

The Years Keep Returning Me To You - (4k)

*Give Me A Reason - (4k, New Years alt meet)

The Girlfriend Mixup - (3k, angst, fluff)

Bleeding Out - (3k, S3 never happened)

*Hurt For Me - (3k; may become M 15-20k+)

Sherlock Is A Girls Name - (2k, HLV, alt S3)

Next Time - (2k, angst, fluff, first kiss)

*Rarified - (2k, synesthesia, soulmates au)

Kiss Me Now Before You Go - (2k, WWII)

The Limp You Gave Me - (<2k, angst, post-TRF)

I Will Try (To Fix You) - (<2k, steampunk, TRF)

Summer Calling ... - (<1k, teenlock, skinny dipping)

Hope Eternal - (1k, Hobbit inspired, post-TRF fix-it)

The Genius Who Had No Heart In His Chest - (<1k, x reader)

*After All - (<1k, oneshot, idiots in love)

*Without A You - (<1k, without a clue, role rev.)

Into Battle - (<1k, oneshot, fixing S3 TSOT)

LIRIELS PROMPT FICS (Collection)

Most less than 1k words, oneshots, drabble, etc. prompted by Tumblr posts, asks, events, and challenges.

The Paper Boy (#sherlock challenge)

LOCK DOWN (#FFF155)

CATCH (#sherlock challenge)

H.O.U.N.D. (#FFF120)

S P I C E (#sherlock challenge)

The Cuts That Bleed (#FFF139)

Experiments in Conductivity (#FFF126)

Come Closer

Drowning (And I Thought You Knew)

THIINK TWIICE (#FFF125)

Upside Down (#sherlock challenge)

Speak For Me (#FFF154)

*Do Not Download The Souls (#FFF140)

*You Can See Me

The Highest Compliment

Never Gonna Dance Again

Constellations

RISE AND FALL (#FFF145)

LONG LOST ... (#holmestice)

LOST PUPPY

Paper Heart

Do Bees Kiss? or Just Sting?

Short Poems Are The Best

A Thing (destial news)

Three Little Words (groot & SH talking)

I Will Go Down With This Ship

What To Give The Detective Who Has Everything

The Devil Went Down To London

I Want To Love Him In The Sunlight (Clueda)

He Smiles (haiku, 7PercentSolution)

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit!

LIRIELS SHERLOCK POETRY (Collection)

Coffee and Then Coffee // A Million Things You Don't Do // RED // Empty Hearse // But I Can't // Welcome to London // The Next Time We Say Goodbye // We'll Go No More A-Sleuthing // Endgame // Invisible Man // Distractions // You Speak and Worlds Awaken // This Ending // 3rd is Last Place // Somebody's Someone // Undo Me // Without a Clue // I Fight the Need // Boxing Day // ... But I Can't Have Him // 2 B 1 // Your Orbit // Moving On // Infinity Smiles

LIRIELS PODFICS (Gifts for)

*Juxtaposition (Clueda)

How To Date Your Flatmate (EchoSilverWolf)

Prompt #49 Take Off Your Shirt (KittenKin)

The Wedding Gift (Calais_Reno)

Queer Eye: Johnlock Edition (fellshish)

I Speak for the Curls (ChrisCalledMeSweetie)

I Have Not Lingered (saintscully)

The Telltale Heart (Calais_Reno)

Tattered (SrebrnaFH)

SHERLOCK IS LIT Sherlocked blackout poems made from classic lit, Including: Alice in Wonderland, Charles Dickens' Bleak House, Sinbad the Sailor, Anne of Green Gables, Oliver Twist, and A Princess of Mars.

ROCK OUT WITH YOUR LOCK OUT Sherlocked rock music album covers, including: MCR, Pink Floyd, Flyleaf, Nirvana, Johnny Cash, Gotye, Breaking Benjamin, Adele, Pet Shop Boys, Marvin Gaye, Simon & Garfunkel, and FFDP.

(NOT SO) FAKE FIC TITLES Over 100+ fake fic titles to browse! From 75+ submitted prompts on Tumblr (thank you!) Intended to be 100% fake (but some I accidentally started ... so *shrug*)! Celebrating 100 works on Ao3! I fell down a Tumblr hole (inventing a new kind of torture) and having too much fun to leave it! A few (*) may yet become real boys ... INBOX OPEN!

LIRIELS SHERLOCK FAN ART Fan art made for the love of Johnlock, in any universe.

@johnlocky @ohlooktheresabee @fluffbyday-smutbynight @inevitably-johnlocked @chinike @rhasima @totallysilvergirl @missdeliadili @luciengenic @topsyturvy-turtely @justanobsessedpan @whatnext2020 @hp-nv-221b-3000 @timberva @gaylilsherlock @loki-lock @marta-bee @i-call-me-clarence @musingsofmyown @john-smiths-jawline @meetinginsamarra @geekinator @sail-on-silver-girl @jabbage @kettykika78 @arwamachine @calaisreno @notasinglesoul1 @peanitbear @glows-n-the-dark @im-erin @detafo @gregorovitchworld @sherlockwatson-holmes @riverwithoutbanks @ephemeraljimin @keirgreeneyes @so-youre-unattached-like-me @hasenkind687 @iamjustreading @discordantwords @raina-at @khorazir @bluebellofbakerstreet

[masterhaiku]

Photo Haiku: Second

Haiku is a simple yet intense form of poetry that captivates the reader into the unknown of creativity and self discovery. Haiku composition and recitation has been practiced for centuries due to its amazing healing properties and Zen characteristics. Haiku allows the reader and composer to be fully in the moment when experiencing the beauty and simplicity life has to offer. Haiku Title: Second…

[gear-project]

GG Pop Quiz No.8!

Since it's been a while since the last one, and because I've gotten some new followers recently, let's do yet another GG Quiz!

30 Questions, only 30 answers.

Q1. Where was Daisuke Ishiwatari born? A. East End, London England B. Johannesburg, South Africa C. Yokohama, Japan D. New York, United States of America

Q2. Who is the woman who looks suspiciously like I-No? A. Jack-O'Valentine B. Marlene Dietrich C. Aria Hale D. Viidia

Q3. What does GGMiscQandA stand for? A. Redundant questions people have asked on this blog before? B. Random trivia that doesn't apply to the main story? C. Questions no one bothers to ask about Guilty Gear Lore? D. Miscellany GG Quiz questions?

Q4. What was the original inspiration for the OutRage Mk 2? A. Sol's OutRage against the Gears rebelling against humans. B. The Saint Oratorio Project. C. The Gunsmith Dogs of Bullet Heaven. D. Sol was bitten by a Hunting Dog Gear in the shoulder.

Q5. What significance does Ky Kiske's rosary have to him? A. He's a devout Christian. B. It represents Hope in a better future. C. It's a reference to Misato Katsuragi of Evangelion. D. It's a designer brand label he likes.

Q6. Sol's Bandit Revolver Prototype became the basis for what attack? A. His jumping Dust attack. B. His Sidewinder. C. Bandit Bringer. D. His sideways Bandit Revolver.

Q7. What is the "in-game" term for Elphelt Valentine's post-Sign story transformation? A. Dark Justice Mode. B. Valentine Mode. C. Awakening Kakusei Mode. D. Darkside Mode.

Q8. People make fun of Testament's audio flubs by saying "I found the Burrito!" What move are they actually making fun of? A. Master of Puppets B. E.x.e. Beast C. Nightmare Circular D. Badlands Grave Digger

Q9. How many Colony stages exist in currently existing GG games thus far? A. 5 B. 1. Miyabi. C. 2 Colonies. D. 13 Stages, including Kum Haehyun's 2 Korean Colonies.

Q10. What items don't appear in Answer's Data Logging Substitution technique? A. Mini-Answer Figurines B. Good Luck Statues C. Chipp's Unsigned Paperwork D. Mini-Chipp Figurines

Q11. What extraordinary circumstance led to Chipp meeting President Gabriel for the first time? A. Chipp wanted to become the President of Zepp really badly. B. Potemkin needed someone to fill in when Gabriel took a vacation. C. Answer wanted Chipp to train more on his diplomacy methods. D. Erica Bartholomew was trying to prevent a war between America and Zepp.

Q12. When Izuna was born in the Backyard, what exactly triggered it? A. A woman's strong feelings for her husband before she died were passed on to a hair ornament that came to life. B. A Killing Stone Fox Curse that only Izuna had the power to seal. C. The Death Goddess Izanami wished for a servant to serve her. D. Someone overcooked Tofu in a certain district and it displeased the Gods.

Q13. The Golden Disc was an old world relic database, but what did Kuradoberi Jam mistake it for? A. A music CD. B. A frisbee. C. A hot plate for setting pots. D. A frying pan.

Q14. What triggered Geena's mutation in to a quasi Gear-like Cyborg? A. She drank a whole vial of Gear Vitae. B. The Universal Will changed her D.N.A. the same as the Japanese. C. A computer program built within the Gear Mothership Asteroid interacted with her cyber prosthetic. D. Tyr turned her in to one with his powers.

Q15. What fighting style is Fanny's Needle weapon based on? A. Spear thrusts that Sacred Order knights used to use. B. Dr. Faust's giant scalpel style, Margarita. C. Dr. Baldhead's insane random attacks. D. It's a style she learned from her dear Mother.

Q16. What especially unique reason did Bridget have to attack Robo-Ky at one point? A. It was a mistaken attempt at putting on a show. B. Robo-Ky was the one who placed the fake bounties on people. C. Roger wanted Bridget to steal Robo-Ky for spare parts. D. Robo-Ky mistook Bridget for a cute girl he wanted to date.

Q17. What is Johnny's "private" collection consist of? A. Pictures of his cute Jellyfish Crewmembers. B. His magazine subscriptions to "Everyday Housewives". C. His alcohol collection. D. His Guitar collection.

Q18. What comparison does Axl Low make between other girls and his girlfriend Megumi? A. Their long hair. B. Their figures. C. Their violent personalities. D. Their sense of fashion.

Q19. Zappa's move "Last Elegy" is actually a mistranslation of what reference? A. Last Will and Testament. B. Last Eulogy. C. Last Edguy. D. Lasting Memory.

Q20. What was Asuka trying to do in the Backyard when Axl met him there? A. Rebuild the Cube. B. Trying to make Drinks and Snacks from Backyard data. C. Making more Gears. D. Trying to contact the Original Sage.

Q21. Why does Anji Mito especially get on Sol's nerves? A. He knows the secret history behind the Gears. B. His personality is quite nosy and intrusive. C. He was working for "That Man". D. He never wears a shirt.

Q22. What was the REAL cause of the Pudding incident? A. It was all King Daryl's rushed idea. B. People were trying to sneak a bite of the pudding before it was finished. C. A Demonic Magic contract to keep the pudding set in place expired prematurely. D. A Demonic contract that cursed anyone who ate the pudding.

Q23. What national holiday did Chipp establish in his home country? A. Sushi eating contest. B. Japanese culture day. C. A Haiku writing contest. D. Answer vetoed all of Chipp's ideas.

Q24. What is A.B.A.'s actual issue with other people? A. They're always trying to hit on her 'husband'. B. They don't like key-shaped things. C. She has trouble speaking in public. D. She thinks humans are low-class and uncultured.

Q25. Who is most well-known for giving Ky Kiske advice when he needs it? A. Kliff Undersn. B. Bernard. C. Dizzy. D. Sol.

Q26. What time of year is Guilty Gear 2020 most likely to be released? A. Spring: Japanese fighting games usually come out in April to June, but especially in May, on the 14th when the first game was released. B. Summer: ARC releases games when players can find time to play them. C. Fall: GG games get released especially around Halloween. D. Winter: Just in time for Christmas!

Q27. What is Chimaki's "least favorite" thing? A. Thinking. B. Eating sour Onigiri. C. Talking to anyone. D. Using his sword.

Q28. What is Elphelt's favorite food? A. Racoon Dogs. B. Spicy Pizza. C. Pasta. D. Steak.

Q29. How many years has it been since the first Guilty Gear? A. 20. B. 21. C. 22. D. 30.

Q30. What is the name of Leopaldon's most powerful attack? A. Shake. B. Perfect Rainbow. C. Back Current. D. 808.

Answers are below: 1>B, 2>D, 3>C, 4>D, 5>B, 6>A, 7>D, 8>A, 9>D, 10>C 11>D, 12>A, 13>C, 14>C, 15>C, 16>C, 17>D, 18>C, 19>C, 20>B 21>A, 22>D, 23>C, 24>D, 25>B, 26>A, 27>B, 28>C, 29>B, 30>D

If you scored: 5/30: It's okay if you're new here, take your time! 10/30: Not bad, as Sol would say, "Yaru ja nee ka!" 15/30: You've got some training in, well done. 20/30: You've been here for a while, haven't you? 25/30: You're pretty smart!  Good going! 30/30: ROMANTIC!! YOU WIN! PERFECT!!

And if you want to test yourself further, please go read the older GG Quizzes!

[a-motivation-to-study]

Books to Read in 2019

This past year I finished reading MAYBE 2 books. How incredibly disappointing is that? In high school I read ALL THE TIME, and I have a whole wall covered in books, yet I have barely read! I’m really going to force myself to read more this next year. I know for a FACT that my semester next year will hinder my goal, but I’m hoping to follow this plan as closely as I can (although I am darn positive that I probably won’t be able to finish all of these). Most of these books I have selected relate to other personal goals I hope to achieve. The boldened titles are the books I feel are most important in my personal growth (and thus the books I will read first). I’m also hoping my love for reading can be reignited. I know a lot of us can lose the habit of reading, especially with busy college schedules, so I’ve added the descriptions of the books (from the back or from the amazon descriptions) I hope to read in case any of you would also like to read more!

Productivity Books

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People People, author Stephen          R. Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principal-centered approach for         solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living  with       fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity- principles that give us the      security to adapt to change, and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates. 

2. Getting Things Done by David Allen 

In today’s world, yesterday’s methods just don’t work. Veteran coach and        management consultant David Allen shares his his breakthrough methods for stress-free performance that he has introcued to tens of thousands of people  across the country. Aleen’s premis is simple: our productivity is directly   proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve effective results and unleash our creative potential. From core principles to proven tricks, Getting Things Dones can transform the way you work an live, showing you how to pick up the pace without wearing yourself down. 

Meditation and Buddhist Books (from Wisdom Publications mostly)

3. Zen Vows for Daily Life by Robert Aitken

Zen Vows for Daily Life is a collection of gathas, vows in verse form for daily practice, similar to prayers or affirmations for use at home, at work, and in the meditation hall itself. Reciting these poetic vows can help us be fully present in each moment and each activity of our lives. These gathas serve as gentle reminders to return again and again to our highest aspirations, with acceptance, joy, and compassion—for ourselves and all beings. Zen Vows for Daily Life will be a steadfast companion in keeping the reader inspired and committed on their spiritual path.

4. A Heart Full of Peace by Joseph Goldstein

Love, compassion, and peace—these words are at the heart of all spiritual endeavors. Although we intuitively resonate with their meaning and value, for most of us, the challenge is how to embody what we know: how to transform these words into a vibrant, living practice. In these times of conflict and uncertainty, this transformation is far more than an abstract ideal; it is an urgent necessity. Peace in the world begins with us. This wonderfully appealing offering from one the most trusted elders of Buddhism in the West is a warm and engaging exploration of the ways we can cultivate and manifest peace as wise and skillful action in the world.

This charming book is illuminated throughout with lively, joyous, and sometimes even funny citations from a host of contemporary and ancient sources—from the poetry of W.S. Merwin and Galway Kinnell to the haiku of Issa and the great poet-monk Ryokan, from the luminous aspirations of Saint Francis of Assisi to the sage advice of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama.

5. Open Mind by B. Allan Wallace 

Lerab Lingpa (1856–1926), also known as Tertön Sogyal, was one of the great Dzogchen (Great Perfection) masters of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and a close confidant and guru of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. This volume contains translations by B. Alan Wallace of two works that are representative of the lineage of this great “treasure revealer,” or tertön. This volume will be of great interest for all those interested in the theory and practice of the Great Perfection and the way it relates to the wisdom teachings of Tsongkhapa and others in the new translation schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

6. Interconnected by Ogyen Tinley Dorje

Plucked from a humble nomad family to become the leader of one of Tibet’s oldest Buddhist lineages, the young Seventeenth Karmapa draws on timeless values to create an urgent ethic for today’s global community. The Karmapa shows us how gaining emotional awareness of our connectedness can fundamentally reshape the human race. He then guides us to action, showing step by step how we can change the way we use the earth’s resources and can continue to better our society. In clear language, the Karmapa draws connections between such seemingly far-flung issues as consumer culture, loneliness, animal protection, and self-reliance. In the process, he helps us move beyond theory to practical and positive social and ethical change.

7. I Wanna Be Well by Miguel Chen

A punk rocker’s guide to grow, learn, and appreciate the present moment—in short, to live a life that doesn’t totally suck.

8. Discovering Your Soul Signature by Panache Desai

Your soul signature is your spiritual DNA - it is who you are at your core, the most authentic part of you, and your singular contribution to this world. And yet, we reject our authentic selvs. We allow our soul sigature to become blocked by any number of emotional obstacles that life throws in ou path: anger, fear, guilt, shame, sadness, despair. Any or all of these feelings overtake us and create a density, a heaviness that doesn’t permit us to embrace who we truly are, deep inside. We are energetic beings, Panache Desai reminds us, and emotions are energy in motion. When we are blocked we feel unworthy, less than, unloved, incomplete. 

In Discovering Your Soul Signature, Panache Desai invites us on a 33-day path of meditations-- shot passages to be read at morning, noon, and night that are designed to dismantle the emotional burden that holds us back and open us up to changing our lives. Through this distilled, poetic, practical, and inspiring course, he invites us to live a life of authenticity, to rediscover purpose and passion, and to believe from our soul in the possibility of all things.

9. As Man Thinketh by James Allen 

This little volume (the result of meditation and experience) is not intended as an exhaustive treatise on the much-written upon subject of the power of thought. It is suggestive rather than explanatory, its object being to stimulate men and women to the discovery and perception of the truth that -

"They themselves are makers of themselves"       by virtue of the thoughts which they choose and encourage; that mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.

Religious Books 

10. The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball

In The Miracle of Forgiveness, President Spencer W Kimball gives a penetrating explanation of repentance and forgiveness and clarifies their implications for Church members. His in-depth approach shows that the need for forgiveness is universal; portrays the various facets of repentance, and emphasizes some of the more serious errors, particularly sexual ones, which afflict both modern society and Church members. Most important, he illuminates his message with the brightness of hope that even those who have gone grievously astray may find the way back to peace and security. Never before has any book brought this vital and moving subject into so sharp a focus. This classic book is a major work of substance and power.

Science Books

11. God’s Equation by Amir D. Aczel

In God’s Equation, Amir Aczel tells the story of what lies between these events: the history of modern physics and the development of the sciene of cosmology, the study of the nature of the universe. 

Other Books

12. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex—to "redeem" him—the novel asks, "At what cost?"

13. Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

In 1845, Thoreau moved to a cabin that he built with his own hands along the shores of Walden Pond in Massachusetts. Shedding the trivial ties that he felt bound much of humanity, Thoreau reaped from the land both physically and mentally, and pursued truth in the quiet of nature. In Walden, he explains how separating oneself from the world of men can truly awaken the sleeping self. Thoreau holds fast to the notion that you have not truly existed until you adopt such a lifestyle—and only then can you reenter society, as an enlightened being.   These simple but profound musings—as well as “Civil Disobedience,” his protest against the government’s interference with civil liberty—have inspired many to embrace his philosophy of individualism and love of nature. More than a century and a half later, his message is more timely than ever.

14. The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian

In the Art of Worldly Wisdom Baltasar Gracian gives us pertinent and pithy advice on friendship, leadership, and success. Think of it as Machiavelli with a soul. This book is for those who wish to have an ambitious plan for success without compromising their integrity or losing their way. Audacious and captivating!

15. For One More Day by Mitch Albom

For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that lasts a lifetime and and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?

[toku-explained]

The Sun Anomalocaris Demon

Ultraman Chronicle Z: Marluru might be getting transferred to the Mars Branch, leading Deban to suggest their own Spade Sevengar so he could come back on days off. The idea of adapting an existing machine gets Marluru thinking about Nursedessei and GUTS Falcon, as well as major battles with Trigger, leading to a plan to focus on being able to fight without Trigger. Deban will be lonely if Marluru goes to Mars.

Revice: Veil returns to Olteca and the Demons Driver, deciding to help a little longer, Olteca glancing at a new ViStamp. Akaishi and George test live fire from mini guns on Giff, with no affect. Kagero mocks Daiji over the recent revelations about them, declaring his intent to erase Daiji. The siblings are all trying to come to terms with things, not helped by Vice joking with Lovekov about asking Giff for an allowance. Sakura and Daiji leave, Buu-san appearing to tell Ikki he's taking care of the parents, Ikki wanting to know who he really is. George and the doctor discuss that the siblings fighting and Giff is producing a vicious cycle and things will only get worse as they defeat more Demons and Giff consumes them, and contemplates the upgrade items he'd getting ready for Revice and Live. Kagero appears, threatening the doctor so George will give him another TwoSide Driver and the upgrade for Live, the Crow ViStamp. George is unwilling, as for it to work kne of Evil or Live has to be eliminated, but Akaishi forces him to surrender it, being quite happy to use Kagero if Daiji loses. Buu-san explains he was Genta's commanding officer, or rather Shinanami Junpei's. Sakura goes to Weekend to confront Masumi about Veil. Buu-san met Junpei while working for a military group called Noah, which worked to create Akuma supersoldiers, Veil dealt with the failures. He lived an empty life until he met Yukimi. He ran from Noah, losing memories, and Masumi helped him acquire a new face and name. Sakura is furious with him, but Masumi just wants to help the siblings escape the devil's whispers. Buu-san explains Noah fell apart without Junpei, turning to infighting and some started worshipping Giff. George contacts both about Kagero and Daiji. Kagero uses a Bat ViStamp to separate Daiji from himself, presenting him a second TwoSide Driver and Bat ViStamp. Daiji had fought they might be able to coexist, but resolves to fight. Sakura is jumped by Aguilera, demanding to know how she's gotten so strong, and forcing her to focus on her. Ikki and George arrive at the battle, Vice wants to leap in but Ikki knows they have to settle things themselves. Sakura tells Aguilera she got stronger thanks to her, and that she knows what she should do and is ignoring it. Live gets the advantage, but holds off seeing Evil has weakened, but they keep fighting. Olteca arrives to disrupt, the more powerful Demons facing Jack Revice, Veil tormenting Ikki and swearing Vice won't surprise him again. Daiji manages to defeat Kagero, letting go of his kindness. Demons adds Scorpion, Batta and Anomalocaris, gaining massive clawed arms to defeat Revice. Kagero accepts his defeat, crawling towards Daiji as the ViStamp awakens, placing it in Daiji's belt as he banishes, Daiji becoming Holy Love, swears Olteca will see no mercy from him.

Donbrothers: Haruka has been forced to take work at Cafe Donbura while trying to avoid recognition, the Master is still reading First Love Hero. Momoi Tarou delivers a package to Tsuyoshi, KijiBrother,mwithout either realising who the other is, and also fixes his arm. Tsuyoshi reflects on how his life has been since becoming a Donbrother, and is able to save his new wife Miho using them. Momoi Tarou has lunch with his colleagues, and we see he is a little too honest, while his colleagues give empty flattering to the boss, who resents her age and is being followed by a Hitotsu-ki. A new customer pays with a haiku in lieu of money after recognising Haruka, who is contacted by the hooded man that Momoi Tarou will be somewhere tomorrow. The boss turns up younger, but Tarou still sees her real age, driving her resentment. Tarou is trying to deliver to Inuzaka Tsubasa, but police show up and Inuzaka runs, slipping away using magic glasses and claiming to have done nothing. Haruka appears at the designated spot, but looking at her watch misses Momoi Tarou driving past, and instead focuses on a man in brown carrying a spear. She follows him until being accosted by Taro's boss, who deages more and approaches Tarou, still saying hkwnold she really is, and she loses control, taking Hitotsu-ki form and stealing youth from people. Haruka becomes OniSister, the man in blue arrives again to kill Sanae. The man with the spear approaches, OniSister begging for himself, but he is of course allied with the man, Sonoi, and Sonoza takes his own warrior form to attack her. KijiBrother and InuBrother arrive, InuBrother converts the Ryusoulger Gear to an Avatar Gear, becoming RyusoulBlack, KijiBrother becomes RyusoulPink. Momoi Tarou transforms, then arrives in the same bombastic fashion, fighting off all 3 foes before using a gear to separate from his body, which falls unconscious, fighting as the diminutive DonMomotaro Alter, annoying Sonoi and Sonoza enough that they leave. The rampaging Hitotsu-ki chases, DonMomotaro returns to his body and leads them in a finisher. The city separates with a rampaging train monster, DonMomotaro pursue on Enya Rideon until ZyuranTyranno arrives so they can combine as DonZenkaiOh. After defeating the monster a Toqger Avatar Gear is claimed by Tarou's Zenkaiger ally. As everyone moves on with their life, Sanae more satisfied with her age, Cafe Donbura's Master examines a Ryusoulger and a Toqger Avatar Gear, Haruka still wondering who Momoi Tarou is.

[theaccidentalidiot]

Reblogged due to hitting the link limit (didn’t even know that was a thing. huh)

Putting a read more here too (also bots stop liking this post challenge)

hey there, uh take the comprehensive torrenting guide link with a whole heaping bowl of salt please. i don’t know how safe it is, as i have never torrented anything myself. at this point i’m just keeping it there because it’s the very first thing i ever put on this list. seriously, be EXTREMELY careful.

click here if you’re tired of paying for college textbooks

sooo... is there a Mr Paint?

aptronym

green tea and watermelon sour patch kids

You’re a daycare worker, watching over toddlers, when the imminent end of the world is announced.

why The Boy in the Striped Pajamas should never ever be used to teach about the holocaust

never trust a secret librarian

how to determine if someone is an undercover cop

pov: ur scrolling thru fab and everyone from highschool announces their pregnancy

not ranch ●_●

message in a bottle

the homestuck gender colors post

The Orange by Wendy Cope

freelance jobs you do from home that look good on a future resume

it’s fun to stay at the

The Color Horoscope

hack the planet

dave’s piss flavored lava lamp

behold, the best mom in the universe

minecraft dice

when you’re overqualified for the job

MILF Mobile

“OH RIGHT HE WAS A WRESTLER”

i love u so much omega mart <3

Sex 4

beta kid valentines

*smash announcer voice* Gay!

have you checked your butthole

man has bisexual awakening live on… text

tumblr user jjbang8 is the master of poems

real good video essays

Jesus breakdancing to impress his friends

click here for homestuck fandom nostalgia

you've sunk the burger!

how to escape when your hands are ziptied together

fuck it up lord farquaad

queer as in…

the sans and papyrus dynamic

sneaker meetup

please do not let debt collectors play in your face

two beds tuesday

everyone was harmed in the making of this video

green’s my color.

the best scene in invader zim

ronald reagan is in hell and i am very happy about that

why the common interpretation of lord of the flies is full of shit

a comic about a dream i had about a snake

the skies at grocery stores

the most specific yet relatable shirt ever

Lord Foog the 2st

*chanting* autism hacks! autism hacks!

fighting fascism with food

the color theory post but something’s a little off

why they keep doing her like this

zelda cd-i cutscene but with nuns and a manbaby

this video officially ended homophobia

music for unproductive zoomers

background music from the Windows XP Installation (2001)

some neocities links to check out (they seem cool)

hello, uh, stop fucking buying apple products

funny fish friday

WHO PUT SPIDERS ON MY DICK

are u a grass

piracy guide but it’s good i think??? idk i need to check it out

ted, short for haunted

your computer fucking dies stimboard

this is your official sign to use firefox

WRITING THIS ONE TO BE REALLY NOTICEABLE SINCE I WANT TO REMEMBER IT THIS IS A MESSAGE TO YOU TWIG YES YOU REMEMBER TO GO TO THE BIKE STORE AND CHECK OUT THE ADULT TRICYCLES

the problem with amatonormativity

the most suspenseful video i’ve ever watched

oh shit i’m feeling it.avi

among us costume

��may i?” “you may.”

r/place is the best thing that has ever happened on reddit

parenting your toddler brain

the bee bee boo boo bop

defense against a guy in a chair

bead lizards

reblog for easter

you’re listening to little goblin radio

playing minecraft with the loudest volume you will ever hear

that time op had a birthday at the bowling alley and happened upon like forty furries

the haiku bot loves us :)

anaconda x phantom of the opera mashup

from a thread about cheese

whalefall

i don’t have a caption i just love this video

sonic x is the show ever

let me think about it 🤔 okay i thought about it

oh me? i’m the boss california

zack it’s not for the cat

note to self: when you get a pc, do all this shit

interviewing people with no drip 💧

you still haven’t made a neocities website? ugh, what a weirdo.

where to find good dice! (and who not to support)

*reverb* C U B E !

I love my fath- I'm so big what the fuck.

y’gathok, the all-consuming hunger

would you buy his jams

How to Webcomic!

this isn’t an introduction post or anything, there are just some posts that i really like and i wanna put them all in one place. btw some links may have very basic titles because i just don’t know what else to call it

hey this got pretty long so i’m adding a read more so you don’t have to scroll for so long

comprehensive torrenting guide

secret dashboards

“AC”

desire paths

pepper steak

kindness is not a weakness

ghost choir

welcome to windows 95

how to learn wingdings (reading and writing)

yoshi :)

what to expect from testosterone

a lesson in creativity

chikorita chuesday >:)

time loops

come and see him

telling the time

bamboozled

making a believable society

read this if you’re living by yourself for the first time

DO YOUR BUCKING VOCAB

empathy

playlists woooooo!!!!!

kris is so fuckin strong tho

gender is like ice cream

ground rules for beginning lucid dreams

bops bangers and jams

one weird trick

nothing

transformation

magnolias

*POUNDS ON TABKE* LANGUAGE IS FUCKING COOOOL

🔥🕺✨DISCO INFERNO✨🕺🔥

GET INSIDE THE VAAAAAAAAANNN

toby fox, condemned for homestuck crimes

words to replace said, except this actually helps

so my sister found out i was a furry

tension in stories: queer vs straight

new abyss just dropped

buenas noches :]

Yankee Candle’s levels of abstraction

yo what up i’m rice krispies

the funniest thing about being ftm

meeting in the middle

pepperoni 2 (WARNING: LONG FUCKING POST)

hrn…

where she gets the keyboards

duolingo bimboification

sonic boom is good sometimes

when you suddenly gain consciousness

GIR WRITE THE CALLOUT POST

there is nothing more human than to play

sweet cap’n cakes tea

idk what to call this one but it’s nelnal scc art

k_k doing a handstand

mark 😳

boy is he stupid

choese

meow

bigtits700: i am bigtits700

now you realize what that ominous entity was

man falls for 2 whole business days

Out of Touch Thursday

he’s got some pretty cool power moves too

hole

flower language could be so much more

man i don’t know i just like this one

they should make a full song out of this

is this your brother

me at 4am on a school night

learn to knit with scales

the things crazy people say mean nothing to them but everything to me

i tried making a video this morning & my roommate did this 🙃

please enter your phone number

that sexy clown girl from ace attorney

stronger than she looks

the most racist field trip ever

the legend of CatDad

whos this douchebag dot png

here is my tale of woe

that lion only eats good food

cant lose something you never had

the worst lie we tell ourselves is “it’s too late”

how to keep your body clean

the myth of “wasted potential”

play this at my funeral

gettin fitted for my wedding

i DON'T know what sex is

WEEDLE

science fictional gender symbols representing gay humans, aliens, and robots

mermaid tail that lights up with LED lights

important story differences

the real writer experience (and how to deal with it)

this person got 3000 followers so they're giving us general tips

new fursona just dropped

the pride rats

14,001 knives attack

the clown

happy balloons :)

demoman gibberish

barkour

[notesencantos]

haiku mind

I've begun reading through "haiku mind" by Patricia Donegan. It's structured perfectly into 108 "chapters” that are great for daily readings.

The first section is about pausing.

pausing halfway up the stair — white chrysanthemums

— Elizabeth Searle Lamb

Phrases from the day’s reading that stand out:

Pausing is the doorway to awakening

We pause not only with our body but also with our mind

There are no steps to follow, there is no enlightenment to work toward — there is only the simplicity of relaxing into this very moment that is complete in itself

we need to relax our mind

slow down

stop

And we let out a breath or sigh. Pausing

This all fits with last year’s new year resolution planning, especially the idea that “There are no steps to follow, there is no enlightenment to work toward — there is only the simplicity of relaxing into this very moment that is complete in itself.” Last year I sought to focus on not doing stuff, minimizing, and simplifying.

Via negativa.

Focus on the essentials,

The important things in life.

I felt the urge and need to do less different things and to go deep with a few of the things that I already know and need to “master” so to speak. Also, these kinds of ideas of doing less lend themselves to ideas of “COVID Forced Resolutions.” We are forced to pause and look inside, considering what things are truly essential or important. 

I look forward to the daily reminders to pause and appreciate the “little things.”

CREATIVITY IS SUBTRACTION - https://austinkleon.com/2010/01/19/creativity-is-subtraction/

[remember-wim-faros]

Episode 1 - Are You Listening?

[voice echoing] When a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around to hear it,

it makes a sound!

[birds chirping] Ladies and gentlemen. We have found the music! It had been lost, as so many things are lost. Missing, disappeared, misplaced, vanished. Every day, what falls into obscurity without anybody noticing? Without anybody paying attention. What is locked in the attic?

I mean, let’s talk about some things that have been found in an attic, or spaces like attics. Did you know that Van Gogh’s “Sunset at Montmajour”, that beautiful painting, was found in an attic? Or that the original handwritten manuscript of “Huckleberry Finn” was found in an attic? The “Venus de Milo” was, well no it’s no-not an attic but, buried in a farmer’s field, unearthed by a peasant who came across some stubborn soil.

Did you know that the only copy of the pilot of “I Love Lucy” lay under the bed of Pepino the clown for 30 years, until it was swept out by his widow when she finally cleaned up around the place and taught to herself, this is pretty funny.

All these masterpieces just a broom sweep away from history’s dustbins.

And today, today! Recovered from a neglected attic of a suburban townhouse, one cassette tape destined to be sold in a garage sale, containing what is likely to be the first recorded concert of Wim Faros.

So.. who is listening? Hello? I’m Deirdre Gardner, and I welcome you to my new show. “It Makes a Sound”. [thumping, windchimes] It’s the first and only show in the nation dedicated to Wim Faros, native son of our Rosemary Hills. Where together, we’ll be part of a musical legacy. We will prepare to receive the genius that is Wim Faros. And to return him, like a prodigal son, to this deprived land. I will be the one to provide you up to the minute news and information about the artist, as I discover it. The name – Wim Faros. The subject – genius. And its location? Where us extraordinariness, I ask myself, don’t you? Don’t you ask yourself that? Extra..ordinariness, where I it today? Where are the truly exceptional ones who, out of our sheer proximity to them allow us to glimpse the intersection of our little lives, with the profound? Who walks among us? Is there anyone? Who walks among -us-, all the little uses? [chuckles] Uses… eh, eh, rolling lint off our pants. Uses, squeezing avocados in the grocery store and never picking the ripe one. Uses um, driving up and down the side streets to work because highway frightens uses. Uses um, drinking chamomile, attempting inverted yoga poses, popping melatonin and crossing our fingers as we slink into bed for the night. Where can we look here, in this vast wearied landscape of Rosemary Hills? Where our weathered old water tower reminds us in fading letters of past town mottos. Such as “golf capital”. Or “Rosemary Hills is alive with the whirr of commerce.” Or “Let’s tee in the hills.” But where now, the best boast we can master is “easy access to the highway”.

Well. Here, amidst the now abandoned golf course and its neglected grass, amidst the shuttered strip malls and these potholed streets, the extraordinary has tread. And the footprints, they linger. If you know how to look for them. And I think I do.

My fellow people of Rosemary Hills, citizens of the world, what have you forgotten? What treasures have we hidden under cobwebs and dust? What beauty awaits us on the other side of that drywall, as we wrestle fitfully in our sleep? What life lingers on these old fairways? What wonders just passed us by, as we bowed our head towards.. uh, a brightened 3-inch screen? Our necks hurt, our brains are zapped from too much screentime, our souls ache, and suddenly decades have past us by. Like poof. What are we missing?

Do we remember what used to be held in the delicate folds of our heart? Do we remember how things used to sound? Smell. Feel. Taste. I want to.

It’s time to unpack the attic! Today, we have a mind-boggling discovery. A confirmed to be authentic tape containing what is known to be Wim Faros’ debut public musical appearance here in Rosemary Hills, in the year 1992. And so we are not going to rush this moment, like we rush everything. We’re gonna slow down, we’re gonna savor. We are going to consider the tremendous significance of this relic. In order to fully appreciate it.

And thus, it is my privilege on this day of days to hold in my hands this freshly discovered tape. It’s an ordinary-looking cassette tape. But.. it’s possible some of you have never held a cassette tape. I will explain. Because, though it contains the stuff of wonder, to the human eye it is just a 3,5 by 2-inch clear plastic rectangle with two holes in the middle. And these holes, they have six little black teeth. Non-threatening teeth, so that you could feasibly uh, insert a pencil or a pinky finger, should sometime go [wry] [0:10:09]. Like if the delicate tape needs your manual assistance.

Now that tape is a very thing, translucent gray strip, of course containing some magnet um, magnetic properties. So and it’s spooled around the left hole, and as the tape plays in the cassette tape player, the tape will run along the bottom edge of the rectangle across a tiny magnetic strip. And the magnets pull the music out, with magnetic force, until it is fully spooled around the right hole, which means the tape is finished and you have heard the music. And that’s how a cassette tape works.  

I’m Deirdre Gardner. This is “It Makes a Sound”. I am describing a cassette tape.  Perhaps the most important cassette tape there ever was.

No won this particular model, we have a yellow sticker that covers the smooth section of the cassette. Nad written on that cover in purple felt tip pen, in bubble letters, is “Wim Fa”, but a waterspot has obscured the “ros”, leaving a purply pink splotch. It’s very pretty, like a watercolor. And underneath, with that same pen and font: “1992”. Crudely drawn stars in uh, multiple colors of pen, speckle the entire sticker. I mean… it’s great. it’s really incredible that one small object can capture so much of an entire era, even just aesthetically. We all seek the soundtrack of our lives, don’t we? And we wish to be privy to the voices of our generation. Yet it its a profound rarity that an artist like Wim Faros crosses into your limited sphere of existence. It’s like an alien prophet touching down on a ordinary Tuesday afternoon in a chain store called The Last Topper. Suddenly making the universe crack open to reveal infinite shards of meaning barely comprehensible to you. Standing there in cargo shorts, holding a casserole dish. Yes, yes. it’s hard to determine the full effect on Wim Faros’s music on this simple town of Rosemay Hills in the early-to-mid 90’s. it’s difficult to quantify the extent of – sacred devotion he inspired in his earliest fanbase.

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? That was a time without social media and its um, incessant public proclamations to hashtag, trending desires of the moment. Yesterday’s youth had to be more – intuitively united in our common affections. Had to keep the faith that even in a friendless existence, for instance as an example, living in an inherited furnished townhouse on the edge of Rosemary Hills’ gated golf course community, there were kindred souls somewhere underneath that same blue sky, wishing and waiting for a connection, just like you. Though perhaps at times to love in solitude, from afar, in the most generic of settings, was lonely and painful. That melancholy was trumped by a feeling of purpose. The purpose that comes from knowing that if someone out there could so perfectly capture the nuanced secrets of your soul, there must be greatness and solace in this universe indeed. isn’t that why we listen to the music? Isn’t that why we listen to the music?

We must ready ourselves to listen to the music. But I will say, even without the ease and benefit of cached fan pages or blogs serving as testimony to the early Wim Faros effect, the artist did manage to be a catalyst of cultural awakening in the town zeigeist. If a town can have a zeitgeist, can – sure. And there is archival evidence of the first reactions to Faros’s artistry. In fact… I happen to be in possession of documents from a Rosemary Hills resident who encountered Wim Faros in his earliest musical phase. Now, some of these pages are enclosed within a purple velveteen diary that I now have in front of me. The writing appears to be by the0 hand of a 12-year-old, I would estimate. And the paper is white ruled. And I seem to have come across a lengty series of haiku. Perhaps I sould share just a few of thes with you, for the sake of research. it’s a segment.. [rummages around] We’ll call it – the poetry of a little us.

[bangs a cong] You have changed my life by allowing me to see even thought you don’t see me.

[cong] I am hard to see in a golf community with many sand traps.

[cong]

You have a blind spot for almost nothing. But one in the size of me.

[cong]

I am the catcher you are a rare butterfly that I cannot grasp.

[cong]

Butterflies upclose freak me out. But you fly free, beautiful and free.

[cong]

I catch butterflies, yes, but I am afraid too. A contradiction.

[cong]

Faithfully you come to the window of my dreams singing: la la la.

[cong]

What is this music? Like, I never heard music before you played it.

[cong]

Now, those are just a few haikus and there are lots more, [chuckles] written here in Rosemary Hills circa 1991-1992. Likely dedicated to one Wim Faros.

[pause] If you’re just tuning in, hello. Welcome. I’m Deirdre Gardner, and this is the first episode of my show, “It Makes a Sound”. A discovery has been made in the attic. it’s Wim Faro’s first live album. It’s the real deal, it’s not a hoax, and it’s so rare that he only known copy exists, recorded from some distance, on a cassette tape. There is nowhere else in the entire universe where you will be able to hear a 16-year-old Wim Faros shaping what comes to be known as the sound – of an epoch. E-P-O-C-H. Stay with me and you will hear it here first, folks, because I have the tape and you’re gonna get exclusive access.

So we’re discussing Wim Faros’ formative teenage years as a musician, right here in Rosemary Hills. We’ve just begun working towards a fuller understanding of the human behind the mu-

[static] [hoarse voice] Who’s there? Who?

Deirdre: Oh, Jesus..

[static] I know, I know.. I know you! I knew!

Deirdre: Are you asleep?

[static, snoring]

Deirdre: Are you? Who’s that? (It’s something). OK. OK.

OK. Everything is good. I’m back. And i’m excited to introduce a new oral history segment of the show, based on town legend and lore around Wim Faros. It’s called – a portrait of the artist as a young man.

[music box plays] A light in the window of the second floor. The only window on the second floor, means Wim Faros is in his bedroom. And almost always when he is in his bedroom, he is drawing on the wall. What was on that wall? Everything was on that wall. The winds of change blew on that wall. The.. unfettered scrawl of technicolor wonders. The rainbow, a paltry container for the variety of colors applied to that wall. New color names would have to be invented. The ongoing overlapping shifting images and symbols, muraled, frescoed, appliqued, on that wall. All these ideas spewing forth from the eclectic multitudes of a single creative mind. In a blue and tan flannel shirt, his right arm braced against the drywall in an L-shape above his head. The bottom of his sleeve ripped and hanging down, he looks like he’s whispering secrets in a confessional. But he is drawing. There’s a lava lamp somewhere, out of view of the window, and it casts blobby spots that climb up and down the room, catching Wim’s distorted shadow when he’s out of view of the window frame. His left hand moves delicately or scribbles furiously. He is left-handed, as statistics prove that most geniuses are. If you’ve been watching, over the course of several months, you would have seen – his fantastic mural take shape.

In the center, a five-foot tall octopus, with the uncannily rendered face of Diane Sawyer. Her arms spread open, Christ-like, with magnolia blossoms and spiders dripping from her fingers. A flock of owls flying over a forest of pine trees. Each face of the moon, paired with a pizza pie of different toppings. Eight personalized pan pizzas, for eight different moons. A ninja army battling a family of squirrels throwing sharp acorns. Pages falling from a Gutenberg Bible into the gaping mouth of a Native American chief. Snoop Dogg. Scully riding a Mulder centaur as Ross Perot hoverboards over their heads! He was getting political.

As the seasons pass, the wall incrementally becomes and intricate map of his fertal, fertal inner life. Repetitions of hummingbirds and starfish, cans of beans, nunchucks. Later, peacocks. A dragon breathing fire, melting the iceberg just before it sinks the Titanic, which passes into clear skies. Dracula playing video games in front of a television set, flickering with an image of outrage from the Rodney King riots. And toaster strudels flying out of toasters into the rings of Saturn! Kurt Cobain offering an origami swan to a sobbing River Phoenix. And hundreds of other elegantly drawn details, too small to make out from a distance, that create a constellation of.. enlightened connectivity across the peeling beige wall.

And almost every night, after all the lights in the windows of the bungalow go dark, if you cared enough to pay attention, you would see the single beam of a flashlight splice a path behind the house, pointed towards a lopsided shed some 40 yards away. And if you were standing right up against the fence that separates Rosemary Hills’ gated golf course community from the unincorporated land that stretched out behind the scattered houses on Chamelia Road… you would hear a soulful strum of guitar, and a crescend of drums. Because in that decaying shed, surrounded by the loneliest darkness that is suburban darkness, is where young Wim Faros made the music. It was that music that pulsed through this town, permeated the air, pumped through the water.

Did everyone hearken to the call? No. If a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around to hear it wall, does it make a sound? Well. I’m here to tell you: trees have fallen. Trees are falling. And you may listen, but do you hear?

People of Rosemary Hills, it is time to hear. It is time to hearken. Hearken. I believe in your ears. Wim Faros sang for you. You didn’t know, but he will sing for you again. He has been lost in the attic, but now he is found. And maybe, [sighs] I don’t know. Maybe… maybe you’ve been lost in the attic too. There was greatness in our midst, transcendence, eccentricity, nuance. I’m Deirdre Gardner, and I believe that when a tree falls in a forest, it makes a sound. And i’m inviting you to try, to truly hear, and to remember. So stay tuned for my next episode when that music, lost but now found, will be born again straight into your ears. When you hear the first track from Wim Faros’ debut concert. The first track, perhaps, of the rest of your life.

This has been the inaugural episode of the first and only show in the nation dedicated to the music and legacy of Wim Faros. Thank you for listening. If you have any information about Wim Faros that you think should be shared with our listeners, or if you own a working cassette tape player, do not hesitate to contact me. Um, I, I guess for now you shoud just ca- um email me at ddg at.. no let’s not do that um, i’ll create, I’ll create a new, yes you can contact me at wimfaros@aol… Actually no. please contact itmakesasound@aol.com. Thank you. I’m Deirdre Gardner. Til next time.

 [windchime]

“It Makes a Sound” is created and written by Jacquelyn Landgraf. Co-directed by Jacquelyn Landgraf and Anya Saffir. Sound design and engineering by me, Vincent Cacchione. Original music Nate Weida. With Jacquelyn Landgraf as Deirdre Gardner and featuring Annie Golden as the voice from downstairs. It Makes a Sound is a Night Vale Presents production. For more information on this show and other Night Vale podcasts, go to nightvalepresents.com. We hope you’ll rate and review “It Makes a Sound” on Apple Podcasts, and that you’ll tell your friends and all sorts of other humans to listen to the show, to hearken to the trees. And remember Wim Faros.

[ardenvalee]

Steve Sanfield is a great haiku master. He lives in the country with Sarah, his beautiful wife, and he writes about the small things which stand for all things. Kyozan Joshu Roshi, who has brought hundreds of monks to a full awakening, addresses the simultaneous expansion and contraction of the cosmos. I go on and on about a noble young woman who unfastened her jeans in the front seat of my jeep and let me touch the source of life because I was so far from it. I’ve got to tell you, friends, I prefer my stuff to theirs.

Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen.

[konmarkimageswords]

Pairing contemporary haiku by poets from around the world with classical Japanese haiku, The Awakened One offers us a poetic dialogue on the nature of awareness across culture and time. Modern haikuists from the UK, the US, Croatia, India, Nigeria and a dozen other countries converse via haiku with Japanese masters, like Basho, Issa and Buson, sharing moments of insight expressed in poetry of a single breath.

https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/blog/2021/08/27/new-book-the-awakened-one/

https://www.amazon.com/Awakened-One-Buddha-Themed-Haiku-Around-ebook/dp/B09DB4QG36

[easkyrah]

Can you talk about your writing process? Do you rely on music a lot? Do you need silence and alone time or are you okay writing with people and things moving/going on around you? Paper vs typing?

Hey there! I’m so sorry this is late. I had a draft, but I accidentally closed the tab, and could not muster enough energy to rewrite what I had beforehand. I even had a fancy haiku that served as a parody to my own thoughts in the tinkering, but it was cringe-worthy, and a piece of me is glad the evidence vanished.

Soo. My writing process…if it could even be considered a process…I present to you Ea Skyrah’s Lousy Attempt to Do the Justice Requested. Mind you I’ve just consumed a Starbuck’s Venti green tea frappuccino, McDonald’s $1 large vanilla coffee, and five homemade sugar cookies.

Do I rely on music a lot? Short answer: yes. Long answer: it depends on my mood and the current atmosphere in my environment that surrounds my tormented mind; if I am cooped up in my room with just my notepad, I’ll sketch down random details strung along from the imagination with my eyes closed—in such scenario, I do not listen to music, and instead allow scenes run rampant and do their thing; however, if I’m on my computer procrastinating my latest assignment, there’s high chances Pandora’s playing in the background and a part of my brain’s tapping out a tune of action—in most cases, I stop the assignment I’m working on and open up a new tab, cranking up the volume, allowing the music flesh together with words.

In the latter scenario, if I lose myself in the writing, I end up writing around an average of seven full-fledged pages. However, if the assignment’s due date presses severely in my head, the fic churns out to be choppy and half strewn messily. Most ideas in my stories come from dreams: I either sleep vividly, shuddering and shivering in my sheets, or like The Mummy, dormant, but soon to be awaken. Here, I’ll force myself to wake up and jot down certain ideas or scenery onto the nearest note pad, then fall back into the pillows.

Sometimes I try to take five minutes of my day and sit in solitude in a sanctuary such as my room, and close my eyes. I absolutely do not, under any circumstances, force myself to think of a certain continuation. Instead, I allow the imagination to wash over me, and usually scenes from my most recent dream continues to unravel.

If I plan on killing a fic and writing down a huge amount, I do need alone time and music playing in the background. If there’s noises or distractions, I end up planning the backbone of an fic, which tends to be quite pointless for me, as when I write, the scenes follow their own path, the characters choosing their own fate last minute. I’m never the one with the final outcome in the scheme of things: the words have their own will I narrate.

When writing large amounts, I end up typing on the computer. However, most of my ideas string along jotted down on posted notes or scribbled in my notebooks. I have separate pages for quotes I’ve imagined characters spewing and others reserved for single plots. In most cases, I flip through these pages, and I find motivation/inspiration from one of the lines, and turn them into a full fic. This goes hand in hand with the current emotion boiling up inside of me, fueling the writing.

Writing’s my outlet when I’m done with reality and want to take a step back. That’s why most pieces turn out to be fantasy, sci-fi, or just AU’s in general. It’s also a way so that I don’t take out my anger on someone or something. It’s more satisfying to have readers feel the emotions from words glanced over than physically plowed.

My ultimate goal in writing amounts to be able to write without depending on my steaming emotions. Whatever emotion boils the most pops up the the surface, and I grab onto it, chewing it away. When it’s fully consumed, I’m left sitting there empty, and discard the fic. The fics published here equal the ones where my emotions have simmered long enough that I could finish through the end. It’s also why I have exactly 35 saved and unfinished outlines on other docs.

When writing, each character must have a vendetta, which is a strong word. Whether it’s wanting to pee or save the world, the drive must be there. I usually have one scene or idea planned in mind, and that exact motivation from the character branches out the story. That’s usually why I ask for prompts, and combine the multitude of ideas, including my own, so a blurred plot shapes the slowly blooming fic.

A personal problem of mine, mixed with maladaptive daydreaming, is that I cannot stay focused long. The essential productive time ranges from 40 to 120 minutes. I cannot last 10 solid minutes without needing a break. Whether it’s doing something I enjoy, such as playing the piano, to yes, doing something I despise, such as cramming in for the next test, I cannot force myself to sit at the table lest I stare at pages and process anything.

Writing’s about the only exception. Sometimes I can write for three hours straight (the longest record I have so far) and spill my soul onto a paper and into a screen, or yes, just three minutes of venting out a character’s rant. In the latter case, when dialogue and world building fail me, I take a break, which varies from running to chasing my cats around the house. On my run, a character runs alongside me, an array of blades strapped to the skin, clouds of cold air escaping from the lips. Attempting to catch my cats, a character sneezes, and collapses onto the floor, a severe allergic reaction on the way. Body already home to a parasite, the cat’s hair serves as the last straw, and the character convulses on my tiles, a part of me watching, and unable to do anything.

Wherever I am, whenever I am, a part of my brain’s in a separate world. You’d think that with this, I’d be able to write forever, but capturing all the scenes torment me. Do I want to keep it? Where would it fit? Should I spin it off? It’s how I roll and keep rolling, without that cliff in sight. Even when I’m taking the SAT, a piece of my brain’s shouting down my spine, screaming at the shade tossed during the Lincoln-Douglass debates.

I’m still learning how to control that facet forever flopping around in me. But there’s one thing I can say for sure: control the emotions. If you cannot master that, then your writing’s intentions will trail off into the web of wasted words. All my published fics are the first draft, and I don’t plan on editing them anytime soon. And that’s because the emotions elicited are there, and that’s my first goal. Use the environment, the characters, the agendas, all tools up for grabs, and spin them into your own web. You, the spider, craft the silk, your words. The insects, your readers, must fall enthralled into your setting. The emotions are the facets that choke and slowly trap your readers. You don’t let them go—because the emotions must eat them up.

I do hope that helps @flannelandsarcasm! Let me know if you have any other questions or clarifications since I’m just a mess all of the place ^.^

[clausvonbohlen]

My Zen Rakusu

After three months investigating plant medicines in the Amazon, I flew to Japan with my friend S. My first visit was back in 2009, also with S, who lived there in his teens and speaks fluent Japanese. On that occasion we visited the ancient monastery complex of Koya-san, in the mountains south of Osaka. It was winter, and snowing, and I remember watching a monk sweeping the entrance to one of the monastery buildings. He did it so beautifully, and seemed so at peace with himself and the world, that I resolved that one day I too would visit a monastery in Japan and participate in monastic life. This trip to Japan, which would coincide with sakura – the cherry blossom period – seemed like the right moment, and a good way to consolidate my recent experiences.

  Since returning from that first visit in 2009, I have become increasingly fascinated by Zen. At that time I was living in San Francisco. I read Kerouac’s ‘Dharma Bums’, and I followed in his footsteps by climbing up Matterhorn Peak in the Hoover Wilderness. I read D. T. Suzuki, and I tried to get to grips with haikus and koans. I read John Welwood’s ‘Gradual Awakening’, and I was very struck by his description of a meeting with the Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Welwood wrote:

 ‘I remember once walking into a room for an interview with him and being astounded by the vast space that seemed to radiate from him in all directions. It felt as though the roof and walls of the room had been blown out. Never having experienced anything like that before, I found it tremendously magnetic.’

 In addition to Zen, Japan has also provided me with both the most and least romantic experiences of my life. The former happened on that first visit in 2009, on a freezing night in Tokyo, in an all night florist’s. I met a gentle lost American girl, and paid for her flowers, and we walked for a while together and parted company on a windy street corner. We said goodbye with tears in our eyes, maybe because of the wind, but also because of the transience of life, and the other outcomes almost possible but not, and the things unsaid and maybe unsayable.

  The least romantic experience happened on a visit a couple of years ago, also in Tokyo, at the tail end of a long and humid summer. I must have been spiked with Rohypnol, or a similar dissociative ‘predator’ drug, since I have almost no memory of the night, something that has never happened to me before. The same thing happened to the friend I was with, and we later read online warnings from the US embassy about Nigerians in that area of Tokyo who were known for these nefarious activities. The drugs don’t knock you out, but they make you immensely suggestible; the snippets of memory I do have are of walking to numerous cash machines, accompanied by my new Nigerian ‘friends’; exceeding the withdrawal limit on all my bank cards (as I later pieced together from the receipts I found screwed up in my pockets); paying for large quantities of alcohol in a succession of seedy bars; and canoodling with two Columbian girls who, in retrospect, were almost certainly not the sweet, unbiased, and reciprocally enamoured civilians that I assumed at the time.  And then coming home the next day, rather dazed, with a wallet mysteriously empty not just of Yen, but of all the foreign currencies too.

  On that visit two years ago, I also went to Kanazawa, a city on the west coast about halfway between Kyoto and Tokyo. I fell in love with Kanazawa: it is less touristy than other places, boasts the Kenrokuen gardens – the most beautiful Japanese gardens I have ever seen -  as well as the D. T. Suzuki museum, whose two or three exhibits are not nearly as significant as the building’s clean lines, contrasting textures and calming use of space.

                   D.T. Suzuki museum in Kanazawa.

But above all, I fell in love with Kanazawa’s 1950′s American aesthetic, the kind of thing that Kerouac would have seen during his travels back and forth across America. And the light is reminiscent of Edward Hopper’s magnificent, lonely, brave paintings from the same period.

         Kanazawa, oddly reminiscent of Kerouac’s America.

I always wanted to return to Kanazawa, and I was very happy to discover that there is a Zen temple in Kanazawa that hosts visitors. I found an email address for the Guestmaster and wrote to him. My email went unanswered, so I wrote again, and again. I was not dismayed, since I knew of the Zen tradition in which an aspirant for instruction is turned away by the Master the first three times, though he should be accepted on the fourth. This proves that the aspirant is serious. In addition, a Master should always be asked to teach, rather than offer to do so; presumably, this ensures that the teaching is given for the right reasons, and not to inflate the teacher’s ego, or win fame.

  However, the Guestmaster never answered my emails, so I asked S to accompany me to the monastery in order to present my request in person, and in Japanese.  We stopped in Kanazawa on our way from Kyoto to Tokyo.

  Kyoto abounds with Zen temples and gardens, and we had visited a number of them. They are small, beautifully maintained, but also busy, and you have to pay to enter each one. Daijoji Temple in Kanazawa, by contrast, was a much bigger place, surrounded by tombstones on a wooded hill on the outskirts of town, with a view of the distant ocean. Enormous old trees cast dappled shade and created the sense of peace that I remembered from my visit to snowy Koya-san, where I had seen the sweeping monk. The huge and imposing red entrance gate was open, so we entered the temple enclosure and wandered down ancient wooden colonnades and past ornate Buddhist warrior carvings. There was no one around, and it was  unnerving, but also magical, to be able to explore this space all by ourselves.

                      Daijoji Temple, Kanazawa

Eventually we found a monk who was in the middle of performing his chores with a dishcloth tied round his head. S explained my request. The monk looked very surprised. Another, chubbier monk then arrived. He was more senior, and S repeated the request, adding that I had already emailed three times to the Guestmaster. This caused both monks some embarrassment. The chubby one disappeared for a while. On his return he explained that if I were to stay for a week, as I was hoping, then my visit would coincide with ‘seishin’, the intense five day period of meditation that happens once a month. Would that be ok? I tried to appear confident and said that it would. In that case, they said, they would present my request to the abbot, and we should telephone the monastery that evening to hear the result.

  Back in our hotel, I was feeling nervous, so I went to the sauna and watched a sumo match on the tv in there, alongside a lot of elderly Japanese men. On returning to our room, S informed me that my request had been accepted. I was jubilant, though at the time I didn’t fully realize what I had committed to.

  When I returned to the temple a few days later, I was greeted by Godo Roshi, the monk in charge of novices, and the only one who spoke some English. I picked up my futon and followed Godo Roshi down a series of paper-paneled corridors - confusing since the doors and panels look the same  – to my room, a small empty space enclosed by more paper panels. On the way, I had to change from outdoor shoes to sandals to slippers and finally to socks, an action that I would end up repeating countless times every day. On this first occasion, I was paid the only verbal compliment that I was to receive all week: when I placed my slippers on their shelf, Godo Roshi nodded his approval and said, ‘Very elegant.’

  I had been given a timetable as well as a short book on Zen, in English. The timetable came as a bit of a shock. Every moment of the day was accounted for, down to five minute segments. I would have to be up at 4.30am every morning for an hour of seated meditation (zazen) in the the zendo, followed by half an hour of sutra chanting in the main hall, then an hour of floor cleaning, then breakfast at 7am, a brief rest, and 10 more sessions of zazen throughout the rest of the day, alternating with more chores and brief rest or study periods.

  Despite going to bed early (around 10), the mornings were tough. My visit had coincided with a cold snap. The temperature dropped to 3 degrees at night, and it was no warmer inside the monastery than out. By day, when the sun shone, it was in fact colder inside. And I was not allowed to wear either a hat inside, or socks inside in certain parts of the building, so it was often a struggle to keep warm.

  I found mealtimes to be more challenging than the sessions in the zendo. Zen is very highly codified, nowhere more so than during meals. There are precise actions to be repeated every time, and I am sure there were many more of which I was unaware. Meals are the same every day: gruel for breakfast, rice with sides for lunch and for dinner. The bowls have to be placed in the correct formation and chopsticks angled in the right directions to accompany each phase of the meal. Food has to be wolfed down at lightening speed. This is partly because it is rude to finish after the abbot (who, despite being ancient, is a champion speed eater), but the deeper reason is so as to avoid developing an attachment to the pleasure of taste.

  I found it very hard to wolf down rice using chopsticks. I was invariably the last to finish, and although the other monks were never so impolite as to stare at me, it is nevertheless disconcerting to be stuffing your cheeks like a chipmunk while 8 impassive Zen monks sit around you, models of stony-faced silence.

  At the end of the meal, you have to leave two slices of horseradish in the top left hand bowl of the four in front of you. Hot water is poured into that bowl and you use the horseradish slices to mop the inside, pushing them around with your chopsticks and thereby cleaning the bowl. The water and horseradish slices are then poured into the other three bowls, in the right order of course, and finally the resulting liquid is swallowed. It doesn’t taste bad, and obviates the need for all but the most superficial washing up, which is performed in a similarly ritualized way by the novices and junior monks. At the end, you stand in a circle and say, utz gari sama desda, which means, thank you for your work.

  This may all sound fairly torturous, and in many ways, it was. And yet, after a few days, I found myself feeling more relaxed, and happier, than I have for a long time. In part, I am sure this had to do with the digital detox - the blissful escape from constant connectivity. The fact that every moment of the day was accounted for, and there were no choices or decisions to be made, also contributed to an increasingly deep sense of tranquility.

  Zazen itself is very simple, there is only one instruction: just sit. Do not think. Do not worry. Do not plan. Do not feel regrets. Just sit, in the correct posture, and observe. Do not follow thoughts, or try to block them out. Watch them arise, and let go of them. It sounds so easy, but of course, it is not.

  The other forms of meditation I have encountered have focused on an object, such as the breath, or a mantra, or a particular emotion. But zazen, with its emphasis on not doing anything, seemed particularly beneficial for me, given the restlessness of my mind.

  Of course, without any mental discipline at all, a session of zazen is likely to descend into one long reverie. But in Zen, I think that the discipline comes not from the meditation itself, but rather from every other aspect of life. That is why everything is so highly ritualized. You constantly have to focus – on how to change your footwear, how to eat, how to wash up. Mental discipline is learned through the hundred thousand other aspects of daily life, so you are in a much better position to truly ‘just sit’ when it is time to meditate.

  That is one very sensible aspect of Zen. Another is that you always meditate with your eyes open, though unfocussed; it is very hard to fall asleep when your eyes are open. And also, sessions only last 50 minutes, which is about the maximum concentration span for most people. Zazen is followed by kinshin, a few minutes of very slow walking meditation. It is a good way to finish.

  After the first morning session (in the dark), and the sutra chanting (a rather obscure business, and the most highly ritualized of all), my duty was to mop the long corridor, using a wet rag. It was a very simple task, and of course a repetitive one, though doing it well, and elegantly, was actually rewarding. And this is another aspect of Zen: you do things for their own sake, and not as a means to an end. That is what makes them meaningful. And that is also the key to unlocking Japanese culture, which can often appear so obscure. Everything is done to the highest possible level, because that gives it meaning.

  As I mopped the floor in my bare feet, and with my breath condensing in the cold air, I was surprised to be feeling content and at peace with the world. The German words ’Arbeit Macht Frei’  (work makes you free) came to mind. Yes, there was a form of liberation in what I was doing. It was so menial a chore, and yet I was happy. There was nothing to desire, and no choices to be made; where were the causes of suffering? But then, with a jolt, I remembered where those three words had been most famously displayed: above the entrance gate to Auschwitz. How utterly incongruous, a Buddhist truth taken up by a concentration camp. The monastery was nothing like a concentration camp, and it was certainly strange that a truth hidden in those words should crystallize for me here.

                              *

  That first evening a girl called Aida, from Azerbaijan, passed by the monastery to explain a few things to me. Aida spent 6 years in the monastery but is now teaching Japanese culture at Kanazawa university. She is a true polymath. In order to be able to stay in Japan, she had needed a student visa, and so, with no prior knowledge of Japanese, she had done PhD in neuroscience, in Japanese. She was also fluent in Russian, Arabic, Turkish, English and Spanish, as well as Azerbaijani.

  A few days later, with Aida as interpreter, I had my first formal interview with the abbot. He presented me with my own rakusu, the Zen Buddhist bib - sewn together from 16 or more strips of cloth - that is worn around the neck. The rakusu represents lay ordination. On the inside, the bearer’s name and status is painted in elegant calligraphic kanji, using jet black ink on a white silk backing. The abbot turned the bib around, and Aida translated the writing: Claus von Bohlen, London representative of the World Zen Centre based at Daijoji Temple, Kanazawa.

 A Zen monk wearing his rakusu

Aida was laughing a lot. Did it strike her as so ridiculous, or was her bright humour the result of 6 years in a Zen monastery? I never found out. She showed me how to wear the rakusu, and how to fold it and replace it in its silk envelope – predictably complicated. Then she asked me how I felt.

  ‘Elevated,’ I said. Aida translated. The abbot nodded.

  I was to see Aida on two more occasions, and it was a relief to be able to ask her some more detailed questions. My interactions with the other monks were very basic. The monk in charge of my training spoke no English at all. On a number of occasions, he needed to reprimand me (most severely, when I arrived one minute late for my solitary evening meditation session). He relied on the voice activated version of google (mis-)translate, with frequently bizarre results. He said something in Japanese into his phone, and then held it towards my ear: ‘Do not shit on the elephant. Everything is training.’

  The chubby monk whom I had met on my first visit to the monastery was a very kind man. I think he felt sorry for me because I had to request half-portions in order to finish my meals on time.  In the evenings, he occasionally passed by my cell to present me with biscuits or the peculiar chewy rice cakes called mochi.

  When it came to the meditation itself, no instruction was given. The book was a help, as was one comment that the chubby monk made: ‘Do not do zazen. Be zazen.’

  And this, to me, is the endless fascination of Zen. So simple, and yet so very difficult. Just sit. Be zazen. And the truisms: wherever you go, there you are… So obvious, and yet how easy it is to think that one can run away from troubles, when in reality we carry most of our suffering around with us. And then the haikus, so mundane, and yet they imply the whole world by its absence, in the same way that the negative spaces in a drawing create the solid image. So very elliptical, so very Japanese.

  My favourite, I think, is by the 19th century poet Masaoka Shiki:

 Butterfly asleep on a stone

You must surely be dreaming

Of the sad life of me.

 Zen is profoundly artistic: it is about harmony, and beauty, about doing things for their own sake, and also about impermanence and transience and time’s inexorable decay. From the perspective of Zen, everything can be an object of meditation, nature above all, most famously in the form of cherry blossoms and the turning of the leaves in autumn. They all bring home the fundamental truth of impermanence, and so much of human suffering stems from the attempt to escape or repress that truth.

 On one or two occasions during zazen, I experienced moments without thought - the spaces between thoughts. Of course, as soon as I became aware of it, then the unverbalised moment was lost and thought once again entered the picture. But those few moments consisted of pure awareness, pure consciousness without objects or boundaries. They made me realise that all my life I have seen the world from one perspective, or in one dimension; this felt like an entirely different vantage point, a whole new dimension, and one that dwarfs all that I have known up until now. They were just glimpses, but they were sufficient for me to understand why a person might devote their entire life to the practice of Zen.

 These were my thoughts as I left the monastery. The cold snap had passed, the breeze was a caress, and the cherry blossoms were just on the point of exploding like pink powder puffs in the Kenrokuen gardens. And I was homeward bound.

                                  *

 Back in the UK, I stuffed all my clothes into the washing machine. As Jack Kornfeld said, ‘After the ecstasy, the laundry.’ But in doing so, I overlooked the black silk envelope that contained my Zen rakusu, and it also went into the machine.

  When I subsequently took the rakusu out of the washing machine, I saw to my horror that the beautiful calligraphy bearing my name had almost been washed out of the white silk lining. My heart sunk. I had worn the rakusu for one of the most challenging weeks of my life. I was proud to have got through it, and proud of my official status as representative of the World Zen Centre. I cursed my stupidity, but the irritation sat like a stone in my chest.

 And then I realised how long the road is. This was suffering: my attachment to an object, to the status it conferred, and to an idea of myself. This was pride, and vanity, and desire, and all those emotions that cause suffering again and again. Sometimes desire can be satisfied, or pride validated, but the relief is only temporary, and the cessation of pain should not be confused with happiness.

 But is it so simple? Does attachment always cause suffering? And isn’t  suffering a part of what it means to be human, and to lead a full human life? Should we really aim not to feel attachment to our families and loved ones? These are difficult questions and I do not have the answers. I suspect that there is a middle way, a balance somewhere: it must be possible to love without clinging, to give without needing anything in return. But it is very hard. And like so much in this field, the balance is a delicate two-step, an oblique sideways glance: we find happiness when we cease to chase it; we alight upon one-pointed concentration when we stop trying to force it; and love is purest when it is based on surfeit and not on lack.

  That is what the laundry taught me.

[masterhaiku]

Haiku for the Inner Child

About the Inner Child Children are very powerful. Children posses an innate magic because they are so connected to the Divine. Every child is a blessing and a teacher from a higher realm. This is because most kids don’t have the life trauma and accumulation of experiences that have shaped their perception yet. Although parents, siblings, and surroundings shape how you view the world and your…

[char27martin]

Why I Write Poetry: Stuart Peacock

A few weeks ago, I posted about “Why I Write Poetry” and encouraged others to share their thoughts, stories, and experiences for future guest posts. I’ve already received so many, and I hope they keep coming in (details on how to contribute below). Thank you!

Today’s “Why I Write Poetry” post comes from Stuart Peacock, who says, “All in all, I write poetry because if I didn’t, my brain would have dissolved into a pile of goo under the weight of all the unexpressed words a long time ago.”

Stuart Peacock is an avid reader of literature and has been writing in some form or another since he was six years old. He was raised in Clacton-on-Sea, UK, and went on to receive a BA in English Literature at the University of Essex. He now works supporting individuals with autism, still writing whenever he can spare the time. His first collection of poems, The Awakening, is currently available in both paperback and e-book formats on Amazon. His favorite fiction writer is Margaret Atwood, and favorite poets include Baudelaire, Keats, Shelley, and Blake.

*****

Master Poetic Forms!

Learn how to write sestina, shadorma, haiku, monotetra, golden shovel, and more with The Writer’s Digest Guide to Poetic Forms, by Robert Lee Brewer.

This e-book covers more than 40 poetic forms and shares examples to illustrate how each form works. Discover a new universe of poetic possibilities and apply it to your poetry today!

Click to continue.

*****

Why I Write Poetry: Stuart Peacock

Stuart Peacock

I’ve always found myself drawn to reading poetry–whether the poem is delivering a deeply serious message, or simply a lighthearted laundry list of words arranged in such a way to make people laugh. Deciphering the meaning behind more mystic, cryptic poems is also something I find enjoyable–as if I’m cracking the poet’s secret code and being let into the state of mind that produced those stirring words.

As well as reading it, writing poetry was something I just naturally found myself doing from a young age. In the broadest sense, I suppose one reason I write poetry is it acts as a sort of therapy, a necessary release of the thoughts constantly whirring in my brain, be they good or bad.

Anxiety is something I have always struggled with in my day-to-day life, and sometimes the dreaded black dog of depression rears his ugly head as well. Writing poetry allows me to give shape and form to this inner turmoil, which gives me the freedom to break away from it once it’s there on paper in black and white. Not that I only write on exclusively negative feelings.

Sometimes I feel in a cheeky mood and write something that pokes fun at the ridiculousness of everyday life. Other times, the words spark from a fond memory, or people and places encountered in my life will provide the theme. I suppose when you come right down to it, it’s simply a compulsion in my mind, the writer’s instinct–I have to write these thoughts down and arrange them into their appropriate rhythm (it probably helps that I am a sucker for wordplay and alliteration as well).

I also want others to read my work and enjoy the words for themselves–and find their own meaning from it, even if it’s one I hadn’t necessarily intended. That is the great thing about poetry: One pair of eyes can view the words one way, while another may see them completely different.

If I know someone found the poem relatable, or it has spoken to them in some way, I really do get a very warm feeling and sense of accomplishment. Conversely, if someone can’t figure out just what the hell I’m even talking about, at least I’ve got them thinking–frustration and befuddlement are perfectly valid responses as well!

All in all, I write poetry because if I didn’t, my brain would have dissolved into a pile of goo under the weight of all the unexpressed words a long time ago. Poetry is a much needed channeling of all the constant chattering in my head, and once it’s down on paper, they are my words. I did that. And that is one of the best feelings in the world.

*****

If you’d like to share why you write poetry, please send an e-mail to robert.brewer@fwmedia.com with a 300-500 word personal essay that shares why you write poetry. It can be serious, happy, sad, silly–whatever poetry means for you. And be sure to include your preferred bio (50-100 words) and head shot. If I like what you send, I’ll include it as a future guest post on the blog.

*****

Find more poetic posts here:

10 Best Poetry Podcasts for Poets.

Cywydd Llosgyrnach: Poetic Form.

Jaswinder Bolina: Poet Interview.

The post Why I Write Poetry: Stuart Peacock appeared first on WritersDigest.com.

from Writing Editor Blogs – WritersDigest.com http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/stuart-peacock

[alvinvalleyhaiku-blog]

New Utopia - Rich Haiku Poems With Diversity of Religious Awareness

Symbolisms and the wonderful terms concerning the Bodhi Tree would be the basis for this fantastic guide- New Utopia by Kumar. It will be constant throughout this page’s content. The substance of the concept begins with the idea of End-Of Summertime by Ban'ya Natsuishi, using the Countless Helix outlines by Sayumi Kamakura, and also Adam Donaldson Powell's illustrious terms articulated within the foreword.

The problems of those three graceful leaders set the pace for this phenomenal book of haiku. The audience will get to see the pages comprising contemporary poetry using literary activity. The combined elegance of Godis organic development and the interrelationship of the situation at the workplace, are summarized in a great way between inspiring traces of poems within this guide. It is innovative and you must-read it to see it!

This book's fundamental religious concept cuts over the spectral range of faith. One has the capacity to look for a mixing of Buddhism and Christianity . Consider this haiku for instance: "dove in a backyard surrounded / lifestyles in lord's temple [ the Temple of Lord ] : mary [Virgin Mary]." (The haiku poetry has traditionally been created in lower-case as per the traditional-style of haiku poetry publishing.) While John the Baptist stands within the water, the dove like an image of peace may be the mother of God. The Virgin Mary may be God’s mother within the bible. But this haiku's substance talks about the Master's Forehead.

On one hand, Buddha and the Bodhi tree reveal decades of battling the Buddha. Consequently, within this book of poems, we look for a mixture of Christianity and Buddhism within the language of composition.

Managing the center of this trip we discover another haiku to think about "buddha [Buddha] suffers / christ [Jesus] suffers / their existence [lives] saturated in crosses." Here, we look for a comparative evaluation of Buddha and Christ. Suffering is shown within their lifestyles along with the hardships they suffered for mankind. The vocabulary of concept within this guide reflects upon faith in an honest and religious approach. Hence, copying of the substance of Buddha and God in a modern fashion is done.

Finally, using the spirituality of haiku within the Bodhi tree; connecting with "creative chicken sounds inside the tree"; to "viewing an orphan kid's cheek"; then "knowledge the mission of the butterfly for nectar," truly display the substance of the haiku poems.

One mustn't use references to lookup the meaning of the terms for clarification and further knowledge. That is a great haiku guide for everybody to view with pleasure and to smile.

John S. Spence, Sr. (aka "Epulaeryu Grasp"), published "The Awakened One Poetics" (2009). It was printed in eight languages, "A Trilogy of Composition, Writing and Ideas for that Brain, Body and Spirit," and "Trilogy Occasions for that Brain, Body and Spirit."