02 The Daily Read:

… yesterday i found and downloaded a book on animals in Issa’s poetry… i was expecting a book about animals as symbols of the culture… it turned out to be a book about animal ethics and what Issa has to teach us about treatment of animals… i believe that animals feel and think more than commonly given credit for, that one should always handle them with respect… i regret killing ants on the kitchen counter… i cause to be killed, or in some cases, kill animals to eat… so i am not that interested in the idea that we should never kill animals, that it is unethical to do so…

… Issa was a Buddhist¹, and worried about the karma of killing insects, yet he did kill insects… my perception is that Buddhism respects all life…

… nature is constructed such that one animal is food for another… it’s a cycle of life… humans perhaps have reached the place where they think about the consequences of their actions and are capable of offering respect to animals, even as they kill them… Native Americans are thought by many to have had this down… one takes only what one needs to survive… one takes with honor and respect… one gives thanks for what one is able to take… this is an ethics of resource treatment i can get behind… i am mindful of the book Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer in which the Native American attitude towards natural resources is laid out in full…

02 The Daily Read:

The Essential Haiku, edited by Robert Hass, translations by Hass and others…

… Issa…

… todays set of poems are not as remarkable to me as yesterday’s, or are they?… they seem more pedestrian, telling flies to relax and make love (the idea is kind of gross), since the poet is going out (and therefor does not have to be annoyed by the flies, their soul (i reread and think to correct the spelling and then decide the current spelling has more poetic depth) purpose as far as most humans are concerned)…

… another poem about a counting the flea bites on her baby as she nurses them…

… a poem about paying a dime to look through a telescope, were telescopes even around in Issa’s time?… yes, invented more than 150 years before his birth… and wouldn’t ten cents have been rather dear for a look through a telescope at the time?… i wonder if Hass has updated the pricing to make the poem more relatable?… or course today it would be a dollar…

… another poem about a snail being stripped to the waist in the moonlight… as with any animal in Haiku, one has to look up it’s possible cultural significance… snails are a symbol of fertility, tolerance and perseverance… also of duality because of their hermaphrodite nature¹… would this have been known in Issa’s time?…

… after some searching, an article that may explain the stripped to the waist reference in the snail Haiku… possibly referring to Saze Oni, a mythical snail creature that could shape shift into a beautiful woman… they bedeviled sailors much like the Sirens of Greek mythology²… i don’t know if this has anything to do with the snail poem…

… it is interesting that the reading of a small number of Haiku can generate so much additional reading as i look to see if their are meanings and allusions hidden from me, a Japanese culture outsider… much of the time there is…

02 The Daily Read:

Issa haiku…

… a remarkable set of poems this morning, of the six i read, all six stand out for one reason or another…

… the first pictures a dry river bed seen by the light of a lightning strike… a river bed that is about to flow with water again… a creative mind about to be released into creating by a powerful experience… a poem about summer rains?… where i live, rivers are more likely to be dry in the summer… thunderstorms and heavy downpours are more likely then too… there is also the threat of flash flooding… to much water in too little time…

… the second begs a flea not to jump, as the river is where it will likely land… i suppose it is very Buddhist to wish continued health and well being on even a lowly “nuisance” creature… i would have flicked it to it’s drowning death… of course, the poem might also be about undertaking challenges that are too big, perhaps the flea is the novice, beginner mind, that wishes to forge ahead too quickly and will be drowned if it does?…

… the third talks about how being in this world is like walking on the roof of hell, distracted by the lovely yellow flowers… a poem about not being willing to do the hard work of facing all aspects of one’s reality?… of not admitting the horrors of life which abound… of only being able to acknowledge the pleasures of life, superficial as they may be…

… the fourth is about being naked on a naked horse riding through the rain… now there is a foundational nature image… i read that the Japanese worshipped the horse as a god and “believed that the “divine spirit” appeared in the human world on horseback”¹… i also read that the horse is very important in Buddhism… Siddhartha², the future Buddha, had a white horse that was his favorite and which transported him when he escaped from palace life and began the journey of becoming a spiritual leader… and so, the image of naked human on naked horse in the rain is a deeply spiritual image?…

… the fifth is about a fly wringing its front and hind legs, begging not to be killed… again, i would struggle to be a Buddhist in such a situation…

… and the sixth is about a cat frolicking on a scale and weighing itself… this catches my attention because i wonder what sort of scale would have been in use during Issa’s lifetime?…

02 Meditations:

Issa haiku…

… the one that catches my attention this morning is about being under a cherry tree and finding it strange to be alive… cherry blossoms are valued in Japan for there ephemeral nature, flowering briefly and gloriously, gone too soon¹… like life itself…

… Issa knows the lessons the cherry tree teaches, that life is brief and one needs to be alive to it… to find existence strange at any moment in time and space is being alive to it…

… this will be a bit of a non sequitur, but in the film Black Widow, the theme of family is the unifying good… family of Avengers, family, even make believe family, of Russian spies… family transcends everything…

… i find in literature and life, again and again, that what is truly important are the simple things… home, family, being alive to nature and life… all these things can be had and enjoyed for free (or little cost) as long as basic necessities are met… we are constantly being distracted from these core simple things, especially by the consumer culture we live in, where things upon things are the symbol of a good life… even as aware of this as i am, i struggle to execute, have never gotten close to centering my life around the simple pleasures…

… family is a particular challenge for me… my birth family is difficult and scattered to three of the four corners of the continent, my in law family is a good one, but not the family i grew up with… i have never had children, just wife, dogs and cats, which do teach me many things, including the brevity of life…

… as i write this, an epiphany of sorts… living well along the lines of simple pleasures is anti-market, anti-capitalist… it’s generally anti most forms of economic organization… it is rigorously repressed as a way to conduct one’s life…

02 Meditations:

The haiku of Issa…

… the poem that stand out today is about a snail climbing Mt. Fuji… the poet backs the snails endeavor but urges slow and steady… the apparent futility of a snail climbing a mountain is the poem’s pivot point… the snail might be viewed as the poet and climbing the mountain a spiritual quest… does the poet remind themselves that slow and steady is the way to go?…

… another poem about an Oriole singing at midday…

Image in the Public Domain

… the Black-naped oriole is the only oriole extant in Japan, and is a relatively rare sighting… it is not related to orioles of Europe and the United States…

… so, that an oriole is present and singing at mid day next to a river, an exceptional moment?… there doesn’t seem to be symbolism beyond that… birds in general are related to death and rebirth, as they are in many cultures, but no special significance seems to be attached to the Black-naped oriole…

… so, an Oriole singing at midday while the river flows quietly is perhaps a contemplation of middle aged life…

… the Oriole seems to be more important in Chinese culture…

… and then i learn that the Japanese have adopted the Chinese character for Oriole to represent the Bush Warbler, their equivalent to the Black-naped oriole… both birds have beautiful songs and both birds herald spring… so, it is possible that the oriole in the poem is a bush warbler… and the poem gets seasonal reference by its presence…