the earth from space
our hopes and dreams
veiled in blue
-Simon Hanson
Born in a seaside suburb of Adelaide South Australia, I’d find it romantic to think my first breath was of sea air, but I suppose the hospital ventilation system had a bearing on that. I was not breathing at birth and had to be revived and have wondered since if this involved a glimpse backwards into eternity as a newborn’s near death experience might, I don’t know and don’t recall. Anyway, it will be a long story if I tell all from such an early time— though I imagine every moment in the journey is relevant.
The relevance of all experience extends beyond our own, we are immersed in a unity infinitely larger than ourselves. So much of what inspires me arises out of the beauties, struggles and sufferings of others, tempered by my hopes and dreams for us all. In similar vein much inspiration comes from the art of others; singers, musicians, dancers, comedians, thinkers, dreamers, athletes, writers of so many kinds… they so enrich the world. And the world itself is an endless source of revelation, everything teaches. We are made of all that is around us, immersed in humanity, past and present, and with all living things on this precious Earth and of the Universe as a whole, ever becoming…
We spring from Gaia and she from the Cosmic body— that’s a story I like anyway and one that informs my haiku in many ways. In this I incline to wonder and awe, to a sense of the Sacred that feels, in the words of Robert Frost, lovely, dark and deep. Presence is something to cherish though rarely attained fully— something to strive for. Here-in lies flow or the zone as is sometimes said, where creativity comes more easily. And what is creativity if not happening upon something new, a gift to the world. Perhaps it is in this that the value of art resides. Dabbling in haiku is one way of dancing with this— and I am grateful. Before the mystery one catches glimpses here and there of something gorgeous that glows and glitters in the darkness…
There are many aesthetic values worthy of admiration. But I am addicted to Beauty and am more than willing to be seduced by her charms. I am drawn to the eternal feminine— it’s just a concept I entertain without committing to belief— intimating something beyond concepts and words. What might be said of the Dao is not the Dao.
Nor am I inclined to easily distinguish nature from what is humanly made, this is another story I won’t go into here. As a lover of light and colour for example, the soft glow of neon on a misty night can excite me as much as a starry sky— and that is deeply on both counts.
The mystery transcends language and here the merit of brevity comes to the fore. It’s what we leave unsaid that is most crucial— the space we open for ourselves and others to dream in… others may unfold ‘our’ haiku in ways we might not imagine, if a haiku is any good, it grows beyond us in the hearts and imaginations of others. You understand I’m uncomfortable with talk of ‘others’, language can be as much an oppression as a liberation.
Approaching in some small degree the essence we hope to share— seeking insight and intimacy with the things around us; the birds, the trees, the boat rocking out on the bay, it is well to melt away our categories of separation, collapsing subject and object. How else might we come to write of things and happenings if we do not merge with them— in a universe that is conscious and whole there are no separate objects, only subjects, and that is ultimately singular.
Though of course I may be mistaken
tom clausen 