michael lambe's scrapbook

Last night Mewby and I rented this great movie about the 1935 debate team of historically all black Wiley College in Texas. Based on true events it depicts the efforts of educator Melvin B. Tolson to inspire his students through knowledge and training to challenge the discriminatory world of the Jim Crow south they have been brought up in. The movie does a great job of recreating the atmosphere of those times; the social upheavals, the class struggles, as well as the fight for racial equality and the general all-pervasive sense of fear that black people had to endure in the segregated south where lynching was all too common. Many of the characters in the movie are based on historical characters: 14 year-old debate team member  James L. Farmer, Jr. (Denzel Whitaker),  later went on to co-found C.O.R.E., the Congress of Racial Equality) and Tolson himself (played by Denzel Washington) was an  educator, columnist, social activist and politician. At the end of the movie we are told that he went on to become a world renowned poet. “Why have I never heard of him?” I thought to myself, and promptly stuck this volume on my amazon wishlist.

Altogether, this is a wonderful movie with outstanding performances and a palpable sense of tension and excitement throughout. The movie is also graced by the presence of two Oscar winners in Washington and Forest Whitaker. Very highly recommended!

Here are three haiku I wrote over winter vacation. My haiku mentor, Stephen Gill, seemed quite happy with when he saw them. It seems I am making progress.

This first one is an old memory stirred up when I was home:

peeling an orange -
across the hallway Daddy kneels
praying at his chair

I wrote that on my first morning back home. I woke up early through jet lag, and my mom, being a restless spirit, hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before so didn’t get up till late. This meant I had a long slow breakfast by myself in the kitchen, with my feet up on a heater, eating toast and oranges, drinking cup after cup of Yorkshire tea and reading Dharma Bums.

dark December dawn –
in my mother’s kitchen
tea and Kerouac

Chris Carver at work, had lent me Dharma Bums a couple of weeks before and I had taken it back with me to read on the journey. The bit I was reading that morning happened to be about Jack Kerouac hitchhiking all the way across America to his home town for Christmas, where he surprises his Mom in the kitchen and gives her a big hug. It’s a nice scene and it was timely reading it a couple of days before Christmas myself. Kerouac, one of the first people to popularize writing haiku in English, was by pure coincidence the topic of our first haiku class when I got back in January. Stephen, had decided to play us a recording of Mr. Kerouac reading his own poems. On the comments he made on the haiku I submitted, he asked me if I was telepathic.

The last one  I wrote a few days after my return to Kyoto. I woke up one morning at a ridiculously early time, and picking up Matteo Pistono’s In the Shadow of the Buddha, soon found myself lost in it.

sleepless reading –
under the kotatsu
dreams of Tibet

**********************

On October 22nd, I joined the Hailstone Haiku Circle’s composition stroll in Nara. The weather was temperamental, but we didn’t get a full downpour until the evening – once I’d gotten back to Kyoto – so we were lucky. Though the maple leaves hadn’t changed yet, the leaves of the 南京黄櫨 (Chinese tallow tree) had turned a beautiful crimson.

Plunging from the open grassy plain into primeval forest, we came upon a stream and Stephen Gill carefully placed some stones for the ladies to cross over.

Hesitant poets
cross the beck
on freshly-placed stones

Here in the woods we also encountered a stag who had somehow managed to avoid getting his antlers removed this year. The deer in Nara are quite unafraid of humans, and so to avoid having them injuring people their antlers are removed. This fellow is obviously faster or sneakier than most.

Here we are under a massive oak, descendant of oaks that have been here for thousands of years.

At Shinyakushiji we viewed 12 ancient statues of heavenly guardians, a big fat Buddha, and in the garden flowers like these:

Shinyakushiji -
a boy admires a girl
admiring Budhha

The persimmon trees in Nara were hung with luminous fruit… But I couldn’t help noticing the metal fencing and forsaken machinery – that was painted the same colour!

rusty ripe persimmon -
In the long grass
abandoned metal fences

Finally we returned to a cafe, where we had tea and delicious apple cake – and shared our haiku.

Finally something decent on the TV.

I was delighted that my own two offerings met with the others’ approval. And even more so that one of them made it onto the Hailstone website report. You can read some haiku by the other members and Stephen’s report there.

On the 24th & 25th of September Mewby and I joined the Hailstone Haiku Circle for their annual autumn haiku hike. The idea of a haiku hike being that you jot down the haiku that come to you as you are hiking through spectacular nature. This year the hike was quite a tough one: climbing Mount Tateyama in Toyama prefecture. The mountain is 3,015 m (9,892 ft) high, so no small feat for Mewby climbing it as she is extremely afraid of heights.

On the first day ten of us were driven in three cars (all praise to David McCullough, Hisashi Miyazaki and Stephen Gill for driving us) up to Toyama. After a lengthy journey we transferred to a cable car, and then a bus that drove us through a lovely national park, forested to begin with and then up into and beyond the clouds. Along the way, the bus slowed down so that we could see the Shomyo falls – the highest falls in Japan! I took a quick fuzzy pic out of the window with my i-phone:

Beyond the treeline we were treated to spectacular views of misty mountain slopes swooping down into a beautiful sea of clouds. Everybody on the bus was oohing and aahing at it but you’ll have to take my word for that as I failed to get a decent snap-shot.

And then we were off the bus and hiking up to our hostel. In the picture above you can see the road ahead of us, and if you notice Mewby (on the right) feeling inspired is scribbling a haiku in my notebook. The notebook incidentally was a gift from Stephen Gill which he bestowed, along with oranges, before our ascent. Here are some more pictures I took along the way. The path is beautifully cobbled and as Stephen said, looks very much like an old Roman road.

All of those pictures were taken with my i-phone as we were on the move. Once we reached the hostel though I whipped out my proper camera. The views were lovely and got lovelier as the sun went down.

After we’d had a good feed and some of the men had opened up the bottles of spirits they had brought along to loosen up our tongues, the haiku sharing session commenced. I’m pretty sure that Stephen will be posting the best of them on the Hailstone site in the near future. There were a couple of really nice ones from David as I remember and Miki and Atsushi had some good ones too. As for me well, I’d scribbled something along the way, but I wasn’t satisfied with it so I kept working on it, and working on it until…

…I still wasn’t satisfied with it. Anyway, my poems won’t get better if I don’t open them up to scrutiny I thought, so I opened my mouth to deliver my gentle poem on soft clouds and mountain tops – and at that moment two rather silly women came in from outside, sat down behind me, and started shrieking noisily about the cold. And they continued shrieking quite happily for some time about whatever other topic entered their heads. And wouldn’t stop. SHRIEKING. At the top of their piercing voices. So I found myself shouting rather than reciting the following words in an oddly inaproppriate tone of intense irritation:

gently on green slopes
cloud scraps drifting
into a hollow milk mist sea

Stephen wasn’t happy with the word “hollow”, but though I’m not so happy with the poem as a whole, I can’t think of a better word to describe the insubstantial quality of a sea of clouds so I’m (stubbornly) reluctant to let that “hollow” go. Anyway, some of the Japanese poets present put their heads together to translate it and it actually sounds much better in Japanese:

ゆるやかな緑の坂を
千切れ雲が漂う
空の乳海

Mewby also wrote a haiku, which she has given me permission to post here:

車窓から
色濃く流れる
季節かな

And here is Stephen’s translation:

From the carriage window
ah, the season of deepening colours
flowing by

That was Mewby’s very first haiku! Further challenges however, still lay ahead!

This is the mountain we had to climb the next morning.

It didn’t look like the top was that far away. But actually it was, and it took a good hour and a bit and a hard slog to get up there. Tateyama is actually considered one of the “three holy mountains” of Japan. So we made a point of getting a blessing at the summit shrine. Directly under heaven, we sat on loose cobbles as the shrine priest prayed over us. We learned later that those cobbles (some of them immense) had been brought there by pilgrims. It was a lovely ceremony. You’ll notice from the second picture in this next set that from the top you can actually see Mount Fuji (another holy mountain).

That wasn’t the end of our journey though. The tricky part was getting back down. Poor Mewby had a very hard time of it. But she kept going and eventually she got there and I think she felt a great sense of achievement having done so.
Here we all are at the bottom.

Finally though in tribute to brave Mewby, as my own haiku skills aren’t sufficient, I shall cheat and borrow the words of Mitsuo Aida instead.

only human
after all

it’s ok to stumble, isn’t it?
we are humans after all

I made these with the help of this neat little app that I’ve got on my i-phone. Good, aren’t they?

Bravo Mewby! And many thanks to Stephen, Atsushi, and Hisashi for organizing such an enjoyable and stimulating trip!

in Japanese,
to be filled with emotion is
written as “to feel and to move”

Update! The official report of the trip with more pictures and some very nice haiku is up on the Hailstone Haiku Circle site now! Click here: Autumn Haiku Hike to the Summit of Mt. Tateyama.

This is the cherry tree outside my school.

The same tree a few days later.

And today.

Despite some very windy weather the cherry blossom was fairly tenacious this year in Kyoto. Tonight’s heavy rain though, should finish off the stragglers….

Here’s a poem I read recently that I thought particularly beautiful:

Wisdom

As the blooming cherry flowers
Withered away yesterday
Everything in the world
Fades away
Someday and forever.

And today again
You cross the mountains of living
Carrying false dreams
Quite seriously.

(from Iroha – ancient Japanese alphabetic song)
Aug. 1993
Poem by Nanao Sakaki from the collection Let’s Eat Stars.

Here are the trees inside my school.

Incidentally the sign reads,

生まれたことは
ありがたく、
生きることも
ありがたい。

For ｍｙ birth
I am thankful.
Grateful too
To be alive.

Taken from the Dhammapada, it’s a simple reminder to celebrate and affirm the life we have been given.

Many thanks to Ken Rodgers for lending me Nanao Sakaki’s book… I think I’m going to have to order my own copy though.

The Forty Rules of Love is two stories told in one. The story that frames the book is of Ella, an unhappy Jewish American housewife who commences an internet relationship with a mysterious author named Aziz. This relationship blossoms into love and ultimately proves to be her salvation. Within that story is a novel by Aziz about the historical figure of Shams of Tabriz and his relationship with the famous Persian poet Rumi. This relationship is said to be the catalyst of Rumi’s great spiritual awakening.

I bought this book some time ago after watching a TED talk by its author Elif Shafak entitled: The Politics of Fiction. It was a very powerful defence of a novelist’s right to write not “what you know”, but what you feel. As a Turkish, muslim, woman writer Elif Shafak feels frustrated by those who always expect her to write soley from the perspective of a Turkish, muslim, woman, “and, preferably, the unhappy stories of unhappy Muslim women.” She argues that a fiction writer should have the freedom to move beyond his or her own cultural identity and use their imagination to describe unfamiliar worlds.

Imaginative literature is not necessarily about writing who we are or what we know or what our identity is about. We should teach young people and ourselves to expand our hearts and write what we can feel. We should get out of our cultural ghetto and go visit the next one and the next.

Fiction, she says, is free. It enables us to travel to far distant lands and to connect with others who would otherwise be strange to us on a very personal level. And in doing so fiction can overcome ingrained cultural bias and foster qualities of understanding and compassion.

Now that is a lady whose work I would like to read, I thought. Her speech was witty, charming and entertaining – how much more so her books? And as for her central message, that a novelist has a right, a duty even, to describe other worlds and identities far removed from their own – well, I had to wonder, could she pull it off? So I ordered the book immediately, but (!) having added it to my evergrowing pile-of-books-I-simply-MUST-read and perenially being busy with other stuff, it sat there for several months untouched and unread…

So why did I read it now? Well, I suppose it was the title. Or more specifically that word in the title: LOVE. With the recent disaster in Tohoku, stealing the lives of thousands, breaking the hearts of many more, and the anxiety induced by the vulture like media frenzy over the threat of radioactive leaks in Fukushima (now stabilising thank you) – I simply needed a bit of love. I think we all do really, and most especially in times like these. And not just escape into some Mills & Boon type romance, but something deeper, more profound, and yes, even spiritual, just like the love celebrated in the poems of the mystic lover Rumi. A few pages in, my needs seemed to have been answered by the following:

…It was a time of unprecedented chaos when Christians fought Christians, Christians fought Muslims, and Muslims fought Muslims. Everywhere one turned, there was hostility and anguish and an intense fear of what might happen next.
In the midst of this chaos lived a distinguished Islamic scholar, known as Jalal ad-Din Rumi… …In 1244, Rumi met Shams – a wandering dervish with unconventional ways and heretical proclamations…. …By meeting this exceptional companion, Rumi was transformed from a mainstream cleric, to a committed mystic, passionate poet, advocate of love, and originator of the ecstatic dance of the whirling dervishes, daring to break free of all conventional rules. In an age of deeply embedded bigotries and clashes, he stood for a universal spirituality, opening his doors to people of all backgrounds. Instead of an outer-orientated jihad- defined as “the war against infidels” and carried out by many in those days just as in the present- Rumi stood up for an inner-orientated jihad where the aim was to struggle against and ultimately prevail over one’s ego, nafs…

Yes! That’s exactly what I need to cheer me up, I thought. A tale of love transcending chaotic circumstance and overcoming anguish and fear. The vision of a bright light in a dark time.

So, how was the book? Well, it was certainly a page-turner. I finished it in a couple of days. However, the frame-story of disatisfied Ella and her internet lover Aziz was rather disappointing. I wasn’t convinced of the depth of their characters or the likelihood of their story. Aziz (a handsome globe-trotting photographer/Sufi mystic) is too perfect. And Ella (a very average, dowdy housewife turning 40) – too boring. Why would Aziz (as perfect as he is) fall in love (over the net no less) with someone who basically just writes to him about her family/marital problems, and how much she likes his book? It reads in fact very much like the suburban escapist fantasies of a pulp fiction romance.

I wonder though, if this was deliberate? Did the author deliberately choose to write the frame-story as a thin piece of romantic fantasy? Is it but a sugar-coated candy-wrapping for the more substantial soul-food of the story contained within? A clue I think, maybe in the teaching of Shams (from the inner story) who speaks of the four levels of insight that people have on reading the Holy Qur’an. “The first level is the outer meaning and it is the one that the majority of the people are content with.” But beyond that there are deeper and deeper levels of meaning that point towards the final fourth level that is said to be indescribable. Perhaps too, this surface romantic love story with its comforting familiarity is there to satisfy the masses. But it points us in the direction of deeper meanings of love, just as Shams says the Holy Qur’an has deeper levels of insight that direct us beyond to a level “so deep it cannot be put into words”.

The book within the book does indeed go deeper, the story is more engaging and the characters more real – and that’s the reason I kept turning those pages. The character of Shams, the wild eccentric dervish, is especially intriguing. His story and that of his companion, the poet Rumi, is told through multiple viewpoints: the children of Rumi, his wife, a novice, a leper, a harlot, a drunk, a bigot and a killer. In this Elif Shafak has adopted the role of a “meddah” that she spoke of in the TED talk I mentioned above:

In the Ottoman times, there were itinerant storytellers called “meddah.” They would go to coffee houses, where they would tell a story in front of an audience, often improvising. With each new person in the story, the meddah would change his voice, impersonating that character. Everybody could go and listen, you know — ordinary people, even the sultan, Muslims and non-Muslims. Stories cut across all boundaries.
LINK

This cutting across boundaries is essential to the book. For Shams it is also essential that Rumi learns to cut across boundaries in order to become the “Voice of Love” – one whose words can help all people find fulfillment. “My only concern, ” says Shams, “is the shell you have been living in.”

…how well do you know common people? Drunks, beggars, thieves, prostitutes, gamblers – the most inconsolable and the most downtrodden. Can we love all of God’s creatures? It is a difficult test, and one that only a few can pass.

Within his own story, Shams too is a storyteller, telling little parables that give us insights into our own very human nature. This one is my favorite:

One day a man came running to a Sufi and said, panting, “Hey, they are carrying trays, look over there!”
The Sufi answered calmly, “What is it to us? Is it any of my business?”
“But they are taking those trays to your house!” the man exclaimed.
“Then is it any of your business?” the Sufi said.

And then dotted throughout the book are the Forty Rules of the title, shining like jewels on an embroidered surface. The multiple stories that surround these rules either illustrate them or lead us back toward their contemplation. These rules are taught by Shams to guide us on the path of Love and point us toward that deepest, indescribable level of insight. Here’s one of them:

The universe is one being. Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation. Do no harm. Practice compassion. And do not gossip behind anyone’s back – not even a seemingly innocent remark! The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time. One man’s pain will hurt us all. One man’s joy will make everyone smile.

And so as I read the book I considered these rules in relation to my own life and how I live it. What can I do to bring some joy into the world and make people smile? How can I more actively practice compassion? Ultimately, I came away from the book feeling refreshed, energised and positive (despite my misgivings about the frame story). And that was a much needed comfort and tonic after the recent tragic events that have befallen my adopted home. The forty rules at the heart of Elif Shafak’s novel are very powerful. They point you toward your own story, the one that you are writing now every day as you live your life. Perhaps they can help you live it better, or with more insight, or just remind you to face the day with a little more hope.

So, on the whole, I enjoyed the book and it also stirred up some curiosity about the source material. I’d like to learn more about these two characters, their poetry and their teachings: Rumi and Shams of Tabriz. Just glancing at Wikipedia, it seems that to Rumi, music, dance and poetry were essential elements on the spiritual path. Sounds like a man after my own heart…

The Forty Rules of Love is available from amazon.co.jp, amazon.com, and amazon.co.uk.

The following verse, attributed to the Susanowo, a storm god, is traditionally said to be the oldest Japanese poem. According to the Kojiki, Susanowo composed this song when building a palace for his new bride in the misty land of Izumo.

Eightfold clouds
Rise in the land of Izumo,
Forming eightfold fences around
To confine my beloved wife in the palace!
Oh, the eightfold fences of clouds!

As Susanowo builds a physical palace to protect his wife, he also chants and repeats the magical number eight and raises mystical defenses built of words and clouds. This is the ancient, “simple, dynamic and lyrical voice” of the Kojiki, beautifully translated by Yoko Danno. She herself is a Japanese poet of long standing who writes soley in English and her own poems have a strong flavor of the fairytale and of natural magic. It is easy to see why rewriting the Kojiki in English would appeal to her, for the book is a treasure trove of early Japanese poems and fables. Composed in AD 712, the Kojiki (or Record of Ancient Matters) is Japan’s oldest book and traditionally is said to include not only the oldest Japanse poem but also the oldest example of renga or linked verse. Certainly it is the earliest example of the fine Japanese tradition of including verse within a prose narrative for moments of high lyrical expression. Typically these rough-hewn verses express erotic desire. Take for example the warlord Yamato Takeru’s song to his new wife Miyazu-hime.

Across the heavenly mountain,
Kagu-yama in Yamato, fly
        Long-necked swans, calling
                 Keenly like sickles.

Your white arms,
         Slender and pliant
                   Like the neck of a swan

I wish to pillow my head
        On your long white arm,
                 I wish to sleep with

You, but on the hem
          Of your outer garment
                   The moon has risen.

Has there ever been a more graceful expression of a man’s frustration upon finding that his bride is menstruating? On another occasion, the exiled Yamato Takeru now dying, sings wistfully and movingly of the homeland to which he cannot return:

Yamato
Is the heart
Of my country secluded
In the mountains within mountains;
The blue-green hedges in array.
How beautiful is Yamato!

The warlord continues to sing of his home country until he dies, whereupon he is magically transformed into a giant white bird. The image of his many wives and children pursuing the bird through the fields as it flies away across the sea is a haunting one. But there are many such memorable scenes in the Kojiki. Within this rag-tag collection of myths and fables, folkloric histories and verse you will find the Japanese creation myth; how the lands and their emperors were literally birthed by the gods; how the storm god Susanowo wrecked heaven and was exiled for his mischief; how the first emperor Jimmu subdued the country and its chthonic deities; how the Karu siblings fell into a doomed romance and how the cheeky white rabbit of Inaba tricked the sharks of Cape Keta but then made the terrible error of telling them so… And much, much more!

Now the Kojiki has been translated many times before, but it is notorious even in translation for being a horrible read. My own copy of Donald L. Philippi’s translation stands testament to this, remaining largely unread on my bookshelf for over a decade. Philippi’s translation is the thorough work of a perfectionist; a weighty tome with thousands of explanatory notes and plentiful appendices. No doubt for the academic it is invaluable, but for the general reader it is a chore. Yoko Danno’s concern, on the other hand, is not to teach but to tell a story and she does so by very simple means. Endlessly confusing lists of names are removed and replaced by easily referenced genealogical tables. Instead of a confusing myriad of lengthy names and titles she chooses one simplified name for each character and sticks to it. She keeps her explanatory notes to a minimum. And she rewrites the songs and stories with her own poetic grace.

Yoko Danno’s stated aims in translating the Kojiki are “to convey as best I could the simple, dynamic and lyrical voice of the ancient people”. She has done a magnificent job. Thanks to her I have now read the Kojiki in its entirety – and enjoyed it too! Songs and Stories of the Kojiki as retold by Yoko Danno offers us a fascinating glimpse into an ancient culture, its legends and beliefs. I highly recommend it.

Songs and Stories of the Kojiki is available from amazon.com, amazon.co.jp, and amazon.co.uk.

This is nice. The poem is from the 16th century.

Haiku from arjuno kecil on Vimeo.

Like a flower returning to it’s branch I go back to work tomorrow. Sheesh.

Here’s a couple of links before I get started. One to Deep Kyoto and the Cafe/Bar/Knick-Knack shop Smoke Room.

Then up on Pink Tentacle I love these beautiful 19th century Japanese ghost scrolls. Nice and creepy for the Obon season.

Now for today’s message from Hozouji which is a poem by the poet and calligrapher Mitsuo Aida. Mitsuo Aida was (and still is!) a popular poet, who spoke in frank warm terms of our everyday human and emotional quandries. I have a book of his work on my shelf, いまここ：The Here and Now,, that a very kind colleague gave me many birthdays ago. I frequently return to it and flip through it’s pages and find myself thinking: “Yes! Yes! That’s so true!” His work has been extensively translated, so probably this one has been too. That’s not going to stop me having my own little crack at it though. Here’s the poem:

あの苦しみ
悲しみも
自分が
自分になるための
みんな肥料

Ano kurushimi
kanashimi mo
jibun ga
jibun ni naru tame no
minna hiryou

The poet is talking about sadness and suffering and how they help us to grow and to find ourselves. The implication being, without any suffering we wouldn’t be able to prove ourselves or find out what we are really capable of. We would never really grow up into real adult human beings. For that reason, all that pain and suffering and shit, it’s all 肥料 he says. Now the kanji 肥 (hi) means to enrich, fatten, to make fertile and the kanji 料 (ryou) simply means stuff. What they mean together is manure! Here’s my translation:

That suffering
and sadness too
is all rich fertilizer
to help you grow
into you.

Any thoughts, Masaya?

Today on Deep Kyoto, a pleasant chain of Indian curry houses you can find dotted throughout Shiga and Kyoto: Raju.

And here on the home-blog, Mr. Shakespeare says:

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and cheque’d even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

Lovely, aint it? That’s Sonnet number 15. To sign up for your daily sonnets, click here: Mr. Shakespeare’s Sonnet A Day.

Tomorrow: A Tale of Genji and Obasans & Atonement.