butterfly's tongue

the butterfly's tongue,

without thought - its mandala

serves nectar

TRANSCRIPT OF DISCUSSION BASED ON ENTRY DATED JUNE 12, 2012

(see June-2 geodesic_eye)

• • • • • QUERENT

        • the butterfly's tongue

        • resembles a steel spring -

        • what a hot day!

        • - Akutagawa Ryunosuke

• • • • QUERENT

      • ‎1892- 1927 "Akutagawa admired Basho, but was an independent spirit developing his own striking and imaginative images."

      • - Mavis Pilbeam

        • haiku crossroads Nice haiku by Akutagawa Ryunosuke. As a result, I'm toying with redactions to my own insect proboscis haiku:

          • the butterfly's tongue,

          • its mindless mandala-

          • sweet nectar

        • Less 'telling' with more 'allusion'. Will ponder options on this whilst holding fast to the original for the time being anyway.

      • QUERENT I think Basho would appreciate the karume of your second version?

• • • spiralling inward

      • through rose petal gates

      • a butterfly's tongue

        • haiku crossroads Maybe Basho would. It depends what we are presenting in the mind's eye. For a while I may have a go at a more Imagist approach (like your example from Akutagawa Ryunosuke, above). This begs the question. What is my approach in this post's haiku? It seems one is wanting to direct the readers inner- eye to a philosophical universe of experience and eschew the (essentially shallow) bling of haiku realism biased to the Imigist end of that particular axis on The 3D Mandala of Haiku:

• • • • • • • • • mandala - sound of water

• • • • • haiku crossroads NOTE: Using The 3D Mandala of Haiku, Akutagawa Ryunosuke's haiku would be SENSORY / SECULAR, whilst my own haiku would be more SACRED / PROSE (although both have other elements as admixture, of course)

• • • • QUERENT Yes, I sensed that you were wanting to point the reader to a different level of consciousness - experiential and free of ego, rather than imagist (fraught with (particularly male) egos, even though the idea was to let ego go!). A difficult...See More

        • • haiku crossroads That 'sensing' is the point. In a sense this makes the debate redundant. However, what the point is, is that the butterfly's proboscis is coiled and can be thought of as a mandalic form. The nectar which interests the butterfly (and which is the flowers trick to propagate itself). Well, this nectar is often used as a metaphor in mystic scribbles. Signifying the bliss of enlightened poise. All I'm doing is noting that parallel. Whatever else is happening is not yet much apparent to me -- which is often the case with haiku. It 'feels' about right, though. Now, you wisely note, that a proboscis is a tongue and a mandala is a mandala. But, my observation is that the two function in a totally identical manner in that they both enable the serving up of nectar. I had thought to put 'a' instead of 'its' -- but thought not to:

            • • the butterfly's tongue,

              • without thought - a mandala

              • serves nectar

              • the butterfly's tongue,

              • without thought - its mandala

              • serves nectar

• • • • • • • Basho appears not to have talked much about his religious typology. And yet...we can deduce he was an amalgam of Nippon cultural mystic with a Tao pivot (which was fashionable at the time):

              • http://tinyurl.com/ZhuangziBasho

            • Simply stated, his religion, in his latter years, was poetry. Apparently he regretted this at times as being a distraction from absolute commitment to his mystic call. This I believe was a weakness in his character. Not that I would worry him about that. It's part of a humanising wabisabi, is it not?

            • Any reader who cannot receive the easy connection is left out of the haiku's universe. Mind you, I believe most people who are interested in haiku are going to 'get it'. Whether they enjoy it or not is another matter. I make no claims that this haiku of mine is a personal classic -- but it's not bad.

            • Finally, Akutagawa Ryunosuke's haiku is nothing to do with the theme in my own haiku. His haiku is absolutely a presentation (almost hallucinatory in its impact) of a summer heatwave's subjective appearance. And thanks for bringing this excellent haiku to our attention.

              • the butterfly's tongue

              • resembles a steel spring -

              • what a hot day!

              • the butterfly's tongue,

              • without thought - its mandala

              • serves nectar

• • • • • • • • Zhuangzi - sound of water

The thought of Tchouang-tseu [Chuang-Tzu], philosopher in the 4th century B.C.,

influenced greatly Matsuo Basho, and he often quoted the texts of "The Book of

master Tchouang" [Zhuangzi]

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