Diana jumps into haiku

2012-01-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

Katikati’s haiku pathway

New Zealand may be a damp place, but its public artworks in places like Katikati make Australia’s Big bananas and their ilk look like civic design by Year 2. I took myself off at Christmas-time to the eastern coast of the north island to visit this town, near Tauranga, so that I could walk its haiku pathway with Marianne. The town is renowned for murals, and we found all kinds of other artworks. In front of the info centre where we called in to ask for directions, a man was sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper. Only his face was bronze -coloured, the rest of him in white metal clothes. Beside him was a small terrier with a ball, undistractable in metal.

According to the interpretive sign we read later, the haiku pathway was the brainchild of Catherine Mair. It follows the Uretara stream (why are there streams in NZ, not creeks? Does a creek vanish in dry times? Streams however are constant here.) The stream allowed the Irish to land and settle here ( not sure what happened to the Maori). This is her haiku, carved into a large river boulder:

nearly tripping me
round my feet
the monarch butterfly

The info centre lady directed us behind the library, past the mosaic work flourishing around the childrens’ play equipment. The first haiku stone was on the corner of the library and it was carved in a beautiful italic script. Marianne especially liked the second one we came across. She’s just completed the Hollyford track in Fiordland, with her walking companions, but is left with a soreness in her foot.

We limped down the stairs towards the stream, she with her aching foot and me with my tender knee. We had our raincoats on for the drizzle that threatened. We came to an open park area, with a concrete path winding along beside the stream and the haiku boulders at strategic intervals. Willow trees were scattered here and there. At the crook of the stream, ducks paddled, looked at us and began to climb out and up the bank. Their hopefulness gave way to caution, and they retreated back into the water. Another duck in the distance made a “V” swimming towards them.

All the haiku on the stones have been previously published, and were chosen from collections.William J Higginson was at the bottom of the stairs - the editor of so many collections.

I loved this. It’s a haiku with much resonance - not easily understood. Those were my favourites on the walk. You could come back to them at a later date and revolve them in your mind. We wandered along reading the haiku. In some places the stones were blank, and had simply been arranged into beautiful arrangements. It brought to mind a story I read about zen master Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of San Francisco Zen Centre. In transplanting zen from Japan to the U.S. he also brought a very fine aesthetic - he sweated and laboured over the particular placement of a stone at Tassajara zen centre.

Marianne and I compared notes: did we like this one or that one? She found a haiku spread on one line, about a heron flying along the water, too anorexic. But I rather liked the image. Further along haiku bricks had been set into the path. These were haiku that had been chosen from a competition. It was good to be able to make a comparison with those that had been through a double layer of selection. Some of them, such as :

‘conversion -
the ray of sun strikes
between the goal posts’

is too obscure for me, because I don’t know enough about rugby, the national passion. We talked about this. Is there a wry comment about something here, that I am missing? But does it matter that I don’t get it? Thousands of aficionados of the game will. We talked about what ‘conversion’ means. My apologies to the poet of this witty haiku if I have not quite got your wording. My camera ran out of poop, and also I could not read your name on the brick.

We came to a place where there was a mounting for a bridge. This might be the spot where a rather lovely little pedestrian bridge had been, removed because structural flaws were found in it recently. the bridge would have taken you to the other side of the stream where the pathway continued towards the highway. We wandered on, reading the paving stone haiku and the boulder haiku, delighted by the stone which faced the housing development on the other side of the stream:

on the farmlands
new homes
slowly rising

Patricia Prime NZ

It sums up a whole complex of things in 10 syllables. Fantastic. I thought I could see across the stream into one of these comfortable houses, through the tinted glass to someone at a kitchen bench.

We found another undernourished haiku all in one line. Marianne said, “If I had a kid in my class who wrote that, I would think about it overnight and come up with a line for it in the morning”. For my money, the haiku that sets the scene but not too specifically, and then leaves a lingering haze in my mind, which is not quite in focus, is the best. It conveys mujo, impermanence, and how provisional things are - like the bridge, and the names of authors on haiku bricks. But this one

“A breeze and then my mind wanders on”

(a poet from the US, apologies sir, I didn’t write your name or haiku down correctly.)
is vague but commits what I consider to be a haiku sin. It is rather too self-conscious. There is great awareness of consciousness but little of nature.

We had by now walked through town, crossed Highway 2, walked past another mural being put up and the seal carved from a huge lump of wood with a chainsaw, and back down to the stream. The path here blends haiku with a bird walk.The beginnings of it have both haiku stones and sculptures - to my delight, the first sculpture was the karearea or native falcon, life-size, and there was an interpretive sign. They are ‘acutely threatened”, and can do 230kms per hr, when hunting. They take birds, but also rats, rabbits, mice. My haiku, for what its worth:

A hawk surveys
the path and stream
for smaller pickings

Here’s a link to the website for the pathway:

www.katikati.co.nz/kk_text/haiku.html

We didn’t see it all. It is something you could return to, and wander and ponder. There are benches placed everywhere too, for picnics and just sitting and gazing. In the distance the Kaimai mountains were wreathed in cloud. Here is a haiku by one of the best (in my opinion) Australian haiku poets, Janice Bostok, who sadly passed away last year:

sleeping horse -
angled bones lean
into the summer sun

The Elders walk to the Gardens of Stone

2011-10-12T00:03:00.000-07:00

The yatra for the elders in our community took place last Sunday in windy conditions. Despite that, the group opted to walk along the ridge- top at Newnes plateau, trusting me when I said that the destination was rather good. "But be mindful of each and every step!"

We had the good fortune to have Donald Elniff on the walk with us. We did tai ch'i with him in a clearing beside a huge old tree. It was a skilful way in to Broad Mind, the mind that is spread right across the body. And to be taught moves such as 'flowing over a waterfall' ( I think that's right) , and to be centred in the dan t'ien, helped to locate us right where we were, in Mingaan country.

I found this track with the help of my good friend Kate Litchfield (below).

It is discouraging to see the degradation caused by trailbikers on this ridge. The tracks weave in and out, and the rubbish carelessly tossed aside is an indicator of the lack of genuine connection to the land - it is only there for your recreational pleasure. Ok - that's my rave - I could also say that I experienced aversion and a hot series of thoughts when I saw the damage.
But then there is also this rusted twisted fender, some decades later...

So many delights along the way; I think I saw a flame robin.
and I loved the rivulets running down the road.

What else can I add? It was a terrific group of people. Other animals had been trotting along the road too, as we saw from the tracks and prints in the sandy soil. Perhaps dingos - a kangaroo - a large lyrebird, with its distinctive back claw print.

Oh - another total joy - pagoda daisies.

The next yatra, for the middlin' level of fitness, is on Saturday October 22. We'll start at Linden railway station at around 8 a.m. but contact me first, on 0432-619-305 or diana.r.levy@gmail.com, or 4751-3935. This yatra is longer with about 6 hours of walking , none of it too difficult. There is a pool - swims are possible - and we will have time for seated meditation as well. The day should finish around 4 pm.

There are some very good websites which can show you some of the longer yatras that have taken place in Australia. Try dharma.org.au, and have a look at the art works which have been inspired by the walks. Also have a look at About Yatra, Carol Perry's piece is a clear explanation of what we are connecting with when we walk silently and mindfully with each other, in country. At the dharma gathering ( see dharma.org.au for the link) she leads a yatra to the beach.
Here is the link to the Encounter programme on ABC Radio National, which featured yours truly and my collaborator in April, Gary Gach, and others. The subject was Buddhist poetry.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/encounter/stories/2011/3294311.htm

Taking time
to sniff a boronia
I make myself late

2011-09-25T06:51:00.000-07:00

ABC interview

Small biplane
dragonfly tries
to find the moon

Recently ABC radio interviewed me for their programme "Encounter". The programme was about Buddhist poetry and I was one of the poets, along with Gary Gach, Jane Hirschfield, Tash Sudan, and Bill Porter. I took Kerry Stewart the producer on a ginko along a ridge in the Blue Mountains, talked haiku. You can find this programme by going to the ABC website , look for Radio National , then go to 'Encounter', and thence to Buddhist Poetry in the index. Wish I knew how to link it to this blog.
Your chance to go for a ginko wander is in 2 weeks, Sat October 8. What a good way to forget the woes of the world for a while!

Yellow inside
the broken egg
beneath the tree

2011-08-03T22:48:00.000-07:00

SPRING GINKO

creek's mirror:
rain circles in the sky,
the currawong call.

Christopher McLean

What a beautiful haiku, suggesting so much, and across the different senses. It lingers. Christopher wrote this at the playshop with myself and Gary Gach, back in April.

But now the sap is rising - my peach tree is giddy with blossoms - hover flies and bees are drunk with the amount of burrowing into blooms! Insects are re-appearing, wattle trees are gorgeous in their Tour de France yellows, birds in their mad mating dashes are here ..... gone! And splashes of warm days amid the occasional frost all make for renewal, our creative juices rise up. So set forth with me in October , when I will again be offering a ginko at Lawson in conjunction with Ben Roberts café.
Sat October 8, with meditation beginning at 8:30 a.m. in the Guide Hall, and then the playshop will begin at 9:30 a.m. at Ben Roberts, where we’ll have a civilized morning tea to begin our look at how to express spring. The ginko (haiku walk) will proceed from there, no need to hop into a car first.
Main details:
• Sat October 8th, 9:30am - 2 pm.
• $100 (conc. avail.)
• children over 8 years welcome
• lunch at Ben Roberts café ($12.50) optional. Bookings essential
• Book in by September 9th, numbers limited
• meditation ( optional) before and afterwards
• Ph. Diana 02-4751-3935, mob. 0432-619-305, diana.r.levy@gmail.com

A recent haiku.…

Bert’s old fence
wire slackened and curling out
cannot hold the wind
DL

BM YATRA and ELDERS YATRA

I will again be offering a Blue Mountains yatra, a day of mindful walking. The date is October 22, and I was out and about, looking for a secluded but well-formed , gentle yet spectacular, warm but not too hot, trail for meditators and poets alike. And I found it!

meet Linden railway station northern carpark, 8a.m.
$20 to cover costs
walking meditation
seated meditation, swimming meditation as well!
for people of middlin' levels of fitness

I am also going to offer a yatra for elders, on Sunday 9 October. The walk will be about 2 to 3 hours in length and easy. We will be most fortunate in doing tai ch'i with teacher Donald Elniff. He has spent decades of learning this movement art from great teachers in Taiwan, and now teaches in the upper mountains. And, as always, we will meditate in nature. The track I have in mind is in Lithgow near the Newnes plateau. Because there are 2 small challenging sections gradient -wise, ( that is to say, they go up) after a creek crossing, it is a Grade 1-2 walk. Otherwise the walk is on a well-formed track along a creek, with gorgeous cliffs either side. It is close to the town, so those people who want to catch a train there and back, will have no transport hassles.

$20
walking, meditation, tai ch'i
easy grade walk
bring lunch and morning tea
meet 9 a.m. Lithgow Station north side

Please give me a call or email about any of these offerings. Gassho, D

May yatra

2011-05-25T04:40:00.000-07:00

Sydney was experiencing cold windy weather, the week of the yatra. And so it was, on Saturday May 14. The wind was whipping through the carpark at Wentworth Falls, so we wanted to get going as soon as we could. My car had a little connniption in the battery department, but after we connected it via jumper leads to Jeremy’s car, all was well and we drove to the trackhead without incident. I had been anticipating traffic on the road from the North Face 100 km endurance race, but that didn’t manifest till the afternoon.
The track-head is about 600 metres above sea-level, and it was sheltered, so it was a relief to be out of the cold. Nevertheless the cold had penetrated my bones so I set a fairly cracking pace. We set off as a silent group of 8 walkers at 9:25 a.m.
We were walking along an out -of- the -way but well maintained fire trail. There were no other people on the track all day. I was looking out for the fungi which had been such a feature of the track a few weeks previously. But they were almost all shrivelled back into the earth from whence they came - fruit of the threadlike mycelium.
I feel passionately that students of the dharma do better if they use their bodies well, and if stretching and exercise is incorporated as a formal part of any programme. This is the case whether the main focus is sitting meditation or walking. Sitters get sore knees; walkers get sore backs, shoulders and feet. Consequently I led a short stretching session once we had walked for about 15 minutes and were warm. I had been to a retreat with Kit Laughlin and Patrick Kearney in April, so had a few novel stretches up my sleeve. Although the walk was an easy gradient, it was long, so I wanted us all to get the best out of our bodies and place each step with care and mindfulness.
We made a few stops along the way to pay attention to the forest with particular senses. Then at about 11: 30 a.m., we caught a glimpse of Burragorang dam, and McMahon’s point.
But only at the rock platform 15 minutes later could we also see the surrounding landmarks, and the upper reaches of the dam where it is clearly a river, the Cox’s, making it’s serpentine way between the hills. It was sad to have to report that this rock, which is a rather important Gundungurra site, had been damaged when a bulldozer drove straight across it some time before. The driver had not been told to avoid it by the relevant government authority - the National Parks and Wildlife Service. I had met the bulldozer driver previously on the road, and he seemed a really decent chap who would not want to damage heritage. I invited the group to remove their shoes and walk the way that Gundungurra did in country - with bare feet. The sandstone felt cold underfoot.

We each found possies out of the wind and to eat our lunch. While I looked out at the Wild Dogs way in the distance, and Mt. Mouin, I remembered that all of those peaks were named Meeouwin by early Gundungurra informants. But somehow that was corrupted to Mouin, and that name was only applied to the peak next to Medlow Gap, which is shaped a like a fedora and stands apart. Those who have the power, get to name the landscape.
We could not stop as long as I would have liked, because of the wind. To keep us warm I added an extra 30 minutes of walking - sorry Fran!
Along the ridge there are stretches of beautiful groves of angophoras.
The walk back is usually a fairly direct affair I find. When you’re riding a horse, and you’re going home, all it wants is to be back in its home paddock. We stopped for a sharing circle - and sat in the sunny spots created by the cleared area underneath the power-lines, to have afternoon tea. The lines buzzed in a strange way - it is almost an eerie sound that emanates from them ( does electro-magnetic radiation also emanate?) as though from another world, whereas in fact it is the sound made by the burning of coal and boiling of water. Natural - and not natural.
When we were nearly ‘home’ I showed the group what lycopodium looks like. They look like a kind of moss, and this is in fact their family. In the carboniferous period, these plants were as large as trees. They are from an ancient plant family, the club mosses.
Back at the cars, some expressed regret that the walk was over - some relief - some commented that, in silence, we formed a group rather than a number of individuals. Cath was deeply enamoured of the angophoras - and along the ridgetop there is one stretch where many dwarfs wiggle their way out of poor shallow soils.
We were back at Wentworth Falls before 5 pm, and in time to reward ourselves with hot chocolate and chips at a local café.

This walk was 17 km long. I’m encouraged to offer another yatra later in the year for a similar level of fitness, though I would also like, if there is enough interest, to run a yatra for those who could only manage a small easy walk. For unwell, unfit or elderly people, I would be happy to offer a short yatra, which might incorporate more standing and seated meditation . Please email me if this would be your style, and if there are enough people I’ll organise it.

Poetry reading on Friday night 20th May

2011-05-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

I will be reading some poems along with Pip Griffin (verse novel "Ani Lin") at the Sydney Zen Centre on Friday 14th May, starting at 7:30 p.m. I'll be reading my "Tao -Jones Indexes" which was shortlisted in the Newcastle Poetry prize in 1999 and published in the anthology. Also some other things. Pip's verse novel is a beautiful narrative set in the southwest corner of China around the turn from the 19th into 20th century. Be there 7:20 pm for a 7:30 start - we will begin with a period of zazen ( meditation).
The zendo is in Annandale at 251 Young St, on the corner with Arguimbeau St. The SZC women's group will provide refreshments afterwards. No charge.

Autumn Rain

2011-05-10T04:18:00.000-07:00

30th April dawned dry, but the week had been wet and the forecast was not promising. Undaunted, about seven or eight meditators converged on the Guide Hall at Lawson to begin the day. I felt quite nostalgic, as this was the venue for the zen group that I led a few years back. And there was the Queen above the door - appropriate given that the nuptials of her grandson were broadcast the night before.
At Ben Roberts café there were ten of us, enjoying their atmosphere and delights. As we sat there cosily drinking beverages and listening to Gary talk about the breath and writing, I noticed the rain gradually pull up its chair outside. When it came time for the ginko, two people elected to observe nature from the verandah of ‘Heatherbrae’, a grand old place which the Council intends to spruce up for community use. But the rest of headed out in rain garments of various sorts. We walked first along the commemorative walk of Honour Pde.

patches of sky 
among soggy red leaves
  rain puddles

Brent Couper

I fairly quickly found that my pen wouldn’t work in the rain. So I had to follow my own advice about John Shaw Nielson, the poet jackaroo who would remember his poems and work on them in his head. I found it quite hard to do. Pre-literate peoples are very good at the act of remembering, but we have lost it. I love using my pen and the act of writing.

Toadstools
bright children’s toys
cupping endless rain...

Ruby Levy-Stephens

We walked on down to the creek, through a bush regeneration area. As leader I have to keep tabs on everyone, especially since there were a couple of roads and crossings to navigate.

Seven writers...
five writers...
the rain heavier.

We all turned back before I could take everyone onto the golf course and along the bush track. It was enough to have seen the stream, the trees, the rosellas and king parrots, listened to the drips on leaves and felt the squelch in the path.

Soft rain
hard asphalt -
drowned earthworms

Diana

After we'd consumed lovely hot drinks and juices back at Ben Roberts, we got to work on the hard part - which is, editing. Gary's idea was to put a haiku onto a whiteboard and allow everyone to ruminate on it. Verity and Margaret had done their writing on the verandah, and we began to look at one of Verity's poems to see whether there were too many words in it - how those words could be arranged - what order they came in - whether other words could be used. It was a fascinating exercise, and naturally the final version came down to the poet herself.

discarded

pink sock
vacant verandah

Verity Roberts

We workshopped a poem of Ruby's , about the parrots flying out of a tree. That haiku didn't come together - it was time to have lunch. Conversation around the table flew in all sorts of directions. We could now be as rowdy as other diners. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this work in Ben Roberts, with its art works everywhere, and the convivial style of meeting and eating. Thanks to Carolynne and her staff for their hospitality , great food, and especially to Carolynne for her enthusiastic encouragement of the idea.

2011-03-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

yatra May 14

‘Yatra’ is a sanskrit word meaning pilgrimage. In 2010 I initiated and led the first Blue Mountains yatra, and again I will lead a one day yatra to nowhere in particular. In our everyday lives we normally make a strenuous effort to choose those experiences, people and objects that will enhances our selves. We desire pleasantness. A yatra gives you a chance to experience the world just as it is. “The Great Way is not difficult: it just avoids picking and choosing.” (third zen ancestor, Seng -T’san). It is a chance to be fully in your life, step by step, moment by moment.
The area we will walk in, Kings Tableland, is rich in Gundungurra culture and history. It is quiet and remote though accessible by two-wheel drive vehicle. It will be a day of silent meditative walking, meditation in country and some interpretation. The walk is accessible to people of middlin' levels of fitness, as it is along fire trails.

when: Sat. May 14, 2011, from 8am to approx. 5pm

Meeting place: Wentworth Falls, Stockyard carpark 8am

cost: $20 to cover basic expenses + dana

contact: Diana Levy before May 6, on (02) 4751-3935, mob. 0432-619-305

email: diana.r.levy ‘at’gmail.com (note new address)

gear: Vehicles needed. Bushwalking gear for autumn. I will send a list to walkers.

Purple irises
under powerlines -
neither good nor bad

DL

BM yatra 2010

2011-03-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

Upcoming Event: Ginko with Gary Gach

When Basho was in Matsushima (near Fukushima of tsunami / meltdown fate) on his long pilgrimage north in the late 1600’s, it was so beautiful he could not write a poem, but his disciple Sora wrote this:

In Matsushima / borrow a crane’s guise / cuckoo

The point is that the elegant crane would suit the surroundings more than the (admittedly tuneful) cuckoo, or hototgisu.
The events coming from that northern coast have been tragic, but I can only admire the resilient spirit of the Japanese people, their dignity in death and disaster, and their ability to help each other. There is a wonderful first hand account of this written by Ann Thomas, an Australian English teacher who lived, still does, in Sendai. You will find it on the website of “the Intelligent Optimist”.

…………….

One of the positives that she mentions, and you hear echoes of it here, in the disasters we in Australia have had recently, is that life is not mediated anymore, but is raw and immediate. That is one of the aspects of haiku that I try to convey - life and the natural world as it is. The writing comes from immediate experience, not just one’s head. In the forthcoming ‘playshop’ with Gary Gach, he and I will link writing practise to the practise of zen. This will be a meeting more akin to the haiku clubs of Japan - we will be meeting at Ben Roberts cafe in Lawson (yum!)

See his website at: http://word.to

AUTUMN LIGHT: a how-to haiku ginko with Diana Levy and Gary Gach

Celebrate autumn with this special workshop for learning how to notice, experience, write, and share haiku. Not only one of the world's briefest literary forms (and the most well-known of the 21st century), haiku are also pure Zen. The way of haiku encourages and supports a genuine life, intimate with the heart of creation, training us in clear seeing and deep listening, intuitive wisdom and a warm heart. We'll begin with zazen (optional), then map the basics, take a relaxed haiku walk (ginko) right in Lawson's own splendid big backyard, share what we encounter, written and unwritten, then eat together. With haiku, we can learn how to make each word and moment count, sense our senses, harmonize perception and expression, train our attention and awareness. Recommended for all ages (8–108), no prior background; writers and nonwriters, practitioners and the merely curious.

Date and time: Saturday April 30th, 8:30 am to 2pm

Venue for zazen: Guide hall, 14 Honour Ave, Lawson, Blue Mountains. Some zafus provided, or BYOZ

Time/Venue for playshop: 9:30 am, Ben Roberts Cafe, 12 Blind St, Lawson

Cost: $90 , conc. avail., $30 deposit by April 23, numbers limited.

Bookings: Contact Diana, 02-4751-3935, mob. 0432-619-305, or email diana.r.levy@gmail.com

Lunch and morning tea at Ben Roberts café is included in the price ( gluten-free catered to).

Gary Gach is author of the bestselling Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Buddhism (Nautilus Award) and editor of What Book!? Buddha Poems From Beat to Hiphop (American Book Award). In 2007 he was awarded the Northern California Book Award for Translation for his workings from Korean by Ko Un. Host of Haiku Corner, online, for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, he's led haiku workshops at the Asian Art Museum, Beyond Baroque, Book Passage University, O'Hanlon Center for the Arts, Otis College of the Arts, Stanford Writer's Studio, Villa Montalvo, and San Francisco Zen Center. He hopes to write two or three immortal haiku in his lifetime.

a new day the clouds celebrate luminosity
GG

That smoker / the volcano / a puff of cloud above Mt.Ngaurahoe, NZ
DL

2010-12-22T00:29:00.000-08:00

2011 Blue Mountains yatra

I’ll lead another day of mindful walking on Saturday May 14. The day will run as before, an early start, bring your lunch and your bushwalking gear. At some stage we’ll stop and meditate 'en plein air'. We’ll enjoy each others’ company silently, and that of the wildlife of the Blue Mountains in late summer. In October there was about 7 1/2 hours of silence in the day. Thich Nhat Hanh recommends one day of mindfulness a month - this is a great way to do that, where the natural world conspires to help you.

Haiku poets might like to join us and use this as an opportunity to really concentrate on what is around them, responding in ten to fourteen syllables.

Costs of the October yatra were a little higher than I had anticipated, so this time I’ll ask participants for $20 to cover the cost of running the day. Plus dana, if you feel so moved.

Contact me on the email: DIANA_L@IPRIMUS.COM.AU to register your place.

So put this date in your diary! The other dates will be:

30 July
15 October

Have a marvellous Christmas fiesta, and may you have a sunny day or two these holidays!

The Battleship Tops yatra

2010-10-22T05:06:00.000-07:00

In a light rain, twelve people set off along a track on Kings Tableland for a day of mindful walking.

And mindful smelling, listening, looking,... Not too far into the day, a pair of glossy black cockatoos thought caution was the better part of valour, and flew up from their tree and away, in their graceful languorous way. They are an uncommon sight, as they have a limited palate, feeding mostly on Allocasuarina, so this was a fabulous few minutes. Their undertails are bright red.

Here are some images from the day, many thanks to Peter Miles for these beautiful photos. The flowers this day were quite spectacular. I cannot bring you the scent of Boronia fraseri or of damp bush - but this is some of what we did.

We ate morning tea on a lookout with the misty Kedumba valley below, Wild Dogs and Narrowneck beyond.

We meditated in a cave which has a long Gundungurra history - was the best part for me. Will Moon found a very faint handprint just behind his zazen spot.

The rain held off and we walked in occasional sun to a spot where we could look down on Lake Burragorang. This used to be Cox’s river but is now Sydney’s main water supply. Ah - thank goodness for waratahs flowering. Tiredness and sore feet vanish in the instant of joy at seeing that fiery red flower, with its tall strong stalk and leathery leaves.

The waterbody / ruffled gently / in its sandstone bowl
DL

2010-09-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

BLUE MOUNTAINS YATRA

WHEN: Sat. October 9, 2010 from 8.00am to approx. 5.00pm

‘‘Yatra’’ is a sanskrit word meaning pilgrimage. I will lead a one day yatra in the Blue Mountains to nowhere in particular. This part of the Blue Mountains, Kings Tableland, is rich in Gundungurra culture and history. It is quiet and remote though accessible by two-wheel drive vehicles. It will be a day of silent meditative walking, meditation in country and some interpretation. It would be fantastic if some haiku writers came along to respond to this place. The walk is accessible to people of middlin’’ levels of fitness, as it is along fire trails and the gradients are gentle. There is a modicum of walking under powerlines, and a very small amount of off-track and rock- hopping. Stunning views of Kedumba (Jamison) Valley and Cox’’s River. Some people may like to camp on the Saturday night at the beautiful NPWS campsite at Ingar waterfall and swiming hole.

MEETING PLACE: Wentworth Falls, Stockyard carpark 8.00am

COST: $10 to cover basic expenses + dana

CONTACT: Diana Levy on (02) 4751 3935 Mob: 0432 619 305

email: DIANA_L@IPRIMUS.COM.AU

GEAR: Vehicles needed. Bushwalking gear for summer. I will send a list to participants.

ABOUT ME
I have been a student of the dharma for 33 years, many of them in the zen tradition. I am a walks leader with the Blue Mountains Conservation Society. I am writing a haibun, which is an exploration of Gundungurra past and present called: ““Into the Blue: walks in Gundungurra country””.

The coiled python
is sleeping off
two bulges

Nightcap forest, Yatra ‘‘09 D.L.

2010-08-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

Blackheath Area Neighbourhood Centre

presents

spring haiku hiking

Slow down, observe and refresh on....

Saturday 18 September
10am to 4pm
at BANC, Gardiner Cres., Blackheath

Cost: $60, $50 conc. Deposit by 9 Sept required

Bookings: contact Diana ph. 4751-3935
mob: 0432-619-305 or diana_l@iprimus.com.au .

The most concise form of nature poem is the haiku which captures an instant in time. You will study haiku, walk, and write your own.

The coiled python /is sleeping off / two bulges DL

The Nightcap Yatra

2010-04-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

Nightcap yatra: A haiku journey in northern New South Wales

A yatra is a pilgrimage. As soon as the bookings opened, I sent in money and details. For a bushwalker from the Blue Mountains, it was right up my alley. Getting there was a complicated adventure: lift to train – train - change trains – plane - taxi - YHA – bus - lift with fellow yatra person Helen.
On the steep hillside at Doon Doon, it is a joy to greet old dharma buddies. In a circle, all my new yatra companions introduce themselves, and in the morning, our routine begins.

DAY 1

Morning yoga with Ronnie – bliss! then breakfast, pack up everything to be loaded onto the support vehicles, make lunch , then we all set off silently up the hill. On the ridgeline you can see more clearly the bowl shape of this exploded old volcanic cone. We are heading to the other side through the Nightcap range.

Before white people, Aboriginal people made the trail that we walk along. But it is a junction of two different territories. Our group stops at a huge hollow blackened blasted tree, which could fit a dozen people inside. After white settlement, this tree was the meeting point where one tribesman would pass the mail to another tribesman – it was called the Postman’s Tree.

A sweat-stained back:
the walker rests
her hat off

In this forest, of tall ancient trees, the light is greenish, and when it begins to rain, nothing matters except staying dry. We are all kinds of colours in our rain gear, stepping carefully on the wet stones and shiny leaves. The smells in the forest become more vivid. Logs provide a perch at lunchtime, and we can talk. Some one gets a leech - leech inspection! No-one freaks out, thank goodness they’re made of sterner stuff. In fact, as I am to discover this crew is remarkably resilient and does not carry on over the difficulties and hardships. Well - who can we complain to, when walking silently except to ourselves? “Its hot, I’m really tired, I’m sick of steep hills, I want chocolate, oh no not wind, I can’t stand wind”.

After lunch, we walk fire trails in Whian Whian state forest. This is not my country, so I cannot recognise many of the plants or animals of the forest.

This scent
NZ childhood days –
wet wattle pods!

That afternoon at Whian Whian camp ground, Maya and I do a spot of bird-watching while eating cake and drinking tea. How good is this? The frogs in the creek sound equally at peace. Later, in the evening another frog starts up: “ quaa…”. It sounds like an interrupted duck. These frogs, as spotted by other walkers later, are brown with a stripe. That day I had been intrigued by a call in the forest, which sounded very like a newborn lamb, or a kid. In New Zealand last Christmas canoeing down the Wanganui river, this call came from goats on the steep slopes. But as the days went by, in Nightcap it morphed into a call by crickets or cicadas. It was an insect sounding like a mammal.

DAY 2

Because our gear was wet, the plan next day was to walk to Minyon Falls and back again. The adventurous ( most of us put ourselves in that category) would walk to the pool at the bottom of the falls and back up again. Ronnie is the ‘Tail’. In the circle he is awarded a trowel and a roll of toilet paper in ceremonious fashion.

We set off into the bush again, silently. I thought of generations of indigenous people doing this, setting off every morning in a group. Along the way is an interpretive sign saying that the sub-group of the Bundjalung nation, particular to this area, were the Bidjugal, clever people known for sorcery and medicine. The quiet walking we were practising would not be a common feature of indigenous walking parties. In the early days, European surveyors like Govett recorded meeting very talkative walking parties, consisting of the men carrying spears, and the women carrying everything else in huge loads on their backs. I have been told of a practise among Darug initiates, who were given a pebble to place in their mouths, and told to keep it there until the end of their march across the Jamison valley. The pebble helps with thirst, but also, have you ever tried talking with a pebble in your mouth? When you can’t talk, you take notice of your environment. You notice the sky, the air, what is growing, where the sun is - a walker talker is necessarily more in their head, focussing on the flow of words rather than say, the flow of a creek.

Walking down the creek to the falls, and then through rainforest to the waterhole is easy-ish. The architecture created by the rhyolite substrate is like a great stone hand , cupped and holding that precious thing. The dark water is not as deep as expected - it hadn’t rained for a couple of months – but Rossco gets in, and so must I. Lying on my back in the cool water, I watch drops fall from a great distance above, to plink into a depression. It has taken millions of years for these drops to carve out this kitchen –sized bowl from a very hard igneous rock.

It isn’t easy walking back up and out. The Bangalow palms , the lianas and birds and strange fruit and hollowed out strangler fig are lovely. There is another falls, also very high, and deep pools leading to it with large tadpoles. When I approach the edge I get down onto my tummy and crawl forward until I can see down into the waterhole below and across the tops of what we had just been walking through. I have learned to do this in the Mountains where people regularly misjudge, and fall off the sandstone cliffs to their doom. It’s the best way to get that bird’s eye view.

I notice very little on the walk back, except huge grasses or sedges along the escarpment edge. I am tired. At a ford of the creek, my delight is about still having some food to eat, especially little treats. Maybe this would give me energy. Flaked out on the ford, we look like a lot of rather large unwell lizards. We stay there for a long time.

Not Basho
on the home stretch –
a cup of tea

When we get back the first thing I do is crash into my tent. While I am resting all the remains of the ginger cake are eaten up. Oh well, at least someone is cooking my dinner. All I have to do is wash my bowl and eating implements. Again, by the time I get to the washing up water it is lukewarm and filthy. And I miss out on warm body washing water too.

DAY 3
The next morning I feel grumpy. I sit with Betsy and Jampa and grumble mightily.
We pack up all our gear, make lunch, grab fruit and scroggin for morning and afternoon breaks, and off we go. Our destination this day was Protestor’s Falls, which was the scene of a major confrontation about logging of old growth forest in the late seventies and eighties. Ian Cohen gives an account of this in “Green Fire” (1997).

The first beautiful thing was the smell of crushed wattle seeds again. Ah, acacias – how did they get so tall? The second beautiful thing was the deep hollow call of the mysterious bird. Straight after that, is the taste of a wild rasberry, given to me by David. The fourth beautiful thing is another creek, this one part of a water catchment. The fifth beautiful thing was the very expensive chocolate coated bar that I eat, at this ford. And the sixth beautiful thing - it happens every day – is a long lunch break. We stop by a huge Eucalyptus regna – a survivor of the logging.

After lunch, we turn into a side road, and then into a side side road. These are overgrown logging roads, not negotiable by vehicles any more. There is always something quite melancholy yet authentic, about a neglected road. It is human effort and intent, all gone to rack and ruin. It is the grand plans to exploit a ‘resource’, softening slowly back into an ecosytem. Trees fall, and mostly begin their descent into a death that gives life to other things. Weeds and all the plants that were originally there reclaim it. That too, will happen to us.

The cut
on the giant tree stump
softened by moss

The adventure of clambering over and under the fallen trees lifts me out of my “this is a slog” mentality. One beauty of roads is, the gradient cannot be too steep. Up, down, up, down, through the afternoon.
And then I come upon the seventh beautiful thing, indistinguishable from the dirt and leaves, beside the road.

The coiled python
is sleeping off
two bulges

As I creep closer, it raises its head , and begins to pull the top coil backwards. I take pity on it and move off.

All is well when we arrive at the camp ground, chai in the pot, and a small pool in the creek to have another bathe. Up goes my tent, this time by the creek – I’m getting good at this.

After Carol’s talk this night, she opens it up for discussion. A few points of view were expressed. Interesting to notice the mind, being strongly attracted or repelled by certain utterances:” No, I don’t agree with that!” The mind that forms opinions and debates and discussed is not as fresh as the mind which bubbles up from a long period of silence and quieting. Opinion–mind is like the water hole – the same things being recycled, somewhat dark and dirty. The other mind is like a spring: cleansed by a long period seeping through the ground, then emerging clean and pure. I struggle with this. Our world is besieged on so many levels, seems like a sheep up to its knees in mud, action is urgent, speaking out a priority.

Carol calls a halt, and many of us rise from the circle gathered around a fire. The eighth beautiful thing was to notice that those who want to stay up, gather the circle in around the fire, and then they simply sit around it in silence.

DAY 4

The morning meditation is at Protestors’ Falls. That is now the official name given to these falls, memorialising the people who decided on an action campaign to prevent State Forests from ‘harvesting a resource’. I have a sense of sacred site to both blacks and whites. These falls too, are dry – is that because of climate change? I don’t know.

Our mission this day, is to walk down the road, to disport ourselves in a frolicsome manner at a magnificent swimming hole on Terania creek, to eat lunch and snacks, to get to the Forest Meditation Centre via Dharmananda, and to pay attention in each moment. The sense doors are wide open by now.

Crunching the seed
of wild rasberries -
a vege patch

Come in, come in, heat, pigeons, homes beside a dirt road. Welcome cars, weeds, litter – we are a moving blob of mindfulness.

We stop at another ford, beside a bridge for morning tea. I know that this creek has claimed a number of lives when it floods.

Under the bridge
fragments of old floods
caught in the girders

Ah, it’s hot. Plod ,plod, plod. Hurrah, mulberry trees beside the road! Who cares if the fruit are dusty. Another afternoon, and a long bout of lying down meditation. To paraphrase the “Satipatthana sutra”, I lie down and I know I’m lying down.

Up on the hill, someone asks a question about Dharmananda, and Carol answers that and the fifty more that follow. This is what I found most interesting, especially in relation to the Co-op that I’m involved with back home, and which has convulsive fits of disagreement from time to time:

Carol: “Hierarchies are natural. They occur in nature all the time. At Dharmananda we have hierarchies of expertise. Someone knows about soil. He naturally has more say over what happens in the garden.”

By now I am out of my underpants comfort zone. I was looking forward to the amenities: washing clothes in warm water, and especially, to resting for a day. I’m tired. Tomorrow would be a static retreat day in complete silence apart from dharma talks.

DAY 5
The forest centre is familiar – I was here in 1982, on a zen samu (work) retreat, when we built a tank made of bricks. And it’s also changed. There is seating around a fireplace! What bliss.

Quite silent
sitting around a fire:
someone gets up
adds a log –
the fire’s conversation crackles along
but what poisons are burnt up
in our silence?

Hunger for any more
than warm companionship
and wind, doves, trees.

Victor gives a talk which spoke directly to the things I’ve been pondering for a while. I was a pure-bred zen student for many years, but I became restless and began to sample other traditions. Maybe I’m like that snake, eating a lot of variety, and now I have to slowly digest all the different elements of dharma.

He likes lists, he said. He had made a list or a typology of four types of meditation practice, and outlined their benefits and shadow side. What was even better, was his idea for a compass that could help one determine whether one was off course or on. It related really, to the seven factors of enlightenment: this gives me some kind of template as I wander about in Australian buddhist practise.

DAY 6

Walking again felt good, since we were now quite fit and used to walking. But today was a lot of uphill, we were warned. It is the last full day.

Up the road, which gradually tapers off, I was pleased to see a bike rider. That activity is what made me fit. He and his mates had been doing repairs on the track. We now make our way into the National park, uphill , uphill, uphill.

The rocky tops
two tiny waterholes –
an ant peruses

This day I just have a huge sense of gratitude , for everything. Berries, roadside flowers, rustling trees, possum fur in the road, a dam. Before lunch we turn a corner – a view of the caldera and the valley we had come from – then blissful downhill walking.

Further along this ridgeline, there are large rock outcrops, which I gather, have indigenous significance. We stop at one of them. I bush-bash in for a closer look and feel. If rocks can be said to look, this one looks out at the caldera. I am not particularly sensitive when it comes to paranormal phenomena, but I get a distinctly bad feeling from this rock. Perhaps it is a male site.

We are finally back at a junction we’d passed on the first day. I come up to a group who are all looking down. Oh! an event!

Around the jumping ants
a worried circle
of previous victims

They seem pretty small. But it’s best not to annoy them. Then they get aggressive and jump onto their enemy no matter it’s size, and deliver a very painful bite.

In passing on warnings, the vow of silence breaks down. Also, there is a fantastic view of the caldera, and I wanted to know what the volcanic plugs and mountains are, and what their Aboriginal significance is. This is what I am told: Mt Warning is called Wollumbin or weather maker. The story is, that all the clouds go there and get told where to go. The totem at the top is shark’s tooth, and that below, is a bush turkey: male at the top, female below. I hope I have got that right.

There is a wild wind around the final camp, which is in the saddle above Doon Doon. But we’re all in such good spirits, it’s not a defeating force. I have survived being out in it, so perhaps my strong aversion to wind is exactly that: an aversion. Competition is intense for a tent spot behind the bank, out of the wind. I put my tent over a rather large hole in the ground, which proved to be the entrance way for a gnawing animal , which wanted egress during the night. Tonight is campfire concert night. The support crew erect tarps, to provide protection from the wind, and after dinner, around the fire, the concert begins.

DAY 7

Ben’s tent blown to buggery by the wind. My tent floor chewed through. The same old porridge for breakfast.

Walking back down to Doon Doon was sad.The next few days I felt out of sorts with modern life. It’s nice I suppose, to have a bit of extra energy at the end of a day that is not gruelling physically. It’s nice to be able to make myself tea, the way I like it. Nice to see my daughter, my friends, my garden. But that was my tribal time – we were a temporary tribe. We had a set of shared understandings about why we were walking silently, just what that ancient part of us is, that grows when the chatter dies down. And it is a part that says, I am just a small part of this living organism, the Earth”. To go back into discrete lumps of life, is tough.

How refreshing!
a yatra mandarin
in the train tunnel

Diana Levy

This year, 2010, I plan to offer a one-day yatra in the Blue Mountains. I also teach the art of writing haiku. If you’d like further details, get in touch with me on 02-4751-3935.

Haiku from Spring students

2009-10-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

The Blackheath haijin (haiku poets) had a beautiful spring day on September 19, to inspire

their writing.By happenstance we had to work at first in the park next to the centre, but

it was quite inspiring to sit near trees in blossom They were an exotic species -could I

say 'cherry blossom-ish'?Other people enjoyed them too.

Make it snow
- On us, Dad -
Make it snow!
Under cherry trees

Cathie Tanaka (CT)

We walked down through the park past the swimming pool, "where nature meets culture",
getting to know each other.

Willows budding
players budding
the football soars

DL

Past the duck pond, indigenous and exotic species all enjoying it....

Yes, it's more fun
To swim
On a sun warm pond
Ducks tell me

CT

Did Minnie write this here or further on? Not sure:

chattering hikers
photograph
the silence

Minnie Biggs (MB)

A senryu perhaps. But funny!

We walked down into the quiet of the track...

fiddleheads reach for the light
wait for
the violinist

MB

Tiny fern
Two new fronds
Gaze like lovers

CT

I was struck by the difference between being in a landscape like the parklands where
everything is known and seen, and being in the bush under a canopy.

A delicate scent -
unseen well
of nectar

DL

Fingers of sun
reach fledgling ferns
currawongs hold their breath.

Leith Clayton-Brandt (LC-B)

..and to the stream showing us 'karumi', lightness.

A petal in water travels

From rock to rock.

Harumi Hayakawa

This was Harumi's first haiku in English.

Leith sent this in, after the day of dust.

The sun a red coin
soil tumbling filming my hands
the dust storm raging.

Thank you everyone for your beautiful work.

2009-05-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

winter haiku hiking in Blackheath

At the moment in the mountains, it is hard to tell from day to day which season it is. It was very cold in April, then it warmed up again . In my garden, the young peach tree and the pouton seem to think it is spring, with blossoms and buds. There is a vibrancy to the turning leaves this year, brilliant oranges and reds as they relinquish their grip. I wrote this a couple of days before the haiku day, in Blackheath.

Blow me uphill
wind
like those autumn leaves

But it was most definitely winter last Saturday, when the haikunis met at BANC.

Ginger spiced leaves
Scudding grey clouds
Winter nips autumn’s skirts

Cassy Hodge

They bravely donned layers of warm clothing and stepped forth into a strong wind and a grey spit-threat sky.

Haiku day
a sea of beanies
... observing

Peter Berbee

The piles of leaves in Blackheath’s streets were banked up against walls and gutters - quite nice, but lets get down into the gully and out of the wind.

Lungs gorged –sweet, cool air
Birds beckoning,
“Who goes there?”

Cassy Hodge

We had a long warming walk. How many things there are to write about and take pleasure in, even on such a day. It is remarkable how simply paying attention can produce poems like these in a few hours.

Dank rainforest litter
Mushroom skulking -
Peek-a-boo!

Cassy Hodge

Some of these haikus are a first draft, which is the way Shiki wrote his. My one below is word for word the way I wrote it in my notebook.

In old age
an act most powerful –
tree across the path

D L

wind in the trees
the rushing mountain stream
which sound is which ?

Glenys Jackson

Most have been re-drafted, which is generally the way that Basho worked.

birdsong in the wind

behind the tree

a waterfall

Matthew Johns

Diana, 23rd May 2009

2009-04-16T18:29:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from a 3 day hike in the Wild Dogs with my daughter Ruby and her friend Adrian. This walk is part of my book "Into the Blue: Walking Gundungurra country". We were walking in wet weather, not ideal -

Large satisfied leech
hauls itself away
from Adrian's socks

- but how else could we take ourselves to Splendour Rock?

Between us
and the walls of Kanangra
bellbirds

Don't forget that a haiku day is coming up at Blackheath Area Neighbourhood Centre, in mid-May. See my post below for details.

2009-03-03T23:27:00.000-08:00

HAIKU? JUMPING?? HAIK-ING?

The most famous haiku in the world is by great master Basho, seventeenth century Japanese poet, and, in translation by RH Blyth,

The old pond:
a frog jumps in –
the sound of the water

How simple! and yet how full – no part of the poet’s attention was missing. It is a moment in nature , full and complete in itself. I too, want to cultivate a mind as unblemished as that of Basho. One way to do it is to go into nature, be fully present, and write down in haiku form, what I experience.

Basho took the hokku, the first verse of a renga sequence written by a group of poets, and made it into a stand- alone verse. His idea has been taken up in other languages and thrives today as a form of nature poetry. It should not be confused with senryu, which is a satirical take on human affairs.

Here are my best verses for 2006, in roughly seasonal order:

Haiku:

Midday heat –
walkers soak up
the sound of water

Painted fingernails
poking through the earth -
bright red fungi

They’re calling us
over and over
the hidden birds

The trees conferring
amongst themselves
around the spring

(on Gulaga, a mountain sacred to the Yuin people, South Coast)

Senryu

Falling on
climate change protesters,
unusual rain

2008-08-01T23:57:00.000-07:00

Here is a selection of the best haiku written on the Zen and Arts re-treat in April at Kodoji. We had three wonderful days of walking , bookmaking, seal-making, writing, sharing, reading, calligraphy from Jonathan, lino cut, drawing....

New crevices licked
by the swollen tongue
of mother creek

The green shack
dilapidating
like me

How the rain
has ruined your poo sculpture
hidden wombat!

Barefoot
like the Darkinjing –
swiftly flowing stream

Diana Levy

Like old brown socks
hanging from everything
stringybark

Why this tree?
the grey eucalyptus
a hundred butterflies!

Young girls chasing
the ground mist this evening
Kodoji sunset

Jonathan C

deep silence in the valley
and Cl-lang
goes the supper gong.

a tiny spider,
on a single thread
-butterflies frolic

Greg T

A family
conversing tenderly –
Turpentines.

Flood marks
high in the ti-tree –
how deep this path!

The disused road
cut off
by flowing creek.

Janet S
see www.janetselby.com.au

A creche of clouds
dabbed luminous pink
by the sun

Vivian A

rocks lump
like old muscle,

lichen spotted

flowering
from the inside out
petal flavoured

Cath C

2007-09-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

2007-09-22T06:09:00.000-07:00