Henry Moore — Observation

How much is your art connected to nature? Do you spend time observing the shapes and patterns within nature? Do you study nature and learn from it?

When I spent seven years writing and studying haiku, I spent time connecting with the physical world around me — listening to nature. I would take walks and write haiku. Even those of us who live in cities are a part of nature. Here is a haiku that I wrote while walking around Chicago.

downtown Chicago

a squirrel buries apples —

warm autumn sun

As creative leaders, we must look for inspiration in nature whether we write novels, paint abstract paintings or compose music. Nature has much to teach us about ourselves and the world in which we live. Watch the rabbits playing in your backyard. Enjoy the beauty of a sunset. Take a walk and feel the snowflakes on your cheeks.

Harley King

While I saw my first robin this year over a month ago, I am still reminded with each new sighting about the importance of the seasons.  The seasons are the touchstones of our lives.  They remind us of who we are and what we are all about.  This year has been a particularly hard winter where I live and people delighted in the coming of spring.  The seasons measure the passing of time.  



Our lives are also like the seasons.  Our youth is the spring of our lives — full of energy, excitement and enthusiasm.  We seek to discover the meaning of life and the world into which we are born.  Why are we are?  Who do we want to become?



In the summer of our lives, we settle into the world, mating and raising a family.  We find employment to pay our bills and hopefully, provide us with a sense of purpose.  The questions of our youth become less important as we are in pursuit of life's abundance.  Like the squirrels we are finding nuts and burying them for the coming winter.



In the autumn of our lives, we return to the melancholy of our youth.  We think again about the meaning of life and our purpose for being here.  We question and challenge the decisions we have made.  Have we settled for too little?  Have we given in too easily to the demands of life?  If our time in this life is limited, what changes do we want to make?



In the winter of our years, we know the end is near.  We can feel the coming death in our bones.  We will return to the soil from which we came.  We watch our friends and companions of this life pass on to a world beyond our grasp.  We live in memory of what has been — hopeful that our passing will be blessed.



The seasons have also been a touchstone of my creative life — beginning with the wild and crazy hopes and dreams of spring.  I wanted to be a poet and a novelist — a rich and famous world traveler.  In the summer, I chose to find a job to support a family.  Writing was relegated to the early morning hours while everyone slept.  In the autumn of my years, I have written thousands of poems and published little.  I am more interested in the process of creating then in fame and fortune.  Winter is around the corner and I find myself also drawing and creating art.  I wonder what will happen to my creative work after I am gone.  Will it disappear?  Or will it find a home somewhere?



In 1977, I published Winter Silence, my first book of haiku to celebrate the birth of my daughter.  The book was organized by the seasons.  In 2014, I read and recorded the haiku from that book.  Enjoy this short reading.

May your heart rejoice 

with the coming of robins in the spring.

Masaoka Shiki

"Take your materials from what is around you — if you see a dandelion, write about that; if it's misty, write about the mist.  The materials for poetry are all about you in profusion."

— Masaoka Shiki

Japanese Poet

1867 - 1902

Commentary

Where do you get your ideas for your writing or your painting?  Are your ideas rooted in the world in which you live?  Has that maple tree in your backyard shown up in your painting?  Has the dragonfly or the butterfly appeared in your writing?  Look around you.  The world is yours for the taking.  Be sure to incorporate it into your creative work.



Even if you paint abstract paintings or write surrealistic poetry, you can take your inspiration from the world in which you live.  Nature is full of opportunity to explore the meaning of life and other philosophical questions.  It also teaches us practical lessons that we as humans need to learn.  What can you learn from the squirrel or rabbit or deer?



Human frailties can also be a great source of inspiration whether you are painting or writing.  What are you learning from the people in your life?  How are you applying these lessons to your art?

Creative Practice

Take 10 minutes everyday and write or paint something that you normally don't write or paint.  Take your subject from what is around you.  Maybe it is a dandelion, or a squirrel, or an oak tree, or even a spider.  Or take something you normally write or paint and change your perspective.

About the Poet

Masakoa Shiki (Tsunenori), considered one of four great Japanese poets, was born into a samurai family of modest means in the castle town of Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku.  His father, Tsuneanao, was an alcoholic who died when Shiki was five years old.  His mother was the daughter of a Confucian scholar who became Shiki's first teacher.  She was forced to teach sewing to support her family.  At 15, Shiki became involved in the Freedom and People's Rights Movement and became interested in being a politician.  He moved to Tokyo in 1883 to live with an uncle. While in Tokyo, he discovered baseball and enjoyed playing.  He entered the Imperial University in 1890 where he studied literature and eventually concentrated on haiku.


When Shiki was 22, he began coughing up blood and adopted the pen name, "Shiki," the name of a bird that according to legend coughed up blood as it sang.  He dropped out of the university and began working as haiku editor for a newspaper, Nippon.  Shiki suffered fro tuberculosis the last 14 years of his life.  He went to China in 1895 as a war correspondent in the First Sino-Japanese war.  Living in filthy conditions in China, Shiki grew worse.  He became bedridden in 1897.  The illness worsened in 1901 and he began using morphine as a painkiller.  He died of TB in 1902 at the age of 35.  


Haiku by Shiki


spring rain:

browsing under an umbrella

at the picture-book store


a look backward

at the person who went by —

misted out


the nettle nuts are falling . . .

the little girls next door

don't visit me these days


ways of the world,

may he never know them,

the toad


lifting my head,

I look now and then —

the garden clover


to awaken

the hot-water bottle, barely

warm


how much longer

is my life?

a brief night . . .


a barrel full of phlegm —

even loofah water

will not avail me now


Biography  & Haiku Sources:

Beichman, Janine. Masaoka Shiki. Twayne Publishers (Boston). 1982.

Hoffmann, Yoel. Japanese Death Poems. Tuttle Publishing (Boston). 1986.

Isaacson, Harold J. Peonies Kana. Theatre Arts Books (New York). 1972.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaoka_Shiki

Quote Source:

Beichman, Janine. Masaoka Shiki. Twayne Publishers (Boston). 1982.