by Alison

thirteen year old girls

need time to sit on the porch

without Twittering

by Kelly

“Ninety-five percent

of the time, I’m right!” he claims.

I will not concede.

by Alison

spring lay-offs bring dads

to Wiggle & Giggle Time

at the library

by Kelly

several moments passed

while I sat staring at cut

tulips in a vase

by Alison

she surprises me

with a pot of tea because

she knows I like it

by Kelly

five years on paper

but I believe we’re fated

eternal twin souls

by Alison

Chapter 40 - Cutting Through

splitting
the stone of a white peach
with the edge of the knife

-  Takako Hashimoto

Patricia Donegan invites us to be daring. To get rid of our attachment to every thought and deliberation and instead take action. Action that is swift and bold. Courageous and precise. Like the sword work of a Samurai or the bravery of Joan of Arc. Or the quick action of cutting through the stone of a peach to obtain the perfect seed.

This is a tall order and something that is difficult for most of us. A bold action without clarity and precision can lead to chaos. Precision without courage can lead to inaction. Precision and courage without clarity can lead to the wrong action. What to do? How to gain the insight and courage to “cut through?”

I’ve cut through on occasion, as have most of us. My decision to move to Argentina during my mid-twenties was an act of cutting through. Before my move I had spent several years bogged down in post-college angst. Worried about a chronic health problem, a difficult relationship and what in the world to do with my life, my mind was on hyper-speed. I seemed to be consuming myself and getting nowhere. Then a friend suggested I try yoga and I started to change. Yoga allowed me to slow down, get reacquainted with silence and gradually I began to gain clarity - and courage. Suddenly, the question of whether to accept a job in a foreign country was clear. Yes! And this decision forever changed my life for the better.

Basho advocated this approach to writing haiku, the process of which should be like “biting a pear or cutting into a watermelon.”  Easy and direct. Forceful and strong. It is the obtainment of this clarity, skill and courage that is the lifelong journey of haiku. And I will think about this when ten years after my South American adventure and quietly settled in the suburbs, I try to summon my inner Samurai.

Find Haiku Mind on Amazon:
Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart

Cutting Through haiku and Basho quote excerpted from Haiku Mind by Patricia Donegan, (c)
2008. Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.
www.Shambhala.com.

by Alison

a perfect Buddha -

the cat who is at peace with

a toddler’s torture

by Kelly

often overlooked

joy of spring: stomping hollow

ice shelves at the curb

by Kelly

Chapter 41 of the book, Haiku Mind, discusses the idea of vulnerability.

The topic didn’t immediately pull me in. I’ll admit that I read the opening haiku and the entire first page in a zone. I was experiencing an afternoon lull and even though I was reading, I was  thinking ahead to what I might eat for dinner. Not even the act of turning the page was enough to snap me out of my numbed state.

But then I hit these words: “skin-ship”. I woke up, grabbed my highlighter and colored seven lines.

Skin-ship, according to author Patricia Donegan, is a term used to describe a very close relationship between two people, a relationship that is so close that the two people have bathed together.

While bathing, she says, we are naked, warm, soft and quiet. We have gone back to a “primordial state” and feel “at home.” This is a kind of relationship we have with only a very few.

I am going to make a confession here: Alison and I have a skin-ship.

Yes, yes. It’s true. We have bathed together, although the experience wasn’t as supple or as sexy as some might imagine.

Our bathing-together experience was the complete opposite of everything Donegan describes. It was awkward, outrageous, foreign, uncomfortable and borderline abusive. Wait. It wasn’t borderline. It was abusive.

It occurred at the Russian-Turkish Bath House in New York City. We were whipped with bunches of hot, soapy leaves and then thrown into an icy pool. Afterwards, I had scabs on my nipples.

The whole thing had been Alison’s idea. I agreed, very willingly I might add, to tag along. If I was going to get naked and beaten with leaves, Alison seemed like the perfect companion. And she was. I can’t imagine having lived that experience with anyone but her.

That’s because Alison and I had a skin-ship long before we entered those bath house doors.

Our skin-ship, though, wasn’t born from joint bathing. It was born from travel.

While the act of bathing is a practice in vulnerability, so too is travel. Especially foreign travel, and especially solo foreign travel — and even more so if you are a woman.

And that’s how Alison and I met.

It’s commonly said that the strongest relationships are built on trust.

But trust needs vulnerability in order to exist. The two are kind of a chicken-and-egg situation. It’s hard to say which comes first.

What I do know is this: When I met Alison, I was extremely vulnerable. So was she. We were both far from home, and we were both in need of a friend, and it is because of this, because of how our relationship began, that we have a skin-ship.

In fact, if I stop to consider my inner circle, the people I trust most, turn to most often, with whom I allow myself to be most vulnerable, the people with whom I would say I have a skin-ship, I find that travel is the root of several of these relationships.

While Donegan argues joint bathing is a cause of skin-ship, I’m going to venture out on my own and say that, at least for me in my life, travel has been the greatest catalyst in forging skin-ships.

Find Haiku Mind on Amazon:
Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart

“Skin-ship” idea excerpted from Haiku Mind by Patricia Donegan, (c) 2008. Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston. www.Shambhala.com.