Workshops

Drawing as Haiku

An hour program sharing an enjoyable way to draw using haiku guidelines-simple, real world, honest, surprising. Approaching drawing in the same way we approach writing a haiku:

Stay simple (not knowing mind)

Engage with the real world (bearing witness)

Let what is inside you express itself (compassionate action)

Haiku has come to mean something much more than just a 5-7-5 Japanese poetic form. In the West haiku has come to represent a state of mind, like Zen. Well, maybe not like Zen, just Zen. What’s so cool about drawing is that you can do it anywhere at any time. You might be on a train, at home on the couch or in a doctor’s waiting room. It doesn’t matter. Wherever you are there are material objects and there is your consciousness. Those are the two elements needed to come up with poems. The possibilities are endless. Another thing about drawing is, it doesn’t require much, just paper and a marking implement. Because of this drawing is not expensive, like most other art making. Nor are there toxic chemicals or messy spills. Just pencils and paper. This creates the atmosphere of simplicity, of haiku.

We will draw something from your yard. Go outside and pick something up. It can be a twig, a petal, a can, a stone or anything else that you find intriguing. Pick something with simple lines. Bring this, paper and pencil or pencils. You can use color or not, your choice.

Drawing as haiku is about becoming intimate with what you are looking at. It is a way to experience the world, not about making something beautiful. Something beautiful will naturally arise when you’re present. Resist the urge to generalize. Not a maple leaf but this maple leaf. Take a close look at the leaf before you that had a prior life on a tree and now sits in your home. Is there a brown area where an insect took a bite? That was a real moment in the life of this leaf and in the life of the insect. As a haiku poet you are recording real moments.

Gatha Writing Workshop

When do you lose perspective? At what point in your day does your mind race out of control? When do you become fearful and grasping or just spaced out? Gatha is a Sanskrit word meaning song or verse. These delightful little poems are designed to help us become centered when we loose perspective, space out or feel out of whack. During challenging times we can use gathas to calm ourselves down and tap into a more awakened reality. During calm times we can use gathas to deepen our capacity to enjoy being where we are. In this workshop we will create our own unique gathas for the times in the day we most need to remember the take a beat.