wild – Kaspa Thompson

Haiku Therapy

In the year before the pandemic, the year of my Wild Therapy training, I wrote lots of haiku. I wrote for myself and I took part in a haiku writing group online. Each week in the group there was a theme and each week I wrote a few haiku with that theme in mind, and a few others without. Sometimes my haiku were selected as one of the good ones, and sometimes they weren’t.

low winter sunshine
leaves caught in their own shadow
the green alkanet

For various reasons I slipped away from this writing practice over the last couple of years, and now I find myself returning to it.

mid-January
I had forgotten how clear
the blue sky can be

At the beginning of this year I re-read Natalie Goldberg’s book Three Simple Lines. It’s about her visits to Japan, and her experience of reading and writing haiku, and of Zen, and as I was reading it I began to pay special attention to the natural world. I was looking for haiku again.

mist and mist and mist
catkins and mist and mist and
mist and mist and mist

Setting the intention to write sets the intention to slow down and pay attention. When I pay attention something in the world my own cares and concerns give me some space. The busy mind quietens down a little (or a lot, sometimes) and I’m simply with whatever I’m paying attention to… and counting syllables.

This break is good for my well-being. Grounding myself in the physical world is good for my well-being. And of course, I am not completely absent from the haiku, I am always looking through my own eyes, and some of my own feeling is in the poem. Because I am writing a poem, the presence of whatever I’m feeling or thinking is balanced with some spaciousness, and that’s good for my well-being too.

waiting for insects
a rotting cider apple
its wide open heart

Now I’m reading Clark Stand’s guide to writing haiku, Seeds from a Birch Tree, and I’m keeping my eyes and ears open and a notebook handy.

If you want to introduce some moments of mindfulness in to your week, why not give it a go yourself?

the floor takes my weight
and that of the small spider
just as easily

Recent writing

For Extinction Rebellion Buddhists:

Healing Oppression – an article exploring a Buddhist approach to healing oppression

For Bright Earth Buddhist Temple:

Mindful Walk – a description of a recent mindfulness walk
What Should I Do? – exploring how to make choices about which path to follow
Is This World a Pure Land? – is it helpful or wise to think as this world as a Pure Land (a Buddhist ‘heaven’)
Wild Meditation Diary – a description of an outdoor meditation session
Moving Through The Dark – a reflection on personal process and the natural world

Mindfulness Dawdle

A peacock butterfly on a purple buddleia flower — Peacock butterfly in the temple garden

I’m looking forward to co-leading a mindfulness walk in the Malvern Hills this weekend. Satya and I scouted out the route earlier this week. We’re beginning in a park, a place where order and the complexity and chaos of the natural world come together: tarmacked paths in straight lines, mown lawns and the wonderful abundance of life in the wild edges. We’ll follow a path through woodland at the edge of the park, with glimpses of the main road below and the big church in the centre of town, and then zig-zag up through the wilder hillside.

In the temple garden we take very slow steps in our mindful walking practice. On Saturday we’ll dawdle. Slower than a regular walking pace, but not so slowly that we have to concentrate on the mechanics of walking – our attention will be given to the world around us.

What are the benefits of this kind of amble through the natural world?

For many of us our history of wounding and trauma has taken place inside and the outside world has been a place of refuge from family dynamics and harm. Stepping back into the natural world is coming into a place of safety.

Some of us have a more complex relationship with the wild. We may have been told it was other people’s space, or full of strange and frightening creatures. Stepping into the natural world from this place creates an opportunity for healing and facing our fears.

Whatever our history with the outdoors, we are animals as much as people. Our bodies and minds evolved to be bodies and minds in the complex systems of the woods and open spaces of the natural world. If we can find a way of settling into these spaces we can experience a deep sense of coming home.

The Japanese movement called forest bathing draws on this truth – that simply being in the woods is healing.

The life of the forest can also speak to our questions and dilemmas. Sometimes it is the gift of spaciousness that allows our whirring thoughts to settle, and into the peace an answer we had been searching for arrives. Sometimes a particular encounter creates a new insight in us. A butterfly fluttering away reminds us of the possibility of lightness or of easily leaving or rivulets of water joining a stream teaches us that we are all part of something bigger, or the strength of an oak tree gives us the confidence to find that strength ourselves.

There are still a couple of places available if you want to join us on Saturday (2pm-4pm) drop us an email at: hello@brightearth.org.