Tag: Shaman

all one and the same (haibun)

Awakened by the lovely sound of birds chirping made her hope it might be sunny today.  It is! Her friend meows in protest for having shut her bedroom door earlier in the morning.  She chatters away expressing her discontent with a hint of hope to be stroked, fed and stroked some more.

The sky is a darker blue than most seasons…not quite cobalt but close with pearly billows drifting by accentuating the hues of this majestic sky.

sea of blue above
islands shaped in pearly greys
beg my surrender

She had moved her laptop in the living room so she could watch a movie last night and fires it up always curious to see the haiku prompt of the day at Carpe Diem Haiku kai.   In the past few months she has not been as regular contributing and she misses her haijin family.  Yesterday she took the time to visit a few siblings and cousins homes around the world in the blogosphere.

Her thoughts wander to a friend who is in San Ramon today and will be seeing Amma at her retreat. How she misses her warm and healing embrace.  Some call her a guru, others call her a hugging saint…she feels she is all of these and more. Her healing touch, her soothing smile, her words of wisdom and mostly her way of living by loving, giving tirelessly to humanity makes her heart swell.   Amma has a way of looking at you and making you see the beauty within. How she does it is a mystery or is it?  She does not preach laws but models compassion and asks us to see the light we all have within.

Her mind drifts off to sounds of various bhjans songs and the tabla drumming to her heartbeat.  Its echo makes her feel the divine beauty reflected from within.   So many instruments mimic nature and human sounds;  her Celtic spirit awakens with strings,  flutes and drums that soften her heart.  Drum circles come to mind and First Nations People who have become her conscious, reminding her to be good to Mother Earth.

© Pinterest

She looks at her mala beads and remembers hearing Amma say last year, “We are all beads strung on the same string of love.”   She tries to remember this daily.  The image of several homeless people who sit along her path to work come to mind.   Some speak French, English, Créole, Arabic or Spanish but she knows they all understand the same language…compassion.

sound of the drum
listen to the heart beat
all, one and the same

© Tournesol’15/11/14

Carpe Diem Extra Shaman

call of seagulls (Tan Renga)

shamanic journey
a red dragonfly comes
to guide the canoe

© Jane Reichhold

shamanic journey
a red dragonfly comes
to guide the canoe
songs of gulls inspire
rumble of the rapids

© Tournesol ’15

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge #88, Jane Reichhold’s “shamanic journey”

mourning a healer (haiga)

If my grandmother would have been born within the Aboriginal culture, for sure she would have been a wise elder and perhaps a Shaman. But she was a humble woman living  by la rivière Yamaska; a village healer in many ways being a mid-wife, a go-to person if someone was sick from newborn to elderly. She had herbal remedies and others passed down to her from her mother and an old village doctor.

To this day, I still miss her when I am sick. For some reason her hand on my forehead and her homemade chicken broth comforted me. She spent hours and days with mothers in labour, sat by a dying person’s bed many late nights and even doctors called on her for help. Most people called called her Garde Daudelin OR GrandMaman.

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At Carpe Diem our host tells us about a Mongolian shaman named Batbayar.  A beautiful story you can read more here of a Shaman and his apprentice. Our host wrote this in honour of the passing of this shaman.

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whispering leaves
telling all wisdom of the steppes
cry of an eagle © Chèvrefeuille

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To make this interesting for me, I searched where there were ealgles in Québec. In Northern and Eastern Québec there are many surprisingly, golden eagles. In the Gaspé Penninsula, residents are helping researchers with sightings as they are very proud of the eagle in their territory. (Gaspé is where Kerouac’s parents were from).

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I have heard from aboriginal youths that the Northern Lights are their ancestors from the “other side”, spirits revealing they are well.

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Golden in Flight – Wikipedia

golden eagle cries
shaman’s loss mourned over
lac Natashquan

© Tournesol ’14

Aurora Borealis – Canada

spirits announce
shaman’s safe entrance 
aurora borealis

© Tournesol ‘14

Carpe Diem Haiku Kai “Helpful”*

To read and hear more about the Golden Eagle in Québec click here.