Speaking of nature, and our interactive sources of discord
"The future direction of haiga is uncertain ... since it depends on the future of
haiku itself. ... powerful influences ... lead potential poets away from nature ...
away from extraordinary awareness of the seasons ... away from the
observation of minute but flavorful moments of daily life. Instead of the
traditional cycles of rural life ... there is now a pervading focus on urban
existence with its stress on products and possessions. Japanese like
Americans are ... deluged with mass entertainment ... we can only hope that
both haiku poetry and haiga will continue to serve as a counterweight to the
pressures of the modern world."
(Published by Marsh Art Gallery and the University of Richmond, in association with the University of
Hawaii Press. From the book entitled Haiga: Takebe Socho and The Haiku-Painting Tradition: Haiga and
Japanese Art)
In regards to humanities discord, our dysfunction and/or maladaptive behavior in regards to the
way we interact with and perceive nature, I'll address two sources. Though before I address these sources,
I'll speak to what I mean when I refer to “our natural interactions with nature” (Bukusai Ashagawa JIKU
5th edition). when I speak of our interactions with nature I’m speaking of our comfort level, in regards to
the when, where, how, and if we live or spend time in a forest or anywhere in nature for extended periods.
I speak of existing and then thriving in a setting where nature, her elements and the other living beings
that coexist within it dictate to you, rather than you imposing upon them. I speak of putting on a pack and
living in a tent/shelter where there is no bathroom, running water or electricity. Or living in a small cabin
where protecting your food source from ants, mice, and bears is as much a concern as stocking your wood
stove or fireplace; where stoking that wood stove or fireplace is not just for heat, but as a cooking and self
defense source. To live in nature where dusk, dawn, and the whims of the weather dictates what you do,
rather then a job. This is what I mean when I refer to "our natural interactions with nature” (Bukusai
Ashagawa JIKU 5th edition), especially in regards to our dysfunctional and/or maladaptive interactions
being the sources of our natural discord.
These sources of discord with nature have brought to the forefront a "distinctly" A-W form of
pastiche haiku. This form of poetry uses haiku's "cicada shell" if you will, its 5-7-5 or short-long-short
format. This form of poetry is then used to fill the inside of the cicada with mukigo instead of kigo
to create haiku's fraternal twin, senryu.
At least two of the sources of our discord are Abrahamic (Anglo-Western) maladaption and
Dharmic (Eastern) dysfunctionality, in regards to how most of us associate and interact with nature today.
Generally speaking, Dharmic origins have a preponderance of views, views that speak to nature as being
seen as divine in and of itself. While Abrahamic or A-W views maladaptively characterize humanity as
patriarchal, as imposing our interests upon nature, it treats nature as a resource for man, to tame or impose
Abrahamic order upon.
Think for a moment of the American painter John Gast, and his symbolic painting “American
Progress”, it acts as a sort of crude haiga. Gast's work acts as a piece of iconic symbology for the A-W
world accompanied by text that epitomized western domination.
Here is an excerpt from the text of the "Manifest Destiny" which often accompanied Gast's
painting."To control North America ... as god's chosen people ... to spread civilization, free market
capitalism, and Christianity ... to enlighten the world ... bringing light into the darkness".
These words and Gast's painting would come to personify the symbology of America’s westward
expansion or its “Manifest Destiny” worldwide. This manifest destiny was rooted in the belief that
America was there for the Christian man to tame, and take ownership of. North America was there for
man to mold into what he (not she) believed would best reflect Christian values. Never mind that this
westward expansion or manifest destiny required the annihilation of most, and the colonization of the
remaining non Christian Native Communities that were already thriving where they wanted to expand.
This colonization required once again in Gandhi’s words, “the systematic destruction of their ...
relationship with nature. Stripping people of their collective notion of self … a prelude to ... the process
of colonization ... (which) goes on today under the name of 'development' wherein success is measured by
the criteria of Westernization."
The Black Ships that would posture within range of Japan’s coastline were merely another
example of this expansion of America’s A-W Manifest Destiny, only played out in Asia. Again my point
is not to vilify our A-W society, but to make my literary point by critiquing it. Japan and China too
were-are empires, which did-do much the same throughout much of Asia. This has been the legacy of
many of humanities more aggressive and intersecting imperial societies. I’m just addressing how the
world’s present dominant Abrahamic A-W society is influencing my literary art form, ehi/haiku today.
So as I’ve illustrated, this Abrahamic viewpoint sees nature as a place apart from God, as an
untamed godless place where man was banished to, from the garden of eden. This historicist perspective
immediately imposes a maladaptive Abrahamic view of nature upon those of us indoctrinated into this A-W way of faith, thinking, believing, and creating. No matter whether we identify as A-W or not, if we're born and raised in the western world, or are in the eastern world and are heavily influenced by the west (few aren't), we must then contemplate simultaneously being open to a multiplicity of religious or spiritual ways or possibilities. Ways of thinking, being, or even believing, and creating, to write aligned with haiku's Dharmic artistic aesthetic. For those of us born and raised in a Dharmic based eastern world we have to continually work at not manifesting the naturally maladaptive world’s dominant A-W concepts of nature that can create dysfunctional tendencies in the ways we interact, with nature. Being able to not just coexist but thrive within the intersectionality of divergent ways of being, with and in nature is something Basho, Saigyo, Issa, Buson, and Taneda did not face on the level we do today.( More recently poets like Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, and Wright poignantly addressed these issues of nature, via transcendentalism and ethnic nationalism. Still though, these more modern A-W poets (especially Richard Wright) wrote more senryu rather then haiku poems. In comparison to haiku, the others wrote more so in a verse, prose, or haibun style in regards to transcendentalism. They also wrote more so of imposing upon nature, rather than of equally being of or a part of nature.
Still regardless of the reason, on some level most all humans on the planet suffer from some level of discord in regards to their interactions with nature. In the end much like social justice issues, the symptoms, causes, antecedents, and solutions, treatments for the continued decline of haiku are intersectional. Again these intersectional causes and symptoms result in large part from A-W and self colonization, as well as Abrahamic-maladaptiveness and Dharmic-dysfunctionality, in regards to our intersectional interactions with nature. As a result of our natural western tendencies to impose upon haiku, mukigo is being manifested as the gentrified tool used to subtly supplant haiku. So once mukigo is substituted for kigo a poem ceases to be a haiku, and is assimilated as senryu. This assimilation occurs regardless of whether kigo or nature is referenced in conjunction with non saijiki manmade subjects in a senryu. Again I'm not making an argument for or against senryu or haiku. I am instead speaking to what I perceive as the how and why of haiku's proxy gentrification by today's A-W interpretation of titular haiku, which in reality is actually senryu. To what degree mukigo or kigo is present in a poem as the underlying theme is truly a subjective judgement; it is a judgement that is relative to each readers and writers life experience, our way of conceptualizing and contextualizing external stimuli internally.
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