A Kaleidoscope of Words
Two Images Crossing Paths in a Kaleidoscopic Ballroom
I love words, and I love kaleidoscopic images. The word kaleidoscope means “beautiful form” and I can get lost in the visual acrobatics of these types of images. I love them as mandalas (a mirrored disk look), tessellations (repeated patterns like tiles), fractals (patterns that repeat progressively and get smaller as they do), and other creative and colorful patterns.
My love for words has inspired me to write novels during the month of November a number of times. The event, National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo), is a challenge and a joy for me even when I don’t win. The times I’ve missed have made me feel like I missed something important in those years. Therefore, I’m going to give it another try this year, and I’m going to use my blog to update my word counts as an encouragement to myself–and possibly to others.
If nothing else, I will post a new kaleidoscopic image each day, so be sure to follow me during the month of November to see how far along I get and to see my newest images. If you’re writing for NaNo, let me know in comments. If you would like to add me as a buddy on the NaNo site, find my (yet-to-be-updated-for-2018) profile on the NaNo site at https://nanowrimo.org/participants/crystal-writer and, if you’re a Christian writer and on Facebook, feel free to stop by the group “Christian Wrimos on Facebook” at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ChristianWrimos and introduce yourself. From there, you can join old conversations, start a new one, or challenge other writers to a word war. I hope to see you there soon and throughout November.
Haiku My Day
Poetry, Haiku Style: A Simple Way to Paint Pictures with Words
I use a diary app on my phone (Journey–Diary Journal) to write a haiku about my day as the last thing I do each night. I title each entry, Haiku My Day, and I enjoy this daily challenge. When I was in school, I hated it (like so many others) but now it’s one of my favorite forms of verse because of the simple format and forced focus. When I first taught it to my writer’s group, they groaned like I was one of the elementary teachers they remembered forcing this non-rhyming poetry on them as children–until the class was over. Then, they understood the following list of things writers can learn from creating haiku.
As a result of writing haiku…
- You will be more apt to notice, or be aware of, the present moment, (something important for every writer);
- You will realize the POET-ential (potential) of each moment for settings to be used in stories and articles.
- You can recapture some of the keen and vivid perception you had when you were young and everything was new and wonderful and worthy of further investigation, or at least of telling the world around you about. (Which is why we become writers in the first place, right?)
- You will have a heightened and deepened appreciation of life & nature, and how to paint them with word pictures.
Let’s begin with an answer to the question: What is haiku?
Haiku are Japanese in origin but have made their mark in American poetry where they traditionally consist of seventeen syllables, written in three lines that are usually divided into 5, 7 and 5 syllables, respectively. In Japanese haiku, there is always a nature theme. To express this, each haiku will use what is called a kigo (season word) to indicate the season in which the Haiku is taking place. For example, flowers & butterflies can indicate spring; snow & ice, winter; mosquitoes & lightning bugs, summer; and multicolored leaves, autumn. But in writing Americanized haiku, no topic is off limits.
Matsuo Basho, (1644-1694), considered the greatest master of this form of poetry, said the poet should write directly from his own experience and should try to seek the deeper, inner life of the subject or moment’s activity. He stated, “Learn of the pine from the pine: learn of the bamboo from the bamboo.” It is important to use your first impression, exactly as it was when you write about subjects taken from daily life.
Here’s a haiku I wrote the day I created the first lesson. For my examples, I’ll put the syllables in parentheses after each line. See if you can determine where I was while preparing.
…Quiet all around, (5)
…Just a whisper here and there; (7)
…People reading books. (5)
You likely figured out I was in a library. Now, here’s a set of haiku (called a renga) I wrote for the four seasons. See if you can figure out which season is represented by each.
…A cup of cocoa, (5)
…Flames blaze in a fireplace; (7)
…I am warmed inside. (5)
…New blossoms on trees, (5)
…Pink, white, purple, and yellow; (7)
…Generate new life. (5)
…The sidewalk is hot, (5)
…I do not have shoes to bear it; (7)
…I walk on the grass. (5)
…Feeding time is done, (5)
…The green has left the trees; (7)
…Look at the colors. (5)
I have plenty more, but now it’s your turn. Here are some suggested haiku exercises.
- Look around you right now and write one or more haiku about something you see. Think of it like playing twenty questions and answer some of the base questions. Then, see if someone else can figure out what you’ve written about.
- Write your own set of four three-line verses describing the four seasons.
- Think of two things that are opposites of each other: trust and fear; peace and war; rich and poor; tall and short; loud and quiet; hard and soft, etc. Now write a haiku that shows their differences. Try to get it into one three-line verse. Choose new opposites to write more verses. Here’s an example of an opposite haiku…
…Heat waves in the air, (5)
…Icicles aim for the ground; (7)
…Opposite seasons. (5)
- Think of two things that are like each other or that complement each other: faith and trust; peace and quiet; rage and violence; water and liquid; silk and satin; music and lyrics; etc. Write a haiku to draw attention to their similarities.
- Write about the most beautiful thing you can ever remember seeing. Make it visual enough for others to clearly see the same thing in their minds. If you’re tossed, don’t worry. Just write more than one haiku.
Try this form of writing to bring focus to a character or subject you may be struggling with. If you write a haiku you are willing to share, please comment on this post and let others see it. I’m excited to see what my readers might share.
My Latest Flickr Photos
Crystal Writes A Blog 
You Are The Words You Eat
Taste and See by Flickr User John Britt, CC License = Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike
Click image to open a new tab/window to view the original image and to access the user’s full photo stream at Flickr.
There are no sweeter words than those used to uplift God Almighty. Those can be words of praise directly to Him, words that encourage His children, words that influence people to serve Him with a whole heart, or words that He gives us to use for His purposes. He is the one who created words and gave them power, so when we use them as He intended, we bless Him, others, and ourselves. If He could create the entire world with words, what can we do with the words He puts in our mouths?
In today’s reading from Numbers 22:29 through Numbers 23:12, we are walking with Balak, Balaam, and the princes of Moab. Balak is taking Balaam to the top of a high hill where he can look down and see just a part of the children of Israel. Balaam tells Balak to build seven altars and to offer a ram and a bull on each of them. Balaam will do anything to get his way, so when this man who has power from God Almighty tells him to build altars and sacrifice on them, that’s exactly what he does. Balaam then tells Balak to stand by his burnt offerings while he goes to talk with The Lord for advice on the next move.
When God meets him, He puts words in Balaam’s mouth, and He tells Balaam to back and speak exactly as The Lord tells him. Balaam obeys and goes back to where Balak and the princes of Moab are standing by the burnt offerings and begins his pronouncement of the words God gives to him. The words read like poetry if you want to click the link to read them yourself, but to summarize them, the words say…
At the end of Balaam’s speaking, Balak has a fit. He yells at Balaam and tells him he brought him there to curse the people but instead he blessed them. Balaam’s answer is simply, “Mustn’t I take care to say what The Lord puts in my mouth?”
Certainly, after God spared his life, Balaam has realized that the words of God are sweeter than any other words. The words God put in his mouth for Israel were most definitely sweeter than whatever words Balak would have had him to say. When we let words fly out of our mouths in reaction to something hurtful said to us or some hurtful thing done to us, we may have our say, but the words are bitter in our mouths and can make us bitter and angry people. Instead, let us bless and not curse those made in the image of God, so we have a sweet aftertaste that can linger and stay with us.
I want to add a note here that I’m not saying every word that comes out of our mouths should be sweet according to our human definition of sweet. In the third chapter of John, we have a prophet who’s calling men vipers and hypocrites and warning them of hell to pay. And yet, in John 3:18 it says, “And with many other warnings besides these he announced the Good News to the people.” You see, those harsh warnings were considered “good news” (KJV = exhorted) because it meant John was more concerned with their salvation than what they thought of his strong words. If the words are from God, they may not sound sweet even when they are sweet.
God’s written word tells us in more than one place just how sweet it is. In Psalm 34:8a we read, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” In Psalm 119:103 we get, “How sweet your words taste to me; they are sweeter than honey.” And, in Ezekiel 3:3 it says, “And He said to me, Son of man, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.”
The precious words of God taste so much sweeter than if we must eat our own words of bitterness and hatred and unforgiveness. If we must eat our words, let them be good ones that are put there by our God.
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June 24, 2014 Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Bible Commentary, Bible study, Complete Jewish Bible, eat your words, God's words, Numbers, Scripture, taste and see, Torah Portions, words | Leave a comment