Today’s card is not a card. It’s a zentangle with a poem. It’s not my poem. And, if I am going to be precise, it’s a haiku. It’s by this guy who knew how to wield a pen and a sword. It’s by a samurai named Mizuta Masahide.
What you see in this zentangle is an alternate translation. This is what I found as an original or closer version.
Barn’s burnt down —
now
I can see the moon.
Both are lovely but I find that I prefer the visceral punch of the second one. It’s so raw but the lyrical hope at the end makes me teary.
The samurai competed in so many things…are you surprised to learn that one of those was also poetry? How completely opposed is the art of war and the art of poetry?
But I digress. What I wanted to say is this. This poem is the Tower card.
Have you have ever lost your barn (metaphor,darlings, metaphor)? You know…those catastrophic, “my life as I know it is completely over and I shall never see Tara again” moments? [Whoa! Hold on as I whip you from 17th century Japan over to 19th century Georgia!]
Do you remember when you first realized you could see the moon [metaphor again, darlings]? That instant when you realized not only were you going to survive, but you were going to be a stronger version of the you pre-burnt barn?
Yeah. That moment right there.
That’s the moon moment.
Take 180 seconds today to recall that feeling when you realized that you could see beautiful new things even though you’d lost something you thought so precious. Even though you thought you couldn’t go on, you did.
For me, that barn? Well, I’ve had my fair share of burnt barns–the kind that are long and smoldering (the death of my mother), the kind that are middle of the night “Pa! The barn’s on fire” (break up that I thought I’d never survive), to the kind that are like a wildfire took down your barn, your house and your other house too.
What were the moons? After Mama died, I realized that there is a lot of her in me. I hear her come out of my mouth in so many ways. Used to make me cry more than laugh but now I laugh more than cry. That’s a moon.
So what about you? If you care to share what your three minutes brings you, I’d love to hear it.
Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on. See the moon.
Zentangle, Arwen Lynch, Poem by Mizuta Masahide 1657-1723, 6/17/2013
Here is a set of books that I listened to recently. It mesmerized me. It is, in its simplest form, the saga of the Samurai as told through the journey of one boy and one Samurai lord. It’s far more complex than that of course. I highly recommend this series–>Tales of the Otori