The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.
The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems
Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.
These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.
Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.
“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”
"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"
Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.
Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.
I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.
Quotations from Basho Prose
The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.
The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.
All the more joyful,
all the more caring
Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.
In the spring of 1690, Basho was asked to name a newborn girl; he called her “Kasane” which means "to pile up in layers" or "to occur again and again, in succession." and wrote this tanka to bless her and wish for her a lifetime of happiness:
Spring passes by again and again in layers of blossom-kimono may you see wrinkles come with old age
Iku haru o / kasane gasane no / hana-goromo shiwa yoru made no / oi mo miru beku
The double meanings, both in space and in time, overlap in a web of blessing and hope for Kasane and all female children: ‘Layers of blossom-kimono” has three areas of meaning:
1) the two layers of kimono over an inner robe;
2) the succession of blossom-kimono one woman passes through from bright to sedate as she ages;
3) the kimono passing onto her daughter and granddaughter, the next layers of herself,
Also “wrinkles” are both in the kimono and her skin.
A formal kimono is a two layer silk robe meticulously folded and tucked around the body in flat, even layers. The colors and pattern are chosen in harmony with the woman’s age. A blossom-kimono for a girl entering womanhood might be a soft pink with bold cherry blossom design on the lower portion. A thick brocade sash of a darker contrasting color encircles her waist. The red inner robe, suitable for a party, shows at the neckline, and where the left side of the skirt covers the right, margins of the kimono lining appear and disappear as she walks.
Kasane, now your time begins, stretching to infinity before unfocused eyes. Soon you’ll be laughing and playing in the sunshine – that is, if no wars come and natural disasters, fatal illness, and financial ruin stay away too. One spring in youth, you shall be given your first “blossom-kimono” an exquisite robe to be worn just once a year to view cherry blossoms, then folded up and stored away until next time to celebrate under cherry blossoms. The springs shall come and go with clouds of pink blossoms filling the treetops to fall in a shower of petals as you blossom into a young lady elegant in your impeccably layered kimono. Each year as you sit with legs folded under you on the straw mat under the cherry trees, creases shall form in the fabric. Carefully, as your mother shows you, restore its silky smoothness for another year. I pray the day comes for you to pass this youthful kimono onto your daughter, while you wear one more moderate in color and pattern – and this too passes onto her, and you to the dark sedate kimono of an older woman.
So, Kasane, may our nation remain at Peace and the happiness in your family pile up layer upon layer until wrinkles in the fabric no longer smooth out and you see wrinkles of old age cross your face. Do not despair, my child, for you live again as spring passes by and your granddaughters laugh and chatter in their blossom kimono.
The tanka SPRING PASSES BY offers Hope to small females —Hope for a childhood without misfortune, hope that she will grow into womanhood and see grandchildren. Basho speaks of what concerns women: the succession of life, the happiness of children -- the conditions of Peace, both in society and in family, in which little girls can dress up and party with relatives and friends, and life goes on generation after generation.
In less than a single tweet, Basho encapsulates the life of one woman from newborn to wrinkles. Someday, if enough people ever know it exists, this poem may be recognized as the greatest work of all Japanese literature, a work so great it transcends the bounds of literature and Japanese culture to become a prayer for all humanity.
I know of one poem that compares to Basho’s verse in utter simplicity with profound human depth: it was written by a four-year-old Russian boy in 1928. In the 1960s when nuclear war between America and Russia seemed imminent, the little boy’s poem was set to music and became the refrain to a song. The lyrics never caught on in translation, but the refrain became an internationally known prayer for Peace:
May there always be sunshine May there always be blue sky May there always be mama May there always be me
Both the poems of 46-year-old Basho and 4-year-old Russian boy make a wish from destiny – not the wish for a million dollars or a movie star lover—but rather the wish for something infinitely more precious: that our current Peace will continue. The boy speaks only of the environment, mama, and himself, while Basho looks ahead to future layers.
Since I found this Basho haibun and tanka thirty years ago, I have searched through hundreds of books on Japanese literature, both English and Japanese, and found no mention of them. A few comprehensive Basho anthologies such as the KBZ do give the haibun and tanka, buried among six hundred pages where nobody notices them. The few scholars who know of the tanka find it trivial, not worth discussing. Women, and some men, when they know of this poem, may see it differently. Basho, an Asian man in the 17th Century, wrote this song of Hope to a newborn girl: the mind boggles at this praise for a newborn female. Every stereotype we have about Asian men and the 17th Century comes crashing to the ground.
If this verse and the other positive life-affirming Basho poems in Basho4Humanity were taught in schools -- instead of all that “Buddhist impermanence” and “pathos of existance ” and “desolate lonely beauty” and so on – maybe the young students, and especially the girls, would be interested.
I plead for your help in finding a person or group to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material, to edit and improve the presentation, to receive all royalties from sales, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide and preserve for future generations.
The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.
The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems
Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.
These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.
Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.
“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”
"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"
Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.
Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.
I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.
Quotations from Basho Prose
The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.
The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.
All the more joyful,
all the more caring
Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.
