2. Seventeen syllables written in three lines.I was hoping to find a few hard and fast guidelines to use but haven't had much luck. The 17 syllables rule is only a suggestion -- many very good haiku in Japanese and English have less than 17 syllables.
3. Seventeen syllables written in three lines divided into 5-7-5.
4. Seventeen syllables written in a vertical (flush left or centered) line.
5. Less than 17 syllables written in three lines as short-long-short.
6. Less than 17 syllables written in three vertical lines as short-long-short. (Ala Barry Semegran)
7. Write what can be said in one breath.
8. Use a season word (kigo) or seasonal reference.
9. Use a caesura at the end of either the first or second line, but not at both.
10. Never have all three lines make a complete or run-on sentence.
Information update posted by Chris Cowan, 3/13/06:I think this is regrettable, but the feud between these two has been ongoing for quite some time. Back in October, I posted my limited take on the situation, trying to outline the major points of difference and essentially wishing that they could put their differences behind them so that those of us who want to learn the system wouldn't have to do two different certification programs.
Acting on behalf of his company, The Spiral Dynamics Group, Inc., Don Beck has filed a lawsuit against Chris Cowan. The suit, listing The Spiral Dynamics Group, Inc., as Plaintiff is Cause No. 2005-30034-211 in the 211th Judicial District of Texas.
.pdf copy of the Plaintiff's lawsuit
.pdf copy of Defendant's initial answer
Additional filings and consequential actions will be posted here in the interest of disclosure of the facts.
Anonymous said...I suspected Cowan or one of his associates/students left these comments. The original post was put up before I attended Beck's certification in Boulder last October. I blogged repeatedly about that certfication experience while I was there. These comments were left a month later.
Your post is full of half truths and statements that pretend to know what is going on when you don't. You've missed the theory, correct terminology, and core issues from the academic side; you've also missed the interpersonal conflict, political dimensions, and postions of both parties. Do your homework before opining and editorializing about something you know little about.
Anonymous said...
BTW Beck has a "Prime Directive" whereas Graves (the source) had a "prime good" - a Beck distortion of the original meaning of the phrase. Why don't you check this link out? http://www.spiraldynamics.org/learning/faq.htm#prime. FYI the way to piss off Cowan is to distort, misrepresent, falsify, and spread disinformation - some experts have more expertise than others.
So, today I am grateful for new challenges.On a withered branchWhat are you grateful for?
a crow has settled --
autumn nightfall.
-Basho
I do think we see a lot of people mistaking blind faith or bright faith for unwavering faith, having no ability to distinguish between pre-rational and post-rational. I remember the priests talking about unwavering faith in their sermons, when what they really meant was blind faith.Interesting study. The Institute for Noetic Sciences has had more promising results in similar studies, but their results haven't been accepted by the mainstream.The work, which followed about 1,800 patients at six medical centers, was financed by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research into science and religion. It will appear in the American Heart Journal.
Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and other scientists tested the effect of having three Christian groups pray for particular patients, starting the night before surgery and continuing for two weeks. The volunteers prayed for "a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications" for specific patients, for whom they were given the first name and first initial of the last name.
The patients, meanwhile, were split into three groups of about 600 apiece: those who knew they were being prayed for, those who were prayed for but only knew it was a possibility, and those who weren't prayed for but were told it was a possibility.The researchers didn't ask patients or their families and friends to alter any plans they had for prayer, saying such a step would have been unethical and impractical.
The study looked for any complications within 30 days of the surgery. Results showed no effect of prayer on complication-free recovery. But 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed a complication, versus 52 percent of those who were told it was just a possibility.
Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center, who didn't take part in the study, said the results didn't surprise him.
"There are no scientific grounds to expect a result and there are no real theological grounds to expect a result either," he said."There is no god in either the Christian, Jewish or Moslem scriptures that can be constrained to the point that they can be predicted."
Within the Christian tradition, God would be expected to be concerned with a person's eternal salvation, he said, and "why would God change his plans for a particular person just because they're in a research study?"
Science, he said, "is not designed to study the supernatural."
Conversation Among Mountains
You ask why I live
in these green mountains
I smile
can't answer
I am completely at peace
a peach blossom
sails past
on the current
there are worlds
beyond this one
[Image source]There are certain advanced techniques in which you intentionally churn up emotions by thinking of people or situations that make you angry or lustful or afraid. The practice is to let the thoughts go and connect directly with the energy, asking yourself, "Who am I without these thoughts?" What we do with mindfulness-awareness practice is simpler than that, but I consider it equally daring. When emotional distress arises uninvited, we let the story line go and abide with the energy of that moment. This is a felt experience, not a verbal commentary on what is happening. We can feel the energy in our bodies. If we can stay with it, neither acting it out nor repressing it, it wakes us up. People often say, "I fall asleep all the time in meditation. What shall I do?" There are lots of antidotes to drowsiness but my favorite is, "Get angry!"
Not abiding with our energy is a predictable human habit. Acting out and repressing are tactics we use to get away from our emotional pain. For instance most of us when we're angry scream or act it out. We alternate expressions of rage with feeling ashamed of ourselves and wallowing in it. We become so stuck in repetitive behavior that we become experts at getting all worked up. In this way we continue to strengthen our conflicting emotions.
The Pure nature of mind -- emptiness, lucidity, and intelligence without limit -- has always been inside us.
-Kalu Rinpoche
Ode to Keats, 2, The Dream
Hedged about as we are with prayers
and with taboos
Yet the heart of the magic circle is covered with gray linoleum
Over my head fly demons of the past
Roi
Lori
Jimmy, they pass
With a whooshing sound
The only ghost who stands on the ground
(who stands his ground)
Is Freddie-
I rise a few inches above the circle, and turn somersaults
I want to go shopping, but all I see is my reflection
I look tired and sad. I wear red. I am looking for love.
On the sidewalk are lying the sick and the hungry:
I hear "Spencer's Faerie Queen cost them all their lives."
And Spencer? I ask, "What did this life buy?"
Through the door is the way out, Alan stands in the doorway
In an attitude of leaving, his head is turned
As if to say goodbye, but he's standing still.
Hedged about with primroses
with promises
The magic words we said when we were praying
Have formed a mist about us...
[Di Prima] was born in New York City on August 6, 1934 and after attending Swarthmore College, settled in Greenwich Village. It was at this location where she lived the "bohemian lifestyle" that typified the Beat movement.Di Prima's poems are often composed in a flat diction representative of the way people talk. Some work lacks punctuation and relies on the reader to infer pauses from the phrases used or the breaks in lines.
She published her first book of poetry, a collection called This Kind of Bird Flies Backward was published in 1958. In the early 1960's, she collaborated with Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and started a monthly periodical that featured the work of themselves and many other notable Beats, including Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.
She also was the founder of two publishing houses which focused on the writing of innovative and avant-garde poets: The Poets Press and Eidolon Editions. She also began a career as a lecturer at the Naropa Institute in Colorado in 1974.
Di Prima's career may reflect a struggle with the political and social upheavals that occurred in the 1960's and 1970's however, her writing often focused on her personal life and relationships. Much of her later writing reflected an interest in alchemy, female archetypes and of course, Eastern philosophies.
Some of her works include: Poems for Freddie (1966), Earthsong Poems 1957 - 1959 (1968) The Book of Hours (1970), Loba, Parts 1 - 8 (1978), and Pieces of a Song (1990). She also authored a collection of short fictional stories, Dinners and Nightmares (1961) and an autobiographical book, Memoirs of a Beatnik released in 1969.
The Window
you are my bread
and the hair
line noise
of my bones
you are almost
the sea
you are not stone
or molten sound
I think
you have no hands
this kind of bird flies backwards
and this love
breaks on a window pane
where no light talks
this is not the time
for crossing tongues
(the sand here
never shifts)
I think
tomorrow
turned you with his toe
and you will
shine
and shine
unspent and underground
Chronology
I loved you in October
when you hid behind your hair
and rode your shadow
in the corners of the house
and in November you invaded
filling the air
above my bed with dreams
cries for some kind of help
on my inner ear
in December I held your hands
one afternoon; the light failed
it came back on
in a dawn on the Scottish coast
you singing us ashore
now it is January, you are fading
into your double
jewels on his cape, your shadow on the snow,
you slide away on wind, the crystal air
carries your new songs in snatches thru the windows
of our sad, high, pretty rooms
The Belltower
the weighing is done
in autumn
and the sifting
what is to be threshed
is threshed in autumn
what is to be gathered is taken
the wind does not die in autumn
the moon
shifts endlessly thru flying clouds
in autumn the sea is high
& a golden light plays everywhere
making it harder
to go one's way
all leavetaking is in autumn
where there is leavetaking
it is always autumn
& the sun is a crystal ball
on a golden stand
& the wind
cannot make the spruce scream
loud enough
