Haiku about Seasons: Week 12 of rewriting your well-being
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
John Keats, To Autumn
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
Give yourself a round of applause because you have reached the twelfth and final week of my interactive blog-series, Haiku for You! For the last time, I will provide inspirational writing prompts and help you to write haiku as an act of mindfulness.
If you are a newcomer, there is no need to feel late to the poetry party! My introductory post is here to explain everything, so you can feel ready to catch up with our community whenever it is best for you. Trust me, your words will be worth the wait.
This session is all about finding comfort in the changes that happen in the world around us.
Take a slow, deep breath in …
…and then back out.
Today, we are going to think and write about
seasons.
Thoughts about Seasons
There are many things in life that we only encounter for a season: weather, friends, mentors, hobbies, schools, universities, jobs. And yet, we appreciate them just as much as the long-standing company of our everyday lives. In fact, we learn to do this.
Our appreciation of a season is often strengthened by its contrast. Take the weather, for example, the go-to illustration of the four seasons. Every year, the sun complements the rain, the snow complements the bloom of spring, and in life, the rough complements the smooth just as heartache complements the love that eventually finds us.
Seasons are predictably unpredictable, or are they unpredictably predictable? Either way, they allow comfort and possibility.
Personal Seasons
As well as the seasons of nature, which can either give us a lot of energy, or make us want to hibernate with snacks until the sun shows its face again, we have our seasons that are tailored to our personal needs.
Consider your morning routine. Do you love beginning your day with the aroma of coffee beans and toast? Do you like to go for a stroll on your lunchtime to clear your head? Do you love to read a bedtime book until your eyes close and you begin the new daily season all over again? Finding a routine has proved to be great for improving many people’s mental well-being. It provides us with a sense of control and therefore a sense of safety.
Let’s be honest, we all have days where our smiles cannot widen enough to express our genuine elation, followed by the days where others would not recognise our dark silhouettes. Just as the nights start drawing in to prepare us for our shorter summer days, where we eat ice cream, walk to the beach, or play garden games, we must prepare ourselves to say goodbye to a moment and welcome a new and wonderful one.
If we view everything as a season, it makes it easier to embrace either its positive or negative nature, but also to appreciate it in its temporary state. The moon, for example, has its phases. The rain has its thundery moments before a rainbow shows itself and sun finally emerges.
Our tiredness, our grief and our darkness will eventually subside.
Haiku about Seasons: some examples of my own
Rain applauds the glass, wind wolf-whistles and drum rolls summer’s finale.
Just before Autumn, leaves cling to broken branches; choose their way to fall.
Forsaken season - empty parks masked by blue skies; sun burns for breakthrough.
How to write your own haiku about seasons
Exercise duration: approximately 30 minutes
1. What season are you in right now?
This can either refer to nature or a personal season..
2. What would you call this season other than its true name?
For example, describe winter’s true personality.
3. What colour is this season?
Choose at least three colours/shades.
4. Does this season have a particular aroma?
5. How does this season make you feel?
6. Now, focus on a positive season that will come next.
What will you call this season? Take your time to describe it using the above prompts.
Now, using your notes, write your haiku about seasons.
Just remember, it’s three lines of 5-7-5 syllables! Refer back to How to write Haiku guidelines.
Close your eyes and take another deep breath in …
and then back out …
How did you find it?
Many of us struggle to accept change, but it is an important part of growing up and maintaining positive well-being. It is healthier for us to consider life as a transition between moments, rather than being constantly frustrated by surprises we cannot control.
I hope you found focusing on the seasons a helpful metaphor for this mindset.
I like to see it as putting on a coat to venture out to the cold, or wearing sunglasses before basking in the sun. We are preparing ourselves to brave the elements at their best and their worst. And even then, no season is ever the same, in nature or in our lives. That’s exciting.
Once again, I would like to thank you for taking the time out of your day to visit Haiku for You. The poetry you have sent has been such a joy to read! I really hope this has helped you secure some peaceful moments to reflect and truly find yourselves.
Even though this is the final week, it doesn’t have to be the end of your haiku writing! I hope you all continue to write haiku on a daily basis. You can even refer back to these haiku writing prompts if you need a little inspiration. I have deliberately created them in a way that you can use them as many times as you want! I would love for this community to grow.
Feel free to share your haiku alongside any of the twelve posts! I will welcome your words! This certainly won’t be my final blog post, so, keep an eye out for my future articles and watch this space for a new season of writing exercises that will be ready and waiting to excite you!
Until then, remember that whatever season you find yourselves in right now, you are on your way to a new one!
Notice the beauty around you. Smell the flowers and the cut grass, catch the raindrops on your tongue, walk barefoot on the warm ground, and feel the sun on your tired eyes in the garden. Soon, the cold will come, and you are to enjoy that too.
Life is a season. Make the most of today and tomorrow, so you can look back at wonderful yesterdays.
Now, let’s haiku away!
If you are happy to, please leave your beautiful haiku about seasons in the comments section below each post.
Subscribe to my newsletter if you want to hear more about my future interactive blog-series ideas that are in the pipeline!
See last week – Haiku about Love
Carolyn Jones
Haiku about Seasons
Yellow, blue and green
Warm without coat, hat and boots
Finally, summer
Carolyn Jones
Diolch o galon iti, Georgia — Thank you so much for organising this, which has helped me get through lockdown. I also really appreciate the positivity of your feedback, as well as everyone else’s — and the nice comments about my beginner’s Welsh! It can be a mean old world online, and this site is really a lovely oasis of calm and nurturing. Thank you all.
Georgia
The friendly colours of nature in summer – what lovely details to pick up, Carolyn! The freedom of not having to wear a coat/generally wrap up is an underestimated comfort, isn’t it? I hope tomorrow is this sort of day. I think it might be! 🙂
Thank you for your kind words, too. I’m SO happy this has created a calm space for people. Also, it’s lovely to hear some welsh. 🙂 It’s reminded me that I need to continue to improve mine! It’s great you’re using it at every opportunity! 🙂
Chris
I am sad that this is the last week. I have loved thinking about the haiku weekly theme, trying to find the right words.
Thank you Georgia for your weekly inspirations, your own haiku, your lovely feedback comments . It’s been lovely reading everyone’s haiku and ‘meeting’ fellow haiku writers.
Writing haiku seems to be such a discipline and it has taken my mind off of the restrictions of lock down ( and being with a shielding husband whose health isn’t too good) Thank you.
Georgia
Thank you so much, Chris, for your regular haiku offerings and your interaction throughout! 🙂 It wouldn’t be such a community without these conversations! I have only done so much. 🙂 I’m glad these haiku exercises have created the sort of mindfulness you describe – especially in difficult times, which I hope become less so for you and in general! Haiku is definitely a discipline worth focusing on in more depth if it has piqued your interest. After all, you can never run out of moments to write about. 🙂
Chris
October
End of summer’s blaze
Hedgerows don their russet hues
Leaves drift gently down.
Georgia
‘End of summer’s blaze’ is a powerful an unexpectedly emotional opening line, Chris. It captures emotional burnout as well as the season simply changing. Not only that, but how the world reluctantly reacts to such a transition. Beautiful. Thank you!
Wendy
Changing of the trees.
Warmth of the sun on your face.
Frost biting your nose.
Georgia
I love the contrast of this haiku, Wendy! It captures so much realism; not an idealised one, but nature with all its contradictory traits! Perhaps this is a season both beginning and leaving? 🙂 I suppose all of them are! Thanks for sharing!
Vivienne
Vibrant colours bloom
Bees buzz while butterflies dance
Fragrance fills the air
Sun’s heat on my back
Lunch cooking over hot coals
Garden fiesta
Crunched leaves under foot
Catching colours of Autumn
Crisp wind whispering
Snow clad branches droop
Every breath freezes mid air
Footprints in the snow
Georgia
Yay! A haiku for each season! 🙂 So many wonderfully descriptive images that are are so vivid and immediately immersive. I also really enjoyed that the footsteps are ‘catching colours of Autumn and in winter, breath is frozen ‘in mid-air‘. Both lines try to seize a single moment and hold onto it in the way a photograph does. True focus. Thanks! 🙂
Wendy Evans
Can I just say ho enjoyable this has been. Making me think out of the box and using my brain to think logically and not worry, worry, worry. Just wondering if there is anything else you could suggest I do. The ma question is ……..are you doing anything else like this please. Going to miss this every week but thank you,x
Georgia
Awww, I’m relieved to hear this has been of some help, Wendy. And remember, you can revisit these themes and prompts as many times as you like. Even if you add your haiku beneath previous posts, I will read and respond. 🙂 There is always inspiration waiting for us to capture it. I will miss everyone’s haiku visits, so I do hope you ALL come back!
I am coming up with some ideas for another slightly different (but equally accessible and) inspiring season of writing prompts that I will post on here after a little bit of a break, so I can return with the same energy. 🙂 More will be revealed via an upcoming newsletter/post.
In the meantime, for anyone interested, I would suggest simply continuing to focus on the five senses when you want to try some mindful writing, even just picking out certain sounds/colours can detach us a little and make a moment less overwhelming by bringing it back to basics. Count the syllables of what you discover, and piece your discoveries together. 🙂 As I said, (and this goes for everyone here) feel free to post on here as often as you like. I hope this helps. 🙂 Thank you again for sharing your thoughts. 🙂
Lotte Williams
It had been a wonderful twelve weeks… Thank you to Georgia and everyone’s contributions. It’s been a real pleasure to share with you all xx
My haiku is looking towards September…
A class bubble blows
And children’s laughter carries.
This new term begins…
Georgia
What a lovely metaphor, Lotte! I can definitely feel the anticipation of this haiku! Children’s laughter carrying as they are once again free as children love to be (and all of us do, of course). It feels freeing to even read this. 🙂 Here’s hoping there will be no need for bubbles before long, but when everyone can be truly safe. All the best for your children’s new season. Thanks for this, Lotte!
Peter Gaskell
Deep beneath frost, the
Seed safe knowing spring sun will
Warm it into life
It’s been a delightful journey with you all and I too shall miss the weekly challenge so many thanks Georgia and for your comments, more helpful than just ‘likes’
So lastly a philosophical one (as you might expect from me!)
like days and years we
are born grow and die back to
renew through seasons
Georgia
Thank you for your philosophy, Peter. Your haiku have been so thought-provoking throughout! I’m glad these prompts have been able to work hand in hand with your other inspirations.
‘Spring sun will warm it into life’ is such a reassuring line, and your final haiku is so fitting for this final session. Every day is a new season and we can continue to renew ourselves as well as our writing. Thank you again. 🙂
Anna
I must remember:
my life is small. The fields
flower regardless.
A bit of a gloomy one, I’m sorry! But I want to say thank you so much for this series. It has really helped me through a difficult few months.
Georgia
I really like this haiku, Anna, so please don’t apologise for any gloominess. Besides, this has a VERY positive message! 🙂 I’m fact, it is a perfect illustration of why mindfulness is important. Often, we need to feel small in order to feel like ourselves again, but not too much of ourselves. 🙂 These flowering fields are a representation of what happens without our intervention. That realisation alleviates some pressure, right? 🙂 I love this, so thank you!
And, no problem, Anna. I’m really glad this has assisted in some way. All the best calm thoughts and observations to you. Thanks for sharing. 🙂