Mystical Realism
Mystical Realist Haikus
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Haiku is a perfect form for Mystical Realism poetry. Ideally, a haiku, just like Mystical Realism, should have no agenda, nor any particular message to deliver. It is simply an image of reality translated into words. At its highest level it is completely impersonal, without any meaning, totally free from attempts to impress artistically. Consider the following masterpiece by the japanese master Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), arguably the greatest haiku ever written:
old pond
a frog jumps in
plop
(Mystical Realist translation)
The result might seem trivial, even meaningless, but this is exactly the quality hiding a haiku's true depth. The part of our minds bored by this seemingly mundane character – the conceptual, linguistic compartment of our psyches, in which we interact and spend most of our waking hours – is exactly the part unable to stand reality as it truly is, without desperate attempts to squeeze it into any conceptual model. In other words: A true haiku deals with mystical reality, the world as it truly is, outside the constructed models of our minds. While most art reaches out to our conceptual interpretation of reality, a true haiku, just like Mystical Realism, goes beyond, pointing to reality as it really is, outside of our habitual need to classify, define, identify and understand. Mystical Realism views reality as a great big happening, just happening, for no particular reason except that it is ... happening! The sheer intense mystery of the now.
Just as is the case with reality itself, the true meaning and depth of a haiku will not reveal itself, until every single attempt to interpret and understand conceptually has been dropped. For it is exactly these attempts that flatten the depth of reality, into the models our minds create in order to grasp and control the situation. Beyond even our concept of "meaning", lies the vast meaninglessness of reality itself, which paradoxically is the only thing, when acknowledged and integrated, is able to bring a sense of true meaning. Only when one is left as nothing but an observer of the happening of reality, the true meaning of being itself is revealed, without the definitions and artificial separations in the mind. This kind of meaning is impossible to reach with our conceptual minds, as the conceptual meaning it finds is the conceptual meaning it creates.
Damn right!
plop