So the summer is making headway and the reading that we are doing in the wonderful downtime up at the cottage by the lake or flaked out on the couch at night by the warm lamplight, is giving way to new learning, something novel, or a rediscovery of the insights of the wise men and women in the helping field.

In my fantasy I imagine the reading and the reflection it spawns as forming part of the subtle layers of consciousness, electrifying new neural circuitry, and becoming the colours of perception, that on the palette of interventions in the emerging ‘here and now’ of our work one day (when holidaying is done) comes out a fresh, embodied moment of shared connection. Summertime is for daydreaming.

I am not in the habit of doing so and I’m not especially capable of managing a simultaneous light study of more than one book, but, for several reasons linked to my recent month of yoga training in India, a number of books came up for me as ‘have to read’ next. I started reading, rotating books after a chapter and was really enjoying the dynamism when I started to feel a links in the flow of non-fiction pluralism. Perhaps because the books I chose had an Eastern theme, it came to me to write haikus for the notes that I was taking and see if the flowing connection was real. My haikus transformed the notes into syllabic pearls of useful code and I thought, hey this is in fact an interesting bibliotherapeutic intervention of sorts that I would now like to share with you all.

What you read next are five haikus that sprung forth over the last few weeks of offseason summer reading. Perhaps you will see the flow of ideas coming together in the reflective experience of texts. The texts from which they are inspired are listed below. For fun, see whether you can match the haiku to its inspiration. I hope your summer reading has been delightful my fellow Canadian counselors and psychotherapists! When the summer holidaying is done I wish you a fresh return to the good work that you aspire to do as well.

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The heart gambles and

Is non-calculating while

dreaming, it plants seeds

 

Under conundrums

What is Real mirrors that

Which is absolute

 

 

Our deficiencies

Are partly the making of

Our wanting ‘likes’

 

Love alive deeper

Meaning in the inner self

Where there is no gas

 

How avoiding of

the simple fact, powerful

Is the Fear of death,

 

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Inspiring texts: If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!, ancient India’s The Upanishads, Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, the unprecedented work of transpersonal psychiatrist Brian Weiss’ Many Lives, Many Masters and Osho’s Courage, The Joy to Live Dangerously.

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA