Basho's Trail, ( Oku no Hosomichi, ) A Journey We All Should Take.

Photograph by Michael Yamashita

The following paragraph about Oku no Hosomichi, (Narrow Road to a Far Province) by the poet Matsuo Basho written almost 300 years ago, sums up what we all trying to achieve by doing all the hard work that is necessary to keep this earth of us from destroying. I like Japan (I lived there for a while and plan to return.) for it's simple gestures at life and how the nature blends into our lives. We go where flowers bloom in spring, summer we swim in the seas, autumn we go looking at the change of colors in the forests and in winter we warm ourselves in natural hot springs. Yet Japan is like any other country, having similar resources, only difference is how we look at or treat what we got! But Followed the path.
Instead of my ugly lecture (I am better at lecturing Physics! ;)) here is the story;

The splash of a frog, a cricket chirping from beneath an empty samurai helmet, "the cool fragrance of snow": Such closely observed moments in nature, often marrying unlikely elements, distinguish Bashos poetry. Haiku (a three-line verse) originated as the first verse of longer poems. Using plain language in the service of spiritual insight, Basho raised the form to literature, each poem like a polished stone that, when dropped in water, creates an infinity of ripples.
See all the photographs at National geographic
The feature article.
tag: Nature, Basho's Trail, Oku no Hosomichi, Matsuo Basho,