Battlefield - haiku

in the war of wills
your smile melts my defense
sweet is surrender

~~~

one more one more chip
until packet lies empty
battle lost again

~~~

battlefield of mind
good wages war with evil
does not always win

~~~

Haiku Heights / September Heights / day29 / Battlefield

Tying yourself to the bedpost

Excerpt from a delanceypost article ------

The five stages of sleep:

  

"Until the middle of the twentieth century, scientists thought that sleep was an unchanging condition dur­ing which time the brain was quiet. The discovery of rapid eye movements in the 1950s upended that. Researchers then real­ized that sleep is made up of five distinct stages that the body cycles through over roughly ninety-minute periods. The first is so light that if you wake up from it, you might not realize that you have been sleeping. The second is marked by the appear­ance of sleep-specific brain waves that last only a few seconds at a time. If you reach this point in the cycle, you will know you have been sleeping when you wake up. This stage marks the last stop before your brain takes a long ride away from conscious­ness.  

"Stages three and four are considered deep sleep. In three, the brain sends out long, rhythmic bursts called delta waves. Stage four is known as slow-wave sleep for the speed of its accompanying brain waves. The deepest form of sleep, this is the farthest that your brain travels from conscious thought. If you are woken up while in stage four, you will be disoriented, unable to answer basic questions, and want nothing more than to go back to sleep, a condition that researchers call sleep drunkenness. The final stage is REM sleep, so named because of the rapid movements of your eyes dancing against your eye­lids. In this type of sleep, the brain is as active as it is when it is awake. This is when most dreams occur.

"Your body prepares for REM sleep by sending out hormones to effectively paralyze itself so that your arms and legs don't act out the storyline you are creating in your head. This attempt at self-protection doesn't always work perfectly, and when that happens, what follows is far from pleasant. Sometimes, it is the brain that doesn't get the message. This can lead to waking up in the middle of the night with the frightening sensation that you can't move your limbs. In the Middle Ages, this was thought to be a sign that a demon called an incubus was perched on the chest. Instead, this condition is simply a flaw in the sleep cycle, a wrong-footed step in the choreography of the brain's func­tions that allows a person to become conscious when the body thinks the brain is still dreaming.  

"At other times, the body doesn't fully paralyze itself like it is supposed to. This is the root of a series of problems called parasomnias, of which sleep­walking ... is by far the most mild. Patients with REM sleep disorder, for instance, sometimes jump out of a window or tackle their nightstand while they are acting out a dream. Some patients I spoke with who have this disorder have resorted to literally tying themselves to the bedpost each night out of the fear that they will accidentally commit suicide."

--------------------- end of excerpt ----------------------------

Footprint - haiku

footprints in the woods
getting fewer and fewer
as species vanish

~~~

footprints on my mind
some I keep some I wipe off
memory spring clean

~~~

footprints on the grass
flowers smiling up at me
even after death

Haiku Heights / September Heights / Day27 / Footprint

Paper boat - haiku

little chubby hands
set boats sailing on puddle
joy dancing on face

~~~

kites, blue, red, yellow
like sky-sailing paper boats
kissing bashful clouds

~~~

I wish my thoughts could
paper boat across the world
dropping peace parcels

~~~

 

(image : internet)

Haiku Heights / September Heights / day26 / Paper boat

Sleep - haiku

the summer paints dreams
on eyelids shut to the world
sun-baked somnolence

~~~

sleep-walking through life
we arrive at death’s doorstep
begging one more chance
 

~~~

Haiku Heights / September Heights / day25 / Sleep

Paradox - haiku

sorrow with joy walks
relentless we pursue joy
sorrow dogs our steps

~~~

soft eloquent eyes
tender hearted Collosus
a gentle giant

(this refers to Michael Clarke Duncan)

~~~

Haiku Heights / September Heights / day24 / Paradox

Hummingbird - haiku

busy blur of blue
nature’s little acrobat
held aloft by air

~~~

Haiku Heights / September Heights / day 23 / Hummingbird

Creation - haiku

can you hear that voice
that says ‘create’ ‘create’
heed divine command

~~~

Haiku Heights / September Heights / day15 / Creation

The dirty secret truth about talent

A behind the scene look at talent and how to master anything...

Read Justine Musk's masterful article here

The pebble

I stand at the window
the trees unmoving
the clouds still
only a gull flies
cutting through the sunlight
in white-arched flight.

I wonder
about that pebble
lying in the sun.

Does it long to skim
across surfaces of lakes
and then, not landing,
take off, like that gull
piercing through
that blue curtain of the sky
sail through the heavens
like it once had.

Or is it content
to just lie there
kissing the earth
caressed by the rain
nurturing crawly things
under its stony presence
like fatherhood.

On bright nights
when the stars beckon
with their glittering light
does it turn instead
its gaze inward
to the dance of its atoms
the galaxies of molecules
the songs of the seasons
ringing in its silent being.

Smiling
knowing
that flight is possible
even when still.

~~~

The Story of India

A fascinating series by BBC -

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6 is missing

Part 7