Haiku from a Friend, Step Ten

I hit a writer's block when attempting to bring Haiku to Step Ten.

I asked for inspiration at a recent Emotions Anonymous workshop and John L. brought these fine words forth: 

Steady steps on stones,

Some dry, some slick;  a slipped foot

Is planted anew.

John's gentleness is mirrored in Julia Cameron's words:

Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.

Julia Cameron

Syd and Smitty's Step Eight

Syd shared  beautiful imagery for Step Eight with me. I just tweaked to fit the Haiku form.


The ones I've harmed, their
Names written in soft beach sand
Ocean's tides erase.

Healing Sword

When wounds fester

May I see the hurt I've caused.

Write each name.  Wield love.  

Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.
Buddha

Step Eight:  

Made a list

of all people we had harmed

and became willing to make amends to (us) all.

Step Eight, Open to Your Creative Input

The Haikus are my gift to you all and to my program.

For some reason, Step Eight has my creativity blocked:  "Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all."

Is it because of the word "list" that I have suddenly become listless?

If you can help,  I will publish what you share. 

Remember the form for Haiku is for the first line to contain five syllables, the second, seven syllables; and the third line, five syllables again.   Ideally a Haiku has an image in it, from nature, that lends a picture to the message..

Step Seven, Haiku

Humbly Ask for Grace

Ask for loving care.

See misconceptions vanish

In Your looking glass.

Humbly asked God to remove all my shortcomings.


Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parent's shortcomings. Laurence L. Peter. 

Reflection on Step Six, Haiku

Easing towards the Tipping Point

Make ready my heart

For Grace. "Deep six" my flaws,

Sins, misperceptions...

"I always liked the story of Noah's Ark and the idea of starting anew by rescuing the things you like and leaving the rest behind."

Zach Braff

Reflection on Step Five, Haiku

Witness

Wrong? Admit. Think right.
Though my arrows miss each mark
Your eyes forgive me.


Step Four: Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

"All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?" Buddha

Reflection on Step Four, Haiku

Courageous Inventory

With pen in hand I
Pored through my basement and found
Compost and treasure.

When your heart speaks, take good notes. ~Judith Campbell

Step Four: Made a searching and fearless (courageous) moral inventory of ourselves. I use the word, courageous, because  I learned in my program that "courage was fear that had said its prayers."

I love that the root, coeur, means heart. That made the selection of the above quote quite satisfying to me.

Reflection on Step Two, a Haiku

Come to Believe

Your stories teach me.

I ponder them, that I might

Re-learn Sanity.

Step Two: I came to believe that a Higher Power can restore me too, to sanity. Your story beckons. 

It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story. —Native American saying

Non-Control, Powerlessness

Step One in EA (with my interpretations) in parentheses:    Admitted that we were powerless over our emotions, that (wielding power over our emotions) had  made our lives unmanageable  (i.e. thrown us off-course).  

Follow the Course

Power seduces.

Just navigate the river;

Discern the currents. ~ V Smitty

The best way to navigate through life is to give up all of our controls. Gerald Jampolsky

Step Six, Haiku

Behold the mirror 

Where long-held misperceptions 

Vanish in His sight. 

Step Eleven, Staying

Meditation

Twixt now and summer

A new geography. My

Breath holds me. Here. Now.