Image by David Mark from Pixabay
Suspended in night,
plankton stars light the ocean
galaxy surface.
I once observed the natural phenomenon of bioluminescent seas on a night dive at the Similian islands in Thailand. As we ascended from the dive to make our five meter safety stop the guide motioned that we should all chest our torches. I will never forget the experience that followed as the torch light was extinguished. Each movement of fin or arm shed a thousand pinpricks of scintillating stars trailing in their wake.
The full moon a wavering blotch of ethereal white oscillating with the soft motion of the night's currents above slashed with the occasional silver flash of barracuda. We hung in that shimmering galaxy of winking stars, shimmering off and on like a million supernova in that vast blue.
“The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
As the safety stop came to an end, and we pulled our torches from our chests to cast light back into the watery night, a poisonous Spanish Dancer spiraled through the middle of our group. This purple/crimson twist of gelatinous flesh ascending from the deep to salute the end of our dive.
It's these types of experience that pull me back to scuba diving over and over, they push me to evaluate any risk of predator encounters, equipment failure or current dangers... and do it anyway.
For me, the wonder of nature is no more apparent than beneath the waves. As you can probably tell from my descriptive passages I find it a transcendental experience. An awakening to the simplicity of instinct that is at the heart of animal behavior, which acts as a pointer to how I can simplify and prioritize my life.
The haiku in this post attempts to capture what Japanese Haiku masters call Wabi (侘寂):
the taste for frugal and natural things, rustic simplicity, freshness or silence; it can be applied to both natural and artificial objects, or even non-ostentatious elegance.
Along with Yūgen (幽玄):
sense of wonder and mystery; it represents the state of mind produced by the inexplicable fascination of things, the feeling of an 'other' universe, full of mysterious unity.
To read more about the aesthetics of true haiku, and the difference between haiku and senryu, please check out my post: Haiku Vs Senryu - The Aesthetics of Form
All images in this post are creative commons license, linked below pictures. If you have enjoyed this Haiku, please check out my homepage 
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