Take a Deep Breath: The Haiku Way to Inner Peace

by Sylvia Forges-Ryan, Edward Ryan

What happens when one of America's best-known haiku poets joins forces with her psychologist husband to write a book? The Take a Deep The Haiku Way to Inner Peace -- a unique collection of guided meditations, drawn from and experienced through the appreciation of haiku. Sylvia Forges-Ryan, an award-winning poet, and Edward Ryan, a Yale psychologist, have teamed up to introduce an original and heartfelt technique for a combination of restful haiku with clear and simple instructions on how to draw out the insights each one contains, and use them for one's own well-being. Haiku are the perfect form for their exercises because they are the shortest of poems, with the longest of echoes. A good haiku distills a great deal of experience into a few phrases, and sets off a chain of thoughts that expand like the ripples in a pond. Each haiku here makes that little splash which creates a ripple of thought explored in the short commentary that follows. In today's fast-paced, high-pressure world, Take a Deep Breath can help anyone learn to slow down and take stock, relax and focus on the present moment, and find poetry and depth in their own lives.

129 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Kylee Macdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and much needed reminder at the moment to take a deep breath.