Be Still and Know

Social networking via the internet has created an environment where people of all ages, races, nations and socio-economic classes can interact with each other seemingly as equals.
It is into this sphere that two individuals, Svetlana Marisova and Ted van Zutphen, met in early 2010 to begin a relationship that culminates with the release of "Be Still and Know". To call what they have an online relationship barely begins to describe what continues to transpire between and through these two people. Over the eighteen months that they interacted via the internet van Zutphen and Marisova became inseparable as a love developed between them that echoes that between other lovers in history: lovers such as Heloise and Abelard, Jane Frances de Chantal and Francis de Sales, Dante and Beatrice. Their love was intensified as they were both haunted by what Marisova called ‘the rapid approach of my use by date’ caused by brain cancer. For both of them every moment mattered and every word mattered. With an inevitability that no longer surprises they discovered the power and wonder of haiku crafted in the Japanese tradition. Over the next eighteen months they grew together beyond the restrictions of space and time but each anchored in what they could separately see, hear, taste, smell and touch. The fruit of their love is the haiku, that they encouraged each other to write, revealing to each other the mystery of each other and the world they inhabited. Some of their work has been collected in "Be Still and Know".

“Be Still and Know is a weaving tale of two spirits entwined in the magical qualities of fine haiku, tanka and haiga. From side to side, top to bottom, the poems neatly connect and interconnect between the poets, their imaginations and the reader. silent night the flute hiding in the bamboo The far reach of mystery, the unsaid, sends the reader into another realm of consciousness and experience. Be Still and Know is a book of timeless value and heart; its poetry is impeccable. There shouldn’t be a bookshelf in town that doesn’t have a copy on it. I'm certain of that!”
- Don Baird (Author of Haiku Wisdom)

“A literary treasure.” - Robert Johnston

”... there is no doubt that this is a labor of love, and there is much here to enjoy and appreciate… it certainly is a fine tribute to svetlana, and an interesting commentary on the kind of relationship that might spring up, unbidden, from a mutual avocation, even through the somewhat impersonal channels of the internet”
- jim kacian (Chairperson of The Haiku Foundation)

“... without question a genuine work of love … many (of the poems) are very fresh, original, ethereal, even sensually spiritual. Svetlana was a most talented haiku poet, which makes her untimely death, from the vantage point of everyday consciousness, feel all the more cruel. There is so much youthful innocence (and accompanying naïveté) intermingling with a maturity beyond her years--a unique combination.The inclusion of tanka, haiga, and haibun are a pleasant surprise and enrich this collection, which is a heartbreaking tribute to a most talented, fallen poet.… Your poetry runneth over with the terrible ache of love and loss. I deeply respect your extraordinary courage in turning toward the anguish and sorrow, giving it poetic expression. "Be Still and Know" is itself a work of stillness.”
- Robert Epstein (Author of Dreams Wander On)

“… another timeless classic rivaled only by the likes of Rumi or Lao Tzu” - anon.

“. . . a poignant, ground-breaking collection … I have had to read it as if I was savouring the most exquisite confection, in small slivers, such is the richness and the heart-rending beauty. “
- Claire Everett

“… I've never seen/read anything like it before - Beautiful.”
- Kirsten Cliff

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Svetlana Marisova (March 17, 1990 - September 7, 2011) was born near Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, and moved with her parents to New Zealand in 2004. A precocious child, with a voracious appetite for poetry and the writings of the the great spiritual 'fathers', she chose to enter a life of contemplative prayer emptying herself of possessions, relationships and self-fulfillment and yield to the divine. This direction was curtailed in late 2009 with a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. Over the two remaining years of her life she developed a passionate interest in haiku finding in it a way to give expression to her experience as a creature present for a time in creation with a keen awareness of the creative presence in all things. In Ted van Zutphen she found a person who took her exactly as she was with her worldly naivety and her ancient wisdom loving her into the poet she became. Ted van Zutphen (November 28, 1950 - ) was born and raised in the Netherlands. Growing up in the city of Erasmus, Ted studied architecture in the city of Vermeer, until he dropped out to the city of Vondel. In subsequent years he traveled around Europe and North America with a touring musical/theater /comedy troupe called Friends Roadshow, performing in the streets, small venues and festivals, satisfying his love for traveling, freedom and humor, eventually settling down in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to raise a wonderful family of four children for 34 years. Connecting via the internet in early 2010 with Svetlana Marisova on the other side of this planet, he was, along with her, drawn into a wonderful expression of the relationship between nature and the spirit of our being on this earth, called haiku. Starting to write English language Japanese short form poetry in earnest in October 2010, when he retired from his job as a bus driver, they quickly developed their separate, distinctive styles. Continuing to work and write together, while Ted took off in May to fulfill his long time dream of traveling this world in a small RV, their relationship blossomed, as revealed in their poetry, until Svetlana's untimely passing as the result of the tumour in her brain. Ted and Svetlana never met in "real life".