Wandering Cloud...
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -- J. Krishnamurti
I wonder... what do you think is the way to happiness? Or, perhaps you are already there! Whoo-hoo! Or, perhaps again, you have settled into what you have now as "as good as it is going to get"... And then there is the religious angle, perhaps you've chosen this route: "I'm saved! I'll be happy in heaven!" And you patiently endure... And life is a steady dose of different days with different degrees of misery... And living becomes a deep, secret, sadness...
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -- J. Krishnamurti
I wonder... what do you think is the way to happiness? Or, perhaps you are already there! Whoo-hoo! Or, perhaps again, you have settled into what you have now as "as good as it is going to get"... And then there is the religious angle, perhaps you've chosen this route: "I'm saved! I'll be happy in heaven!" And you patiently endure... And life is a steady dose of different days with different degrees of misery... And living becomes a deep, secret, sadness...
Tossed on the seas of life, we angle our little boat for some semblance of home, of refuge, of some possibility of "more", of "happiness"... even for just a few moments of time... All the while, we get closer and closer, inevitably closer, to landfall: to the approaching "cave" that is the darkness, the unknowing, of our demise, of our death...
Faith. Maybe! Oh, if only we had some! Oh, if only, if only, the "cave" is other than the disapointments with which we have lived... something more than having had lost our faith... Science. Science says that everything is energy and that matter simply vibrates "slow enough" to become visible... but that it too, will slip away into "nothingness"...
All of our days, all of our days that we have given over to striving: striving for money, for privileges, for things, for relationships, for homes, for our "mystery everything", become meaningless when looking into the approaching emptiness... Death consolidates everything into "nothing"...
It's not just that we turned out "well adjusted to a profoundly sick society", but that we also became the very sickness that we abhored! We adjusted to our unhappiness. We adjusted to our politicians and therapists. We adjusted to the lies and slander: we settled for the "good enough" of being fooled... We bought our little boat on the installment plan...
Okay! Enough of this drift of thought! Without a doubt, you have your own analysis of yourself and the world in which you live, move, and have your being... So do I! I have a lover who is my best friend. We have three children, two dogs, a little home, and the routines of the seasons, work, schools, gardens, hikes, games, and the like...
We have dreams, still. We have hope and the promises that we keep. And we have visions, even some wide awake...
While the above photo inevitably draws one's attention to the "approaching" cave, there is also the rocking of the waters, and a sky full of clouds... and there is one cloud in particular...
Wandering Cloud
this mountain that mountain
pillows for Wandering Cloud
this breath
perhaps enough
for blessing this pain
weaving the separations
perhaps into bliss
climbing that mountain
of every day this breath
eye know
will never forget you
this foot here that foot there
this that Tao
pillows for Wandering Cloud
-- Robert Daniel Smith
And so we begin again... we learn the primary lesson of life: we can begin again! There is a method to this beginning again: I summarize it with "turning and bowing"... Turning away, turning toward, turning again: walkers know this intimately. So do drivers, pilots, swimmers, and, well, turning includes everyone: changing one's mind is a turning away from thoughts or views which no longer entertain or inspire... All of this turning is the natural wisdom of the Tao-Gospel, the Primal Energy-Consciousness which fills the Universe in its every part: and the hard part of the mentioned method comes next...
Bowing is the secret ingredient to both turning and a gathering wisdom. Lao Tzu, in the Tao Te Ching, offers us this most subtle of dances... it's sort of like a Rumi insight when he suggests the wisdom of putting one's mind beneath one's feet... Until we cease living, we are inevitably involved in our own self-creation (even then, who knows but maybe this self-creation is endless)... Lao Tzu's way of harmony is entirely an expression of turning and bowing... "Weaving the separations / perhaps / into bliss" is the unfolding of our natural desires... And it is right here, in this exact "spot", that we bow...
There is no forgetting in this Universe: on some level, everything is always remembered... As participants in this Universe, as self-creators, we always live much too long in the dis-memberment of our pain and losses and disappointments and dis-membered hurts... Turning and bowing is the re-memberment of the Universe, of the One Heart Christ Consciousness that pervades and unites in compassion, mercy, and beauty... everything / everyone is food for the hungry heart: re-member! Turning and bowing into the sacred moments, the mistakes, loves, losses, dreams, and nightmares all: and the dis-memberments are re-membered, re-created: recreated in the Mystery of the Endless Energy-Consciousness: call it what you will: Father-Mother, Divine Beloved, or Little Tao... this that Tao / pillows for Wandering Cloud...
Look! Take a look into the cave! (Turn and bow, of course!)
Resources:
The Illuminated Hafiz / Green, Barks, Bly
Rumi, The Big Red Book / Coleman Barks
The Gary Snyder Reader / Gary Snyder
The Wilds of Poetry / David Hinton
Finding Them Gone / Bill Porter (Red Pine)
Tao Te Ching / Lao Tzu / tr. John H. McDonald
The Wisdom of Laotse / Lin Yutang
Bones of the Master / George Crane
Road To Heaven / Bill Porter (Red Pine)
Home Economics / Wendell Berry
Luminous Spaces / Olav H. Hauge
Faith. Maybe! Oh, if only we had some! Oh, if only, if only, the "cave" is other than the disapointments with which we have lived... something more than having had lost our faith... Science. Science says that everything is energy and that matter simply vibrates "slow enough" to become visible... but that it too, will slip away into "nothingness"...
All of our days, all of our days that we have given over to striving: striving for money, for privileges, for things, for relationships, for homes, for our "mystery everything", become meaningless when looking into the approaching emptiness... Death consolidates everything into "nothing"...
It's not just that we turned out "well adjusted to a profoundly sick society", but that we also became the very sickness that we abhored! We adjusted to our unhappiness. We adjusted to our politicians and therapists. We adjusted to the lies and slander: we settled for the "good enough" of being fooled... We bought our little boat on the installment plan...
Okay! Enough of this drift of thought! Without a doubt, you have your own analysis of yourself and the world in which you live, move, and have your being... So do I! I have a lover who is my best friend. We have three children, two dogs, a little home, and the routines of the seasons, work, schools, gardens, hikes, games, and the like...
We have dreams, still. We have hope and the promises that we keep. And we have visions, even some wide awake...
While the above photo inevitably draws one's attention to the "approaching" cave, there is also the rocking of the waters, and a sky full of clouds... and there is one cloud in particular...
Wandering Cloud
this mountain that mountain
pillows for Wandering Cloud
this breath
perhaps enough
for blessing this pain
weaving the separations
perhaps into bliss
climbing that mountain
of every day this breath
eye know
will never forget you
this foot here that foot there
this that Tao
pillows for Wandering Cloud
-- Robert Daniel Smith
And so we begin again... we learn the primary lesson of life: we can begin again! There is a method to this beginning again: I summarize it with "turning and bowing"... Turning away, turning toward, turning again: walkers know this intimately. So do drivers, pilots, swimmers, and, well, turning includes everyone: changing one's mind is a turning away from thoughts or views which no longer entertain or inspire... All of this turning is the natural wisdom of the Tao-Gospel, the Primal Energy-Consciousness which fills the Universe in its every part: and the hard part of the mentioned method comes next...
Bowing is the secret ingredient to both turning and a gathering wisdom. Lao Tzu, in the Tao Te Ching, offers us this most subtle of dances... it's sort of like a Rumi insight when he suggests the wisdom of putting one's mind beneath one's feet... Until we cease living, we are inevitably involved in our own self-creation (even then, who knows but maybe this self-creation is endless)... Lao Tzu's way of harmony is entirely an expression of turning and bowing... "Weaving the separations / perhaps / into bliss" is the unfolding of our natural desires... And it is right here, in this exact "spot", that we bow...
There is no forgetting in this Universe: on some level, everything is always remembered... As participants in this Universe, as self-creators, we always live much too long in the dis-memberment of our pain and losses and disappointments and dis-membered hurts... Turning and bowing is the re-memberment of the Universe, of the One Heart Christ Consciousness that pervades and unites in compassion, mercy, and beauty... everything / everyone is food for the hungry heart: re-member! Turning and bowing into the sacred moments, the mistakes, loves, losses, dreams, and nightmares all: and the dis-memberments are re-membered, re-created: recreated in the Mystery of the Endless Energy-Consciousness: call it what you will: Father-Mother, Divine Beloved, or Little Tao... this that Tao / pillows for Wandering Cloud...
Look! Take a look into the cave! (Turn and bow, of course!)
Resources:
The Illuminated Hafiz / Green, Barks, Bly
Rumi, The Big Red Book / Coleman Barks
The Gary Snyder Reader / Gary Snyder
The Wilds of Poetry / David Hinton
Finding Them Gone / Bill Porter (Red Pine)
Tao Te Ching / Lao Tzu / tr. John H. McDonald
The Wisdom of Laotse / Lin Yutang
Bones of the Master / George Crane
Road To Heaven / Bill Porter (Red Pine)
Home Economics / Wendell Berry
Luminous Spaces / Olav H. Hauge
The enlightenment of the Tao, of this turning and bowing, is the simplicity that resides in the depths of "Everyday: Chop Wood, Carry Water"... turn and bow...