Changing Places

Love Winter – when the plant says nothing. — Thomas Merton

Wheel of Life, Suan Mokkh

Upon completion comes fulfillment.
With fulfillment comes liberation.
Liberation allows you to go on.
Even death is not a true ending.
Life is infinite continuation.

Always finish what you start. That alone is discipline and wisdom enough. If you can follow that rule, then you will be superior to most people.

When you come to the end of a cycle, a new one will begin. You might say that completion actually begins somewhere in the middle of a cycle and that new beginnings are engendered out of previous actions.

Completing a cycle means fulfillment. It means that you have achieved self-knowledge, discipline, and a new way of understanding yourself and the world around you. You cannot stop there, of course. New horizons are always there. But you can reach out for those new vistas with fresh assurance and wisdom.

With each turn of the wheel you go further. With each turn of the wheel you free yourself from the mire of ignorance. With each turn of the wheel comes continuation.

Turn the wheel of your life. Make complete revolutions. Celebrate every turning. And persevere with joy.
Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“Love is only the dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.”
– William Somerset Maugham

“War is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means.” — Karl von Clausewitz

Art is the continuation of politics by different means. — Svetlana and Igor Kopystiansky

“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

May you have a very happy (and safe!) New Year’s Eve celebration, and a joyous New Year. Namaste…

A shadow edge is never on the edge.
The time to contemplate the ending is before the ending.

Five days left to this year. There will be an ending. And there will be a new beginning. That is Tao.

If you look at a vase by a window and examine what makes it appear round, you will see a shadow on it. That is the shadow edge. It is the darkest shadow on that face. It is never on the edge : The main light source strikes the vase on one side, and reflected light comes from the other.

In the same way that the shadow edge, which establishes the roundness of an object to our eyes, is never at the edge, so too should we consider limits and endings before we reach them. We cannot do without limits and endings. They bring definition to our endeavors. But if we are to use them to our advantage, we have to plan how to meet them. For those who follow Tao, those who can accommodate endings gracefully are among the most admired.

In the past, emperors, scholars, holy people, or others who were fully in touch with themselves could know the moment of their deaths. While they were still vital, they wrote farewell poems. Such people knew how to consider endings before they reached them. Therefore, there were no regrets or lingering ramifications once they passed. The purity of the next cycle was ensured.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao, move with the present.
– Tao Te Ching, 14

People usually fail when they are on the verge of success.
So give as much care to the end as to the beginning;
Then there will be no failure.
– Tao Te Ching, 64

“Your journey never ends. Life has a way of changing things in incredible ways.” — Alexander Volkov

“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started… and know the place for the first time.” — T.S. Eliot

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning. ~Ivy Baker Priest

Ends and beginnings – there are no such things.
There are only middles.
~Robert Frost, Mountain Interval, “In the Home Stretch”

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. ~Gilda Radner

The end of the year in the northern hemisphere is all about shadows – the shadows beginning to shortenen again as the sun starts to climb once again into the sky. We know the days are short and cool, but will soon get longer and warmer. We use the New Year as a time of beginning, starting new things, but really, we rarely think much about the ending of the old year, other than to have a party.

Perhaps, instead of thinknig of resolutions for the New Year, we ought to think about what we would like to end with the old year. What can we toss out, get rid of, to make space in our lives for new things? What can we leave behind without sadness or regret?

For me, I leave behind my year of Tao postings based on 365 Tao. It’s been great having a daily source of inspiration, and I’m amazed I’ve actually done it for a whole year. For the next cycle, I’m learning about art journaling, planning to experiment with a watercolor art journal that I hope to post here daily. I have a new digital camera, a new set of watercolors, and just need to pick out a journal or journaling form. I’ve thought about doing watercolor post cards, and then making them available to mail to whoever would like them. It will be interesting to see what form this journaling actually takes.

Thanks for sharing this part of my journey. It is not ending, but it is changing form a bit. Thanks for reading, your comments, and your ispirations, those of you with your own blogs. I love reading other people’s thoughts and ideas, as you can tell from my own extensive blogroll.

New calendars are up, Chinese brush painting calendars! I’ll pull out my Chinese art brushes finally, my watercolors, and get myself to paint as often as I can. Should be fun.

Namaste!

Me with my new hand-woven shawl and the new “pets”.

Chance and Roxie don’t seem too impressed with the new puppy…

Ancient societies were tribal;
The group did the thinking.
Current society is splintered;
The individual must be complex.

People from old traditions were often less complicated because they had the advantage of a complete culture that did the thinking for them. Everyone had a role that fit the whole. Individuals could concentrate on fulfilling their place, confident that the other needs would be met by the collective.

The specialization of modern times calls for individual roles that do not necessarily form a whole. We often lose sight even of what the whole is. We have commentators, we have critics, but we do not have leaders. We celebrate egalitarianism and consensus, but it is phony : a chaos of voices rather than a democracy; a populace of individuals pursuing their own ends rather than a collective.

The burden thus falls on the individual to fulfill a tremendous range of functions. We have to make more choices, be more informed, act in a wide variety of areas. We cannot simply concentrate on doing our part, because now our part is to compete with everyone else.

Spirituality is more difficult today. In the past, you could become a spiritual aspirant and the people would support you; a holy person was just as much a part of the collective as a farmer. Now, to be a holy aspirant you have to look for your own job and find new ways through a society that barely recognizes the spiritual.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“Albrecht’s Law – Intelligent people, when assembled into an organization, will tend toward collective stupidity.” — Karl Albrecht

“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.” — Bertrand Russell

“The great creative individual. . . is capable of more wisdom and virtue than collective man ever can be.”
– John Stuart Mill

“What is reality, anyway? Just a collective hunch”
– Lily Tomlin

“Although we human beings have our own personal life, we are yet in large measure the representatives, the victims and promoters of a collective spirit whose years are counted in centuries. We can well think all our lives long that we are following our own noses, and may never discover that we are, for the most part, supernumeraries on the stage of the world theatre.” — Carl Gustav Jung

To all of us who play the spirit of Christmas tonight – blessings to you. May those who find your gifts tomorrow be full of joy and wonder. My 20 and 16 year old are going to wake up to gifts wrapped in Hello Kitty and Care Bear paper. Heh.

The Monk and the Nun, Cornelius Van Haarlem

The monk shaved his head as a symbol of renunciation.
But now he goes nowhere without his little cap.

It’s funny to see someone who says that he is a renunciate call childishly for his few meager possessions. Why renounce the world when you really cannot? Before you cut your hair, ask yourself if you can afford to give up your attachments. Before you give up your freedom, ask yourself if you can submit to monastic order. Before you say that you are spiritual, ask yourself if you can give up worldly desires.

I am not trying to make fun of monks here. I am observing that every path in life has its own sacrifices and its own hardships. Before you embark on a path, search yourself thoroughly and investigate the path completely. Then you will dispel misgivings. You will also reduce the chance of hypocrisy.

Whoever you are, live your life completely. If you are a plumber, be the best plumber. If you are a saint, be the best saint. If you are common, be common. If you are extraordinary, be extraordinary. People only err when they try to be who they are not.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“Attachment to spiritual things is.. just as much an attachment as inordinate love of anything else.”
– Beverly Sills

I’m always rather suspicious of religions that call for us to give up our attachments to the real world. If there is anything that we ought to give up our attachment to, it’s the idea that there is something more important than the real world, since the real world is what in fact actually created us, and we certainly wouldn’t be here without it. I’m equally suspicious of religions that call for us to give up sex, for much the same reason. If you can’t embrace your sexuality, whatever form it takes, and you can’t embrace the real world, there is little reason left to be around.

Sure, it’s not a good idea to get so attached to something that it becomes an addiction or sickness, or to get attached too much to our material possessions, since then they become more important than our relationships to others and to our spirituality. But being too attached to spirituality is just as bad as being too attached to anything else. I had a lot of difficulty as a kid with my mom giving toys I still liked to the church, and I really resented it. She also would rarely come and visit after I moved away, because she didn’t want to miss her church activities, even though she would travel for church-related meetings. I don’t think spirituality should be a cause of resentment, either for yourself or those around you. If spirituality is truly the only thing that is important to you, then sure go be a monk or nun or priest or whatever – but then, don’t be hypocritical about it.

By banksy

Winter Solstice, Brigitte Lopez

A homeless man dies in the gutter.
A tree cracks in the cold:
A shocking sound.

At the winter solstice, the day is shortest of all and night is longest. It can also be the time of bitter cold. The wind blows with a frigid ferocity, cutting all before it. Snow and ice became deadly. Those who are homeless die of exposure. Even the mightiest of trees can split from the drop in temperature.

The sound of a tree snapping is a sudden slap.

The horrors, the tragedies that this nadir brings! Winter tortures the world with icy whips, and those who are weak are ground beneath its glacial heels. Sometimes, we dare not even lament those who die in the onslaught of winter, in fear that the tears will freeze upon our faces. But we see, and hear. Huddling closer to the fire, we vow to survive.

No matter how affected we are by misfortune, we must remember that this is the lowest turn of the wheel. Things cannot forever go downward. There are limits to everything — even the cold, and the darkness, and the wind, and the dying.

They call this the first day of winter, but actually it is the beginning of winter’s death. From this day on, we can look forward to warming and brightening.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer” — Albert Camus

“Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the
landscape – the loneliness of it – the dead feeling of winter.
Something waits beneath it – the whole story doesn’t show.
- Andrew Wyeth

Of winter’s lifeless world each tree
Now seems a perfect part;
Yet each one holds summer’s secret
Deep down within its heart.
– Charles G. Stater

There aren’t many signs of winter yet here in SoCal – the roses are still blooming a bit, the sun is shining, if very far to the south, the grass is green and while many of the trees have lost their leaves, there are no breaking branches. We enjoy living here, where it is rarely very cold and usually the weather is simply wonderful. There is a joke about San Diego that you get “paid in sunshine”. There must be a lot of really well-paid people here to afford these houses, though.

But there are a dozen birds outside my window fighting over the feeder, so food supplies must be running a bit scarce for the birds. There are few insects around for them to eat. The nights are chilled enough to frost the leaves on many of the plants. And I certainly am feeling seasonally lazy, not wanting to do much other than curl up with a book or something.

I used to dread winter’s short days and get seasonal affect disorder, but now I don’t seem to suffer much at all in winter. Sometimes I get annoyed that it’s cold and gray and I can’t be out in the garden, but the garden is sleeping for the most part anyway and there isn’t much to be done. So it all works out.

But my family has suffered the tragedy of winter this year. My cousin’s wife was killed on Thanksgiving day while driving in white out conditions in Michigan. They were broadsided by a pickup truck, and she died instantly. I also lost an aunt December 6th, to the winter of her life. She did not have the strength for the heart surgery that might have saved her. So we have our losses. But we carry on, and will be glad once again for the return of spring.

Slut-o-Meter
Promiscuity: 33.97% (301 / 886)

Via skippy:

today’s discussion question, class – is it possible for the republican party to control the white house and not commit constitutional crimes?

Babemba mask

From Storycatcher, by Christina Baldwin:

I have read the story of a tribe in southern Africa called the Babemba in which a person doing something wrong, something that destroys the delicate social net, brings all the work in the village to a halt. The people gather around the “offender” and one by one they begin to recite everything he has done right in his life: every good deed, thoughtful behavior, act of social responsibility. These things have to be true about the person, and spoken honestly, but the time-honored consequence of misbehavior is to appreciate the person back into the better part of himself. The person is given the chance to remember who he is and why he is important to the village.

I want to live under such a practice of compassion. When I forget my place, when I lash out with some private wounding in a public way, I want to be remembered back into alignment with my self and my purpose. I want to live with the possibility for reconciliation. When someone around me is thoughtless or cruel, I want to be given the chance to respond with a ritual that creates the possibility of reconciliation.

I think that what I most regret in my life is the lack of reconciliation with the three friends who stopped speaking to me. As I’ve said before, the cruelest thing one can do to me is to cut off communication, and this is why. When there is no communication, there is no chance for reconciliation. These were all people I had a long history of friendship with, I could recite pages and pages of all the good things they had done for me, and I still love them dearly. To have lost them from my life was cruel, needless and hurtful in ways they will never understand or appreciate. “To lose a friend is to lose worlds” I once read, and it is true for me. I lost their worlds, their viewpoints that so often straightened out my own, their perceptions and perspectives on life that I respected and needed so much.

The name Babemba means “the people of the lake.” The 60,000 Bemba settled mostly in northeast of Zambia, but also in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They share a number of traits with their neighbors on the shores of Lake Tanganyika: the Lega, the Buyu, and the Binji. The territory surrounding them is covered with forests, plateaus, and wooden savannas traversed by rivers. The Bemba have the reputation of being a proud, hard people who learned the art of the hunt and the harvesting of honey. The ibulu iya alunga (“the protector of honey”) mask, used in the male alunga (kalunga) society, is unique in form. It is worn on the head like a helmet and sometimes ends at the top in a huge crest of feathers and porcupine quills. It represents a powerful bush spirit. Kept in a sacred cave, the mask is taken into the bush during the secret initiation of new members. The alunga association was in charge of the cult of the hunt, as well as social order and public dances. The wearer of the mask, hidden completely under a fiber costume, would be a member of high rank who knew the dances and the manner of speaking and singing in a guttural voice.

From the online comic, The Promise

Visions better than drugs haven’t come.
Intelligence exceeding genius hasn’t come.
Titanic strength hasn’t come.
Beauty to attract lovers hasn’t come.
Visitations from gods haven’t come.
Freedom from weariness hasn’t come.
An end to vexing annoyances hasn’t come.
Great wealth hasn’t come.
Fame hasn’t come.
Unlimited understanding of others hasn’t come.
Supernatural powers haven’t come.
The skill to spontaneously heal hasn’t come.
The gift of prophecy hasn’t come.
None of these things have come,
Yet I would not forsake this spiritual path.

All sorts of things are promised to you as a seeker of spirituality. Yet when these things don’t come, does that mean that you should forsake your path? Spirituality is not a transaction with the universe. It is an endeavor that we take up because it is our ultimate mode of being. If we get nothing for it, we should not be bothered. Who cares about powers? They only lead to temptation. Those who follow Tao should care only for inner understanding.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” (Christopher Robin to Pooh) — A. A. Milne

I cannot promise very much.
I give you the images I know.
Lie still with me and watch.
We laugh and we touch.
I promise you love. Time will not take that away.”
— Anne Sexton

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
– Robert Frost

“The man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition.”
– Carl Gustav Jung

“It is a curious thing… that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.”
– Evelyn Waugh

“The person who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.”
– Gustave Flaubert

I ithnk of the benefits I get from Tao in a number of ways. First, it has brought me a real peace of mind that I hadn’t known in my life before I started taking Tao seriously. Growing up in the Christian tradition, I think I was always a bit resentful of a religion that promised something after you were dead – that didn’t seem all that worthwhile to me. Maybe it was a need for more instant gratification. Or perhaps I just didn’t feel I had ever done anything that required forgiveness or someone to die for my sins, which weren’t all that great. As C.S. Lewis put it:

“Christianity simply does not make sense until you have faced the sort of facts I have been describing. Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need forgiveness.”

What Tao offers is simply a path that works in life. And I have no more fear of death because I know that it is simply a part of life – that I make way and then something else comes along even stranger and more wonderful. How could I object to that? Perhaps it is the result of finally being able to separate my ego from the equation, and know that there truly is something larger than myself, and it is indestructible, because it is simply everything. And I am part of that, and irrevokably connected to it. I have no separation from God to feel guilty about or sorry for. So how could I continue to be a Christian?

Kidmandala

Must you see nature as a machine?
Is your only learning chemistry, physics, and ontology?
What if poetry was your template for life?
Can’t you know Tao by the feeling of mud in your sandals?
Thus are the sages called silly:
They have given up their prejudices.

The world appears as you perceive it. It is not that your perceptions are wholly shaped by a so-called objective world. The habit of interpretation is interactive; we do things to test our hypotheses until we have created a complicated web of sensory input and centrifugal manipulation. By the time we are “mature,” we have created innumerable layers of interpretation and biased perception that become our templates for living. Of course, we could have some fun with this situation. We could change the templates that we use to interact with the world.

What if we used poetry instead of science? What if we substituted spirituality for politics? The results of such experimentation are often fresh, happy, and unusual. Unfortunately, when carried to their logical conclusions, they are just as futile as any other method. Templates are essential for beginners, a hindrance for veterans. True followers of Tao give up all templates and are without prejudices. They return to the actions of infants. Thus they are called silly. But because they view the world with their inner eye, they transcend all the sorrows of life.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

Carrying body and soul and embracing the one, can you avoid separation?
Attending fully and becoming supple, can you be as a newborn babe?
– Tao Te Ching, 10

Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox.
In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace, but I alone am drifting not knowing where I am.
Like a new-born babe before it learns to smile, I am alone, without a place to go.
– Tao Te Ching, 20

Know the strength of man, but keep a woman’s care!
Be the stream of the universe!
Being the stream of the universe, ever true and unswerving,
Become as a little child once more.

– Tao Te Ching, 28

The sage has no mind of his own.
He is aware of the need of others.
I am good to people who are good.
I am also good to people who are not good.
Because Virtue is goodness.
I have faith in people who are faithful.
I also have faith in people who are not faithful.
Because Virtue is faithfulness.
The sage is shy and humble – to the world he seems confusing.
Men look to him and listen.
He behaves like a little child.

– Tao Te Ching, 49

He who is filled with Virtue is like a newborn child.
Wasps and serpents will not sting him;
Wild beasts will not pounce upon him;
He will not be attacked by birds of prey.
His bones are soft, his muscles weak, but his grip is firm.
He screams all day without becoming hoarse.
This is perfect harmony.

– Tao Te Ching, 55

Till I had you I didn’t know
That I was missing out
Had to grow up and see the world
Through different shades of doubt
Give me one more chance to dream again
One more chance to feel again
Through your young heart
If only for one day let me try

I wanna see christmas through your eyes
I want everything to be the way it used to be
Back to being a child again thinking the world was mine
I wanna see christmas, christmas through your eyes

I see the rain, you see the rainbow hiding in the clouds
Never afraid to let your love show
Won’t you show me how
Wanna learn how to believe again
Find the innocence in me again
Through your young heart
Help me find a way, help me try

I wanna see christmas through your eyes
I want everything to be the way it used to be
Back to being a child again thinking the world was kind
I wanna see christmas, christmas through your eyes

– Gloria Estefan

Perhaps the real spirit of the Holiday season is to return to seeing the world through the eyes of a child. We are reminded of birth through Christmas, of light through Hannukkah, and we try to recapture much of the magic of ancient traditions with our Christmas trees, candles, yule logs, giving gifts to each other, and all the other traditions we follow. In some sense Christmas can bring out the child in all of us, but then we lose that spirit as we enter the New Year and try to make resolutions to be better people. We say we must lose weight or eat right or exercise more or whatever.

Perhaps what we really need is just to resolve to have more fun and enjoy our lives more.

Josephine Wall: Breath of Gaia

You breathe,
Frosting mountains white,
Exciting trees to verdant flame,
Dancing sparrows on your wing,
Swirling waves into long sighs.
You breathe,
And all things live.

A central concept for Tao is breath. Without breath, there is no life. The complexity of this idea is great indeed. You breathe; that brings you oxygen. You breathe; that sustains you. You breathe; that regulates your heartbeat, feeds your brain, makes your blood red. Deeper still : You breathe, and the entire energy field of your body is sustained and set into motion. When that field, so intimately tied to breathing, is integrated with your mind, you have the power of spirituality. Breath. Don’t crassly think of it as mere gas.

Just as we breathe, so too does the universe breathe. In fact, we can think of the entire medium of life as breath. When the world breathes, all things are sustained. Weather moves as it should. Plants grow as they should. Animals are made strong. The very forces of geology are set into motion. And together, a mighty field of energy is generated, a much larger version of what happens in your own body. Connected to that field is a universal mind.

Do you want to know how spirituality works? Breathe.
Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours”
– Swedish Proverb

“Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.”
– Muriel Rukeyser

“The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough” — William Saroyan

“

He lives most life whoever breathes most air.”
– Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When the breath wanders the mind also is unsteady. But when the breath is calmed the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves long life. Therefore, one should learn to control the breath. ~Svatmarama

Basketball is an endurance sport, and you have to learn to control your breath; that’s the essence of yoga, too. So, I consciously began using yoga techniques in my practice and playing. I think yoga helped reduce the number and severity of injuries I suffered. As preventative medicine, it’s unequaled. ~Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Good breathing tips here.

There was arguing in my house this morning, with all the males getting all hyper. I was sitting calmly at my computer, writing and breathing. Later I had to calm down the eldest child before he left to go off for his gaming adventure of the day. If I hadn’t been actively thinking about breath, in the midst of this post, I might have gotten more upset, joined in the arguing, gotten out of control. But, I was breathing, and it makes a difference.

Now I can relax and enjoy the quiet of the day for a bit, get some gifts wrapped and just enjoy the day. Tonight there’s a party for Sony Playstation where my husband works, and that will be fun. There is so much to enjoy this time of year. We celebrate life, and breath.

I’ve had sad news this month of an aunt’s death and a cousin’s wife being killed in an auto accident, and it was difficult to send the cards of sympathy along with the Christmas greetings, but it is important to celebreate life even in the midst of darkness, even when others we love have gone. I miss my parents this time of year, very much, especially as I look at the beautiful Christmas tree and spot the one ornament that has been carried to it from my childhood Christmas trees, the big gold ball with my name in green glitter. It is the oldest ornament on the tree, as old as me, and when I look at it, I see myself reflected in it, along with all my memories.

Enjoy this precious season, enjoy family and friends, even if there are little spats – and don’t forget to breathe.

The day’s amusement from a Nike ad – Talk about your viral advertising, eh? Too bad they ain’t paying me – but they did make me laugh. I put it on the fridge with my “One day big butts will be in style” magnet…

My BUTT is BIG
And round like the letter C
And ten thousand lunges
Have made it Rounder
But not Smaller
And that’s just fine.

It’s a Space Heater
For my side of the bed
It’s my Ambassador
To those who walk behind me
It’s a Border Collie
That herds skinny women
Away from the best deals
At clothing sales.

My butt is big
And that’s just fine
And those who might scorn it
Are invited to kiss it…

The Hourglass Nebula

Life is like an hourglass.
Consciousness is the sand.

Imagine an hourglass.

Its shape is like the symbol for infinity. Its form recalls the double helix of DNA. Its two sections represent polarity. The material on one side, the immaterial on the other. The male on one side, and the female on the other. Hot and cold, positive and negative, or any other duality.

The sand runs in a stream, the same stream as the course of energy that runs up your spine, the same stream that is the road of life.

The movement of that sand is what we call Tao. Our consciousness alternates between the various states represented by the hourglass. It is as difficult to grasp as a stream of sand. Therefore, it is foolish to examine things minutely. It is unwise to focus on the material. It is wisdom to understand the movement.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, ‘This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!’ Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, ‘Never have I heard anything more divine’?”
– Friedrich Nietzsche

“To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour”
– William Blake

“The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.” — George Eliot

“Speak, speak, for underneath the cover there
The sand is running from the upper glass,
And when the last grain’s through, I shall be lost.”
– William Butler Yeats

“Among the many thousands of things that I have never been able to understand, one in particular stands out. That is the question of who was the first person who stood by a pile of sand and said, “You know, I bet if we took some of this and mixed it with a little potash and heated it, we could make a material that would be solid and yet transparent. We could call it glass.” Call me obtuse, but you could stand me on a beach till the end of time and never would it occur to me to try to make it into windows.”
– Bill Bryson

I’m watching the show outside the window this morning as a dozen little birds eat and play around the bird feeder and bird bath. Tao is flowing pretty strongly here today.

We think of things like glass being solid, and yet, it is actually a very slow moving liquid. If we wait long enough, you can look at very old panes of glass and see where they are thicker on the bottom or have kind of a warped look to them as the glass has flowed downward. But here it is, this wonderful invention that lets us sit in a warm house and look out and see the birds playing.

I’m more than a little obtuse when it comes to the movement of Tao in my life. Like glass, sometimes it seems to move slowly, other times it is more like the sand and flows by all too quickly. The Tao isn’t just the sand. It’s also the hourglass itself. And the one side of the hourglass is, of course, connected to the other side, and often indistinguishable from it. The duality is really all one.
Once you understand the sand can become glass, the Tao can become anything, the possibilities become endless.

Just had to post this to go with the Hokusai…
I guess the alternative to perseverance is to breed like rabbits…

Hokusai Katsushika, Great Wave off Kanagawa

Drops.
Water cleanses,
Gathers in the earth.
Tender. Invasive. Subtle.
Emerges a shining river.
When small, it is weak.
When great, it tumbles mountains,
Rendering great cliffs
Sand.

Classic wisdom says that there is nothing weaker than water, yet when united, it can become a titanic force. Like a tidal wave. Or a river that cuts through gorges. This is called the yielding overcoming the hard.

Let’s look at it another way. Water does not overcome because it yields. It overcomes because it is relentless. It perseveres and does not give up. It is constant. Rock can block water. Rock can even hold water in a lake for thousands of years. Why can’t the yielding overcome the hard then? Because it cannot move. It cannot work its magic of being relentless.

Just as water must be able to express its true nature in a relentless way, so too must we simultaneously and relentlessly express our true natures if we are to be successful in life. Otherwise, we will find ourselves hemmed in by the hard walls of reality, and we will never be able to break through.

But how do we acquire such perseverance? We start small. As drops.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
– Tao Te Ching, 8

Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better;
It has no equal.
The weak can overcome the strong;
The supple can overcome the stiff.
Under heaven everyone knows this, yet no one puts it into practice.
Therefore the sage says:
He who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people is fit to rule them.
He who takes upon himself the country’s disasters deserves to be king of the universe.
The truth often seems paradoxical.
– Tao Te Ching 78

I was really good at self-expression as a teen and into my early twenties. I think I lost a lot of that after getting married and having kids, and it got harder to define where me ended and they began. Especially when I was home with the kids for several years and going to school part-time. I played a lot of roles – mom, wife, employee, student, but didn’t really have much time for self-expression.

These days, I write, paint, and express myself much more freely. I’m old enough to be free of the fears of people not liking me, or of needing to set the right example for the kids. They are old enough not to be phased by much of anything from me. But there are still limits – I don’t have the freedom to just take off and travel as I would like, or to work on big art projects since I have no studio to work in. I”m hoping the new format of art journaling will let me express myself more artistically, encouraging me to do art work on a daily basis.