It's fascinating to me how even innocent childhood exercises of the imagination, such as cloud-gazing, carried into adulthood can become spiritual disciplines.
Just looking up as the clouds sail by can nudge us to know ourselves better as we contemplate Eternity. As Buddhism teaches: beyond the clouds (in our mind) the sun (of wisdom) is always shining.
Below, is the poem I wrote contemplating these matters, if you wish to follow along as I read it:
'To find the origin,
trace back the manifestations.'
-Tao te Ching
Clouds
Between being and non-being
barely there
these sails of water, ice, air –
Indifferent drifters, wandering
high on freedom
of the homeless
Restlessly swithering
like ghosts, slithering through substance
in puffs and wisps
Lending an enchanting or ominous air
luminous or casting shadows,
ambivalent filters of reality
Bequeathing wreaths, or
modesty veils to great natural beauties
like mountain peaks
Sometimes simply hanging there
airborne abstract art
in open air
Suspended animation
continually contorting:
great sky whales, now, horse drawn carriages
unpinpointable thought forms,
punctuating the endless sentence of the sky...
, © Yahia Lababidi, author of Learning to Pray
▶️ 3Speak
My friend, your poetry is so striking, even more so hearing it from your mouth, in your voice. There is something to listening to poems in their "raw form". Thank you for sharing.
This line, particularly, struck me as I try to follow this philosophy of living. One might critique it, as many have done, but the freedom of floating wandering like that is empowering. We have a word in my native language, Afrikaans, wandelaar. It is someone who walks, almost like the old sages in the woods. It is a slow strolling. Wandel, the act of slow walking, is like the clouds drifting indifferently.
Happy this found you and, yes, I know what you mean about the rawness. I shy away from doing this when I can, but daring myself, lately, to try something new...
Yes, I can see how you'd relate to the life of a wanderer. Whether or not we choose it or like it, we are all wanderers since it is life who, ultimately, decides our path :)
By association, I think of a song encapsulating this philosophy:
I myself as well. But we need to challenge ourselves. I think I must do something similar. But I will see.
So true. We can only marvel at the beauty along the way, brief moments in which we can marvel, but at the end we need to move on.
Thank you for sharing. I will listen to it 😊
Amen to challenging ourselves. This morning, in the parking lot across from our supermarket, I squatted and balancing my computer in one hand, read a rather personal poem about dying before we die, which I posted earlier today, on @threespeak. Wishing you continued success with your varied, engaging blog and whatever new direction you might take it!
All the best to you too! I really enjoy your poetry readings. They are really well done.
Thanks, again, for all your support. Hope you're having a lovely Sunday :)
Thanks for sharing this post with us @yahia-lababidi
Thank you, for your support.
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Thank you, for your support. I hope you can help me reach a wider audience with this post.