I'll Be You There
Some of you might have noticed that I possess a certain cyber kinship with Russell Brand. For the most part, I shun away from celebrity culture and idol adoration.
This wasn't always the case. I once rather held dear certain public figures, lived vicariously through them.
I have come to understand the fabricated nature of public personas and as such celebrity culture has become ... well ... boring and unfulfilling.
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It also appears to source of suffering for those who have not recognized the illusions. I do not stomach well the suffering of others. I will find myself commenting but of course this only adds to the pain of those I try to 'help'.
Words do not teach.
What of ancient masters …
Few are remembered
Appearances change
Personalities change
One era’s virtue
Is another’s sin
The internal foe knows to mimic virtue
It knows to mask sin
Remain fluid, receptive, and patient
Do not model yourself
On another
Welcome all that is
Mastery will find you
So why the continual attention to Mr. Brand.
Through my eyes we seem to make the same discoveries around the same time. Confirmation of discovery is a good feeling. As is watching another become what is they will become through joy and love and also bravery. Words do not teach but they can confirm you are not alone.
No spirituality needs ideology and all is limited by it. The thinner the tenet, the closer to the truth it is. That said, I have found much guidance in the Tao Te Ching, a collection of 81 short verses, a pamphlet really. The first thing the Way tells us is that what is to come is an exceedingly poor approximation of the divine.
"The Tao that can be named is not the Tao."
1
The Tao that is named is not the Tao
The eternal cannot be named
The ever-changing cannot be named
What came after can be named
The heavens, earth, and all material things
The Tao is the mother of all things
From her all that is flows
To her all that was returns
The eternal nature of creation
Free from the blindfold of the internal foe
One embodies the mysteries of the Tao
Enslaved by the chains of the internal foe
One is only her manifestation
Yet mystery and manifestation
Come from the same source
Some call it darkness
There are no words to call it other
The Tao needs no light or eyes to see
Fear not the darkness within
Fear not your internal foe
Its strength is one of illusion
A veil that appears as granite
With not the weight of mist
Fear not your internal foe
Enter into understanding
Still, we persist in defining and experiencing. What else do we have to do?
The Tao Te Ching seen through my ego is tool to make one insightful and avoid suffering,; grow a facsimile of wisdom; so it has value, as do most religious text when held dearly but gently. Insistence and proselytizing perverts the divine. What need has the divine of egoic insistence and pitiful and forceful words. (The irony wrt to myself is not lost. LOL. I can go on; I know. I guess it gives me pleasure.)
5
The Tao is not governed
By concepts of good and evil
She gives birth to all
The master is not blinded
By concepts of good and evil
He seeks the center
He honours the Tao
The sky and ocean cannot be grasped
They are ever-changing, formless
Such is the Tao
The land can be held and formed
But only for a time
The tighter you hold
The more rigid you form
The more painful when
The land will not be held
The land will not be formed
The more you insist you know
The less you know the Tao
It is the energy that the reader or speaker, mediator or devotee, is able to create that is the Tao, the divine. All words, all prophets or poets, will never come close to defining an ever changing everything. Good luck.
Capitalism fails us not because capitalism as an ideology is flawed. All ideologies are flawed. ; it fails us because those that adhere to it have shut themselves off to their spirit and are guided by a sliver of who they actually are; they are guided by greed, fear, and darkly-spirited competition. Often. Not always. They deny even the existence of spirit.
Capitalism in the hands of a quiet master, on the other hand, can create beautiful things too but not in greedy, fearful and competitive hands.
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If you seek to control the Tao
Dam her flow and pool her resources
Deny her gifts to others
Eventually the dam will burst
Its ruin will drown you
A river cannot be improved
But it can be used for destruction
Be the course through which
The Tao flows freely
Sedately or rushing
Allow her riches to pass through you
Un-impeded
Stay in her center
Know no end to her wealth
We will always become more; expand; it is unavoidable and yet we are also nothing. The trick we play on ourselves, human consciousness, is the mistaken belief that we become more through longing, striving, and accumulating.
We become more by allowing. We possess everything within an open and loving consciousness.
"The master does nothing"
47
Seek for the Tao afield
The land will shift
She’s there but not for you to tread upon
Seek for the Tao in the lofty
The seemingly solid becomes mist
She’s there but not for you to grasp
Go nowhere and grasp at nothing
Look for what lies within
There lies the Tao
The teachings of the Tao Te Ching shatter illusions. When we cling to shattered illusions, we suffer. How do we know we are clinging to shattered illusion; we are suffering.
You are THERE and have achieved effortless expansion when all suffering dissolves; you are at one with your existence and all you encounter within it. Sounds unrealistic to someone who has not been there. Those who understand spirit know it to be true.
My words cannot teach this but they can reaffirm what you have already found. I'll see and be you there;)
4
The Tao is a well
Dwarfed by a raindrop
Deep enough
To fill an endless ocean
She soothes all sharpness
Eases all tightness
Mutes all din
Softens all glare
Forms and dissolves all clay
All flows from her
All flows into her
She is the beginning
She has no end
Still here? It is autumn again and my favorite season. Time for the Wisp. I know many of you have already read or listen but it t'is the season. Let's visit Windfall:)
I
Gentle gusts blew through layers of whispering leaves. Those with the lightest grip let go and cut red and gold traces through the air. They settled soundlessly on the pavement below. Above a low-hanging sun shared the sky with a pale crescent that had just crested the horizon. A morning moon at dusk, her mother called it. It was a lovely evening but Bara walked alone. Not another living soul, an empty town at a time when the residents of Windfall were usually rushing home for dinner. How strange?
But then there was an insistent tug on her sleeve. Not alone after all. She looked down. A girl of four or five years old looked back up. She wore a red pea coat with a matching beret. Curls not far off the shade of Bara’s own strawberry blonde scooped down and brushed her collar. Dark glasses with white frames—heart shaped—hid her eyes. She said nothing, but a tear escaped from below a plastic rim and trailed down a plump cheek.
“Are you lost?” Bara asked. “Do you want me to help find your mommy?”
The girl nodded and held out her chubby hand. Bara reached out but was jostled from behind before her fingers could take hold. The street was full now. Where had they all come from? A steady stream of men and women pushed and shoved as they passed. Halloween was over. Yet they were all dressed in costumes from the past and wore dark glasses.
Bara looked down again. The girl had gone … but not far. She now stood under the shade of an oak tree a few meters away. A tall man, made even taller by a black top hat, had her by the arm. She struggled to get free. Something told Bara he wasn’t her father. A protective spirit surged in her. She fought her way through the crowd and threw her slight, sixteen-year-old body at his massive frame. The man merely stepped back, but he did let go of the girl.
“Run!” Bara told her. The girl didn’t hesitate. Her short legs took flight and she disappeared into the crowd. There’d be no escape for Bara. Dark gloved hands reached out and took hold of her shoulders. She looked up, opened her mouth to protest, but never uttered a word. Sudden terror had squeezed her throat shut. Under the brim of the man’s top hat were two empty black holes where his eyes should have been. His eyelids quivered and something—something that shouldn’t be there—rolled inside his skull in waves of oily black and silver.
The man gave a wry smile and let out a chuckle that cracked with charge. His hands moved up from her shoulders and took hold of her throat. His fingers stiffened. The realization hit. He’s going to kill me. Bara struggled. Her flailing arms made contact with no one and nothing. His smile grew wider. His grip tightened and closed off her windpipe. He lifted her from her feet. Her toes just grazed the asphalt below and she was in the air … only for a moment. His hands loosened from her throat. She fell to her knees. The man then left the ground.
With her face hidden under an abundance of red-gold curls, a girl about Bara’s own shape and size held him aloft with only one arm. Odd. She also wore a red pea coat and beret.
“She is mine,” came her hissing voice.
As if he were no more than a rag doll, she tossed the man aside. Before making contact with the ground, he exploded in a burst of silver and screams. Charges trailed and sizzled through the air. When the sound and movement finally died down, a cloud of silver dust hung and then dropped with a heavy thud. The wind blew away the dust and the man was gone.
Thinking the nightmare over, Bara looked to her rescuer. Her rescuer turned to her. The nightmare wasn’t over. There stood a mirror image—same shape, size, hair, and face. A doppelgänger. Everything was the same, everything but the eyes. They were black and empty of identity, just as the man’s had been. The doppelgänger cocked her head to the side. With a hand as gentle as a venomous snake, she bent down and reached out for Bara’s cheek. “Hush, hush,” she cooed and stroked.
Her youthful mouth turned down. Two heavy folds grew from her nose, dragging her cheeks until they sagged below her chin. Crow’s feet formed around her black eyes and spread until they reached a now grey hairline. Deep crevasses pocked and ran across a once-smooth forehead.
Bara stared at herself as an old woman.
“I am here now,” her demented double reassured. “Everything is just fine.”
Everything wasn’t just fine, not even close. The doppelgänger smiled a wide smile that grew wider still. Wrinkles bent and twisted under the strain of an ever-increasing black hole of a mouth, a mouth that threatened to erase its face … but in the next instant, it closed and returned to normal. She turned her head as though at a sound and then back at Bara.
“Soon,” she whispered and then disappeared in a storm of silver and electricity.
The doppelgänger was gone. The man was gone. All the other passersby had disappeared too. But Bara wasn’t alone. A solitary form approached. The dark-haired boy!
Everything was alright now. This boy she knew. He was tall and lean with broad shoulders, his strides long. His hair, dark and wavy, shown copper in a sun setting too rapidly to be real. The sun slipped below the horizon like a coin into a slot. The sky disappeared into night and the world dimmed to darkness. Bara heard her own breathing, fast and shallow. His breath was strong and even. He was so close now. Her fingers found his warm cheek. She stepped closer and he opened his arms.
Like someone had thrown a switch, the moon lit up the night sky. Stars burst through the black. His eyes, vibrantly blue, smiled down at her. His lips brushed her mouth. She returned the kiss, wishing it would go on forever. It didn’t.
***
Words and Images are my own.
The Wisp and 81, Poems from the Tao are published and available in paperback or digital through amazon and your local libraries and bookstores.
Click on any title below to further explore and support my writing.
Nice poetry.
Thank you:)
Yay! 🤗
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