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<body bgcolor="#00FF99"> <font FACE="Times"> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"></font><b><font FACE="Times" SIZE="5">EARTH-BEING</p> </font></b><font FACE="Times"> <p ALIGN="CENTER">By Way of the Turtle</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Hugh M. Lewis</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">1995</p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Copyright © 2001 by Hugh M. Lewis, all rights reserved.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Permission is granted to make copies of this document only for fair use in education and research.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">This is another E-publication by:</p> <font SIZE="4"> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Lewis Micro-Publishing</p> </font><font SIZE="1"> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A division of Lewis-works</p> </font> <p ALIGN="CENTER">All queries should be directed to:</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><a HREF="mailto:e-publishing@lewismicropublishing.com">e-publishing@lewismicropublishing.com</a></p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5">Contents</font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="center"><a href="#Introduction">.....INTRODUCTION</a></font> <a href="#Introduction"> <font FACE="Times"> TO THE EARTH BEING WAY </font> </a></p> <font FACE="Times"> <font FACE="Brush Script MT"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font><font FACE="Book Antiqua"> <p ALIGN="center"></font><a href="#OpeningMoments">OPENING MOMENTS</a></p> <font FACE="Brush Script MT"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="center"><a href="#WakingMotions">WAKING MOTIONS</a></p> <font FACE="Brush Script MT"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="center"><a href="#GardenStates">GARDEN STATES</a></p> <font FACE="Brush Script MT"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="center"><a href="#WalkingMovements">WALKING MOVEMENTS</a></p> <font FACE="Brush Script MT"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="center"><a href="#MindingMotives">MINDING MOTIVES</a></p> <font FACE="Brush Script MT"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="center"><a href="#MentioningMatters">MENTIONING MATTERS</a></p> <font FACE="Brush Script MT"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="center"><a href="#MakingMistakes">MAKING MISTAKES</a></p> <font FACE="Brush Script MT"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font></font> <p ALIGN="center"><font face="Times"><a href="#CoastLines">COAST LINES</a></font></p> <font FACE="Times"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="center"><font face="Times"><a href="#MaintainingMetalogues">MAINTAINING METALOGUES</a></font></p> <font FACE="Times"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="center"><font face="Times"><a href="#MountainScapes">MOUNTAIN-SCAPES</a></font></p> <font FACE="Times"> <p ALIGN="JUSTIFY"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="center"><font face="Times"><a href="#CurvesCircles">CURVES, CIRCLES</a></font><a href="#CurvesCircles"> <font face="Times">AND SQUARES</font></a></p> <font FACE="Times"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="center"><font face="Times"><a href="#SpiritWorlds">SPIRIT WORLDS</a></font></p> <font FACE="Times"> <p ALIGN="center"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="center"><font face="Times"><a href="#LastMinutes">LAST-MINUTE MUSINGS</a></font></p> <font FACE="Times"><font FACE="Brush Script MT"> <p ALIGN="JUSTIFY"> </p> </font> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font face="Times" size="5"><a name="Introduction">Introduction</a></font></p> <font FACE="Times" SIZE="4"> <p ALIGN="CENTER">To the Earth Being Way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> </font> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font face="Times" size="3">The way is to the world as the River and Sea are to rivulets and streams.</font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font face="Times" size="3">Lau Tzu</font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p><font FACE="Times">Earth being is not a state of mind--states of mind come and go with the times of the day and the seasons of the year, but being remains in one place and the same for all time. Earth being is not based on well-being or happiness, though ultimate well-being and happiness may well be indirectly based upon some achieved state of earth being. Earth being is not a state of enlightenment or understanding either. It does entail some enlightenment. There is a whole coffee table-picture book haute' culture which shows all the signs of enlightenment but little of genuine earth being. Knowing or feeling are not the same thing as being--being does not depend on knowledge or sentiment, though knowledge and sentiment may depend upon being.</p> <p>Earth being is a state of connectedness--a relative condition of being more-or-less connected to the world around us, especially the natural order of things that comes before, surrounds and always serves to contextualize the man-made schemes and constructions of reality. Earth being thus serves always to put these constructions into a foundational context.</p> <p>Earth being is a state of being fully connected in the present, and does not depend upon a sense of vicarious experience. Our lives are full of vicarious suggestions and illusions that have the appearance of being but are in fact based upon a chronic, and neurotic, state of nonbeing. We can turn off the channels of our vicarious experience, and we must do so if we are to fully experience earth being. The more we learn to do so the more we are able to realize a fuller state of earth being in our daily lives.</p> <p>There is a deep seated sense that the earth is a unity. It is an entire system of life in which everything is interconnected to everything else. We have come to increasingly realize both the complexity of its interconnectedness and its fragility. The many depredations we are causing to our local environments are having a cumulative affect on the total environment--these negative consequences are in an ecological sense rebounding about ourselves, as we find them affecting human interrelationships, our own sense of being, and the health and sanity of our social state.</p> <p>There is a sense that the man-made system which we have created by our own efforts has a logic and life of its own--one we call superorganic--and it comes to take on all the force and resemblance of being a natural state, though it remains ultimately an artificial one. It becomes our master and the author of our lives, rather than we remaining its master and its author in our lives.</p> <p>In this global context, we are discovering that the pursuit of money and material gain in the short run is undermining the foundation of our being in the long run. It is a form of compulsive madness. It is a social compulsion we come to expect and demand of one another that is beyond anyone's ability to control or prevent. It's fate, our fate, becomes inexorable in a vicious cycle of negative consequences. But at the same time, we are coming to a greater realization that we can control our own states of being, our own actions in life, and ultimately cut off the problem at its source.</p> <p>And with progress and its problems, we are coming to the greater realization of the possibilities of our own self control in the world, but, more importantly, of our right and responsibility for establishing and maintaining such control in the world. The dawning of a new sense of responsibility, an earthbound responsibility, transcends and surpasses and subordinates all moral commitments which we previously entertained--archaic beliefs, unquestioned dogmatisms, false nationalisms or egoisms and petty prides which stand between us and realization of our own earth being.</p> <p>Earth being, in its moral realization, thus comes to constitute a pan-religious foundation for a new world order based upon peace, tolerance, respect for nature, and the disdain of power. It is the meta-ethical foundation for a new sense of being and responsibility which no longer sees the capitalist pursuit of pleasure as the end all of making a living, an emergent sense of global-local consciousness rooted to our inherent dilemmas of earth-boundness.</p> <p>This new state of earth being is not really new or radical or as revolutionary as it may seem. Indeed, its foundation is primordial in the history of humankind, and in ancient religious philosophic texts such as the Tao Te Ching, which is also a socio-political philosophy, there are numerous early timeless examples of its expression. It does not require the total abnegation or withdrawal from modern values and living, to a Buddhist retreat or some remote Island ashram.</p> <p>The amazing virtue of this way of earth being is that it is in essence simple to comprehend and exercise in our daily lives without radical transformations, pronouncements or alterations of our condition. It is largely an aesthetic way, one that is filled with the appreciation for and creation of aesthetic forms and states in virtually every facet of our lives. It permeates our world in our work, our social relations, in our eating, in our sleeping, in our recreation, in our aesthetic pursuits and pleasures. It is thus a way that we owe ourselves and one another to teach, develop and transmit to our children through their own naturalistic self-expressions.</p> <p>Cultivation of aesthetic sensibilities soon eclipses baser material attachments rooted to the nonbeing of a commercialized media and industrial production. It soon abandons violence or aggression as a legitimate of healthy form of expression. It soon realizes earth being as an intrinsically satisfying, inherently fulfilling, and extrinsically congruent way of living. It is a way of being that is naturally and easily available to everyone equally.</p> </font> <hr> <font FACE="Times"> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="OpeningMoments">OPENING MOMENTS</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">When the best student hears about the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">He practices it assiduously</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">When the average student hears about the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It seems to him one moment there and gone the next;</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">When the worst student hears about the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">He laughs out loud.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">If he did not laugh</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It would be unworthy of being the way.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(Line 90, Verse XLI, Tao Te Ching, Translated by D.C. Lau)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>The first line drawn, the first cut made, the first word spoken, after which everything else must follow, before which everything was silent, unspoken potential--the rough uncarved block.</p> <p>I went to a busy bar with an anthropologist last evening. Through all the cigarette smoke I spied the profile of a man looking curiously like Homo Erectus. He sat there silently, serenely sipping his beer, casually ignored by all the people around him. I asked him where he had been hiding all these many years. He told me that he had been dwelling deep in the center of a mountain, meditating upon the shadow images cast upon the cave walls. He was a soft-spoken, gentle-eyed sort of creature, beneath all his long gray whiskers. He asked me how it was the world had changed so much, and why, and I could not give him any clear answers.</p> <p>I told an old Archaeological acquaintance that with all our new industrial might we waged a long, devastating and fruitless war against an ancient, autochthonous civilization, perhaps many thousands of years old. And we were defeated, not by the weakness of our arms, but by the weakness of our heart, our spirit and our morality. A poor, ancient, long settled civilization beat us in a bloody conflict not because of their military might, but by the strength of their hearts, will and conscience.</p> <p>I sat before a committee of four well-established Anthropologists, to prove to them my worth to be in their PhD program. One asked me what I thought was the most important problem for Anthropology. I replied that there needed to be a shift of attention to the problem of where we had come from to the more pressing problem of where we are headed in our world.</p> <p>I walked home in the dusk with all the words of the evening still racing through my mind. The setting sun cast long shadows across the land and was blinding as I walked directly towards it. At least for the time being, I knew where I was headed.</p> <p>The committee of four had asked me what I believed the reason for being of Anthropology had been. I mentioned something vague about the appreciation for humanity, and one of them responded with something about being romantic. I said not romantic, not scientific, but the basic aesthetic experience of human reality, however absurd, tragic, brutish or beautiful.</p> <p>I did not have all the answers. I told them I did not know who the greatest Anthropologist had been, and that I didn't have a father figure in the field. I only had a lot of unanswered questions and some serious doubts about my own small world.</p> <p>I left the room and waited in the hallway. I heard their muffled voices argue over my fate, and then my primary advisor came out and congratulated me for passing. They all came out and shook my hand, and then quickly departed. My advisor told me I needed to take care of a few loose ends, and that he would write for me a shopping list of courses to take. Later he asked me what I would have done if I had failed and I told him I really didn't know, except perhaps to wander off somewhere.</p> <p>I remember not having much to do that day before the exam. I got ready too early and just waited around trying to kill time. I didn't want to start anything I couldn't finish before the exam.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I enjoy sitting next to old TJ's tombstone</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Whenever I get a chance inbetween times</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I take my watch off my wrist</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And slip it into my pocket</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I look up into the tall green oak trees</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And the blue skies with the wind blowing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The tall white columns stand silently</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Like old, weather worn megaliths</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Across the green, people promenade in slow motion</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The old red brick buildings surrounding</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A small corner of American History remaining</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It could be ten or twenty or even a hundred years before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The same sunshine that glints from the roof tops</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Glinted there many times before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">So many days long since passed and forgotten</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">People walk by, in a hurry to be in class</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Oblivious of the same day</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">That went this way many times before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I sit by the water fountain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">On a warm sunny day</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The sound of the water spilling</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In a continuous cascade</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The white foam floating in its blue center</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And the fine mist of the wind's spray</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Catching a small piece of a rainbow</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It calls me back to previous times</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In previous years perhaps</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Or maybe in previous lives</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Something strangely familiar</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">About the vibrant synaesthesia</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A mood, a wisp of a feeling</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The sun against the skin</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The spray upon the cheek</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The rhythm of the gurgling water</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Carrying me back to other times</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And other places</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And though lonely in an anonymous crowd of students</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I do not feel alone</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In the company of my mysterious memory</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I had a dream last night</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In that dream I was in a dessert</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">One that I had been in before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In other dreams</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In other realities</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I was quite familiar with the lay of the land</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">With the rising hills</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And the low lying scrub</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In the hills, there was a dwelling</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Made of stone, cut back into the hillside</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And I had known that dwelling</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Many times before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I awoke from that dream</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">With a sense of having lived</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In a different life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In a distant place and time</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I walk along the sidewalks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In the late afternoon</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The sun upon my back</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The wind blowing gently across my face</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Strange and subtle feelings</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Begin to flow in the stillness within</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Mysterious ghost feelings</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Rise and subside</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Deja vu of something sensed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Previously experienced</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Another presence faintly-felt</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A distant voice echoing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Within deep interior corridors</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A nervous spasm of the knuckles</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A slight pinching pain on the forearm</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A twitching muscle in the eyelid</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Something calling me back again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The focus of my attention</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Vacillating between now and then</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">This and that</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Slipping silently away again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">From the moments immediate grasp</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I recall a different sense of being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In a different body</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In a different world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">With the same sunshine and the same gentle wind</p> </font> <hr> <font FACE="Times"> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="WakingMotions">WAKING MOTIONS</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The way gives them life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Virtue rears them:</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Things give them shape;</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Circumstances bring them to maturity.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Therefore the myriad creatures all revered the way and honor virtue.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Yet the way is revered and virtue honored not because this is decreed by any authority</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but because it is natural for them to be treated so.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(Verse LI, Tao Te Ching, Translated by D.C. Lau, 1984:112)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>Often our first waking moments set the course of our entire day. Premonitions are present in that state between sleep and wakefulness which tell us if the day will be good or bad, strange or ordinary. But we cannot predict the events of the day, and we cannot control the actions or reactions of others. We can only hope to control our own responses and expressions in relation to what happens around us.</p> <p>We are often caught on power trips that propel them forward. It is a fast moving train of events one cannot jump off from. It drives us forward to our destination whether we like it or not, and once we reach it, we no sooner push on to the next place upon our maps. The modern world is conducive to such power trips. It encourages it, indeed, makes it the only possibility of our being within the System.</p> <p>I once met on a train coming from Thailand to Malaysia a young American who had just finished law school and was traveling about before beginning his successful career in law. He told us about all the places he had been in India and Southeast Asia, and all the places he was going before he returned to the U.S. in another month. He seemed proud of all the places he had been on his itinerary in so short a time. He had been traveling upon the train all day, and was trying to make the Cameroon Highlands by nightfall where he had hotel reservations.</p> <p>I looked out the train window at the monotonous trees of the rubber plantations, at the beautiful kampong houses and the rain-worn, limestone escarpments of the hills that jutted straight up from the plains, enshrouded with hot mists and green vines of jungle growth. It was an alien world from which I expected Mowgli and a tiger to come looming out of a Jungle path. I became entranced with the scenery fleeting by at 60 miles per hour as the train swayed back and forth on the tracks and the clickety-clack of the wheels gliding along the rails filled the air.</p> <p>I turned to find my Lawyer Acquaintance had fallen asleep--no doubt tired out from all his endless journeying. A few hours later the train was pulling into the Butterworth Station at Penang--it was late afternoon and the train would be there for an hour before departing again further South. I woke the American up and invited him to come across the ferry to visit Penang and eat some good hawker food. He seemed suddenly taken by the idea and followed us off the train and onto the ferry. The ferry ride was pleasant and uncrowded. The sea breezes always cool off the passengers. Fifteen minutes later we arrive at the other side of the channel and we walk down the long gangways out to a hawker complex across the road. Just then our new found lawyer friend looks at his watch and realizes he has only a half-hour left to catch the train, so he returns to take the Journey back to the train station on the other side. He hurriedly takes our photo against the Penang city-scape--undoubtedly to tell all his friends back in the U.S. about his visit to Penang, and he runs back up the gang-way, never to be seen or heard from again.</p> <p>We wondered as we sat down to eat some makan whether he made his train on time, and, if so, whether or not he would fall asleep again before reaching the Cameroon Highlands.</p> <p>I have never been much of a traveler. Rarely are the rewards of traveling worth the hassles, the uncertainties and the extra expenses it entails. I found in my journeys that there is so much to be discovered in the many intersections and alley ways of a single old Chinatown like Penang that I've never had the time or inclination left over to go exploring other places. It combines almost all the characteristics of Asia--the food, the people, the dirtiness, the humidity, the suffering, the Buddhism, in a single small place.</p> <p>One day I would like to visit England, and Europe, and Canada and the Pacific and beyond. But if I never get to these places I will not regret it or miss them too much. My imagination is so great that I'm liable to be disappointed anyway.</p> <p>Every moment of our experience is a new awakening between the past and the present, every new awakening is a bridge between our unconscious life and the world around us. Every passing moment represents a new beginning, a new turning, a new adventure pregnant with possibility and imagination. Even in sleep we find the connection being made, in our dreams and the deathlike suspension of our present consciousness. Every new moment is also therefore an end, a separation, a loss and a death--that drives our past attachments and belongings further and further away from us.</p> <p>Time travels in only one irreversible direction, and we cannot find ourselves in more than one place at a time, no matter how many different places we may imagine for ourselves.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hurt</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hungry</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">tiny kitten</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">lost and alone</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">scared and wounded</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the middle of the intersection</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">who left you their to meet your fate</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you did not know the difference</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your mother is far, far away</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your sisters and brothers</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">are by the trash dumped</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">blind and skinny</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hairless creatures</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">soul-less</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I stop</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and kneel down</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to take your picture</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and capture your plight</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I move you to the side of the road</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I am afraid to touch you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">except with my shoe</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Then I walk away</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">not looking</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">unwilling to do more</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">leaving you to face your fate</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in a world that does not care less</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that cannot afford</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to care</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Dog chained to the wall</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sitting next to your shit</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a pan of water tipped over</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your owner nowhere to be found</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">guarding a gutter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">this is the third time I've found you there</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">forlorn and forever</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waiting for your master</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">who keeps you always</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">on the end of that short</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">chain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there is no escape</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">from the prison that has no bars</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without locks or bounds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there is no freedom</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">from the empire of the spirit</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there is no release</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or salvation</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">from the chains</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of the suffering soul</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there are no exits</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">from the conventions and constraints</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of the bounded imagination</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there is no flight</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">from the laws that keep our feet planted to the earth</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">forever we must return</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to the condition of our</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">limited existence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">fated and sated</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bound by the finality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of our own being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">some prosper</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">others starve</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">some grow strong</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">others become weak</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the poor get rich</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the rich become poor</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">success is had by others' failure</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and failure caused by others' success</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the ladder of life is never even</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and its climb is never easy or fair</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">those on top</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">do not know those on the bottom</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and those at the bottom</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">do not know those on top</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">such knowledge is dangerous</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and most who live and die</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">are anonymous</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">salt of the earth</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">old woman</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with festering legs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hung over the edge of the planks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">on top of two Chinese saw horses</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">living on top of those planks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">twenty-six years</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all her belongings</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hung from bags on the wall</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or underneath the planks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">now her hips were bad</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and she could barely walk</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">her daughter would bring her food every day</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">she always smiled to greet me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and never had a cross moment</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">quiet and motionless she sat</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">surveying the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">outside her little window</p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="GardenStates">GARDEN STATES</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The way is broad, reaching left as well as right.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The myriad creatures depend on it for life yet it claims no authority.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It accomplishes its takes yet lays claim to no merit.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It clothes and feeds the myriad creatures yet lays no claim to being their master.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">For ever free of desire, it can be called small; yet, as it lays no claim to being master</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when the myriad creatures turn to it, it can be called great.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It is because it never attempts itself to be great that it succeeds in becoming great.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(XXXIV, book one, Tao Te Ching, translated by C.D. Lau, 1963: 93)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>I always gain great satisfaction from gardening and planting things and cultivating them and watching them grow. Whenever possible I try to plant a garden and grow plants. There is something therapeutic about putting one's hand into the soil to feel the roots of the plants, and to smell the chlorophyll of the leaves. It literally puts us in touch with one of the most basic and pervasive connections with earth being--the relationship between the soil and the roots of plants. Plants are such a basic part of the background that we usually ignore them and overlook the fact that they are living beings--things that struggle for survival in their own ways. This struggle only becomes apparent to us when we attend to their needs, and over time, cultivate them and watch them grown into their little niches in our world. We can see when one is healthy and one is diseased, and if we are very good, we can usually figure out why.</p> <p>Plants in many ways are the epitome of earth being--they are earthbound and for the most part do not travel very much. Thus they are at the low end of the energy consumption scale. In fact they are indirectly the produces or processors of energy from sunlight and soil, and they provide us with our basic substratum of animal life--vegetable food and nutrients, humus and nutrients for bacterial action, and even air to breath. Thus for the most part, plants give back to the earth more than they take from it, and they represent in their basic stability a source of strength upon which all of life depends.</p> <p>Humans are far from plants, but we have in our society nearly perfect analogies between plants as primary producers and animals as consumers and predators. There are many people who occupy the background of the social landscape, so common as to pass unnoticed, whose primary function in life is production. They work hard, ask for little, take whatever they can get, pay their taxes and obey the laws, raise their families. On the other hand there are many other people who achieve some status, who get more and the more they get, the more they seem to want. They come to possess and command great resources and wealth though they themselves can never use it in their own lifetime. These people can almost be counted on for not living in a manner conducive to earth being. It is the ethos of our system that we hold up as success symbols worthy of our emulation the latter category of "predator people" and we eschew and almost universally disdain the former category of "plant people" as something bad.</p> <p>Now both the natural and the manmade world are more complicated than this simple dichotomous analogy allows for, there are many symbiotic and complicated relations in both orders of the world, but it does point up a basic difference between earth being and the kind of nonbeing cultivated by participation within the modern system. The former lacks wealth and largely eschews notoriety, the latter eschews humility and poverty, the former seeks stability and productivity, the latter seeks mobility and consumption.</p> <p>It almost goes without saying that the most generous and friendly and polite people are the poor, and that the rich would not have become so if they were not stingy and basically unfriendly in the world.</p> <p>A large portion of humanity has now been caught in a strange intermediate limbo. They are kept utterly poor, but they are also prevented from being very productive. They are a group who fill the bottom rungs of every social order and comprise a surplus, reserve labor pool. In their slums they are cut off from both sides of life--they have no gardens in which to grow their own food or to feel their vital connection to the earth. They have no jobs or income which would allow them the mobility and prosperity prized by the world system. They are in a sense an excess population, and their numbers are growing everywhere. A system designed to accommodate only a few cannot serve well or equally everyone.</p> <p>It is a sad fact of modern development that my daughter is largely growing up in a world cut off from nature in basic ways. Since we have lived mostly in apartments, she cannot keep or care for a dog or cat or other pet. It is another valuable connection that teaches us the sentience and importance of our relationship to other kinds of living beings. She has had little access to plants, forests, fields, or gardens, in the way which I remembered growing up. Her life is found in videos and Sesame Street, in fancy new toys and children's books, in car trips to malls and grocery stores. I never had many toys when I grew up, and there were no videos. But I was always playing outside in nature, and we had many kinds of pets and we never missed not having toys.</p> <p> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">You are a placid body of water</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in a vast stormy ocean of shifting sand</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The never ending flatness of the land</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Belies the still depths beneath your calm surface</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The long curving horizon of my vision</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Comes to rest upon the lapping edges of your shore</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">As I sit quietly by your side</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Meditating upon my reflections cast like stones</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Concentric Rings spreading out from the center to the rippling banks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In the glinting of the sun and the darkness of the shadow</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I wait patiently for some sign, for some secret indication</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Seeking salvation in your silence, finding solace in your solitude</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">You quench my thirst, and relieve my dry, parched throat</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Upon the water's edge I shall dwell eternally</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And death shall be my constant companion</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Sitting peacefully by my side.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Love is lost, youth is all gone</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Words ring empty and hollow</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The face has many lines and cracks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Beneath the mask the eyes are red and tired</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We wake up in the morning because it is the thing to do</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We have awaken so many mornings</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It becomes a difficult habit to break</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We sleep but sleep does not satisfy</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We dream but our dreams are no longer enough</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We stand and walk alone in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We stop and wait and do not really know what we are waiting for</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We bide our time but our time no longer abides us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We run out of money, time, hope, and care</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Our cups are cracked open and all the illusion has leaked out</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And yet we continue along our way because there is nothing else to do.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A good poem is not easy to write</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Said the professor to the student</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">There must be rhythm, rhyme and metered structure</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Or else the poem is just a meandering stream of words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Going nowhere, except to the silent, anonymous place</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Where all spent words seek the bottom</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Paper tigers</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Roaring pages</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Paper Buddha's</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In paper nirvana</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Paper Professors</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Avowed of the printed word</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Paper reputations</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Paper shredders and paper drives</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Living in a paper world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of paper money and paper people</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">paper egos and paper Gods</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A perennial plague of paper</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">With nothing to do</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">But crumple it up</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And toss it away</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Each piece so thin and cheap</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">This cup has fallen</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And is so suddenly broken</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Irreparable it is</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">No longer quite a cup</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Not able to hold its essence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Its fluid is all spilt out</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Your love sated in small and simple things</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">That you could hold and warm in your hands</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And keep upon your shelf to collect dust</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">But you did not know how fragile it could be</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">How easily broken its attachment can be</p> <sub> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> </sub> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The desks are all in nice, straight rows</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Every morning we can expect an orderly and timely lecture</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Beg your pardon sir,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">But do you have the time of day</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Can you spare me a little time, or even just a nickel or a dime,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And is it the correct time</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Not a second to soon or late</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">To synchronize our schedules by</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Guru sitting under the tree</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">You are some one else’s swami</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">You wish to share a cup of joe</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And freely discuss the significant things of the day</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">But it must be fit neatly within your busy schedule.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Big Mizzou Lottery</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">People from all over the county, the state, the country and even the whole world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">come to play here everyday</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Wait in line and pay the cashier</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Take your number</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Wait your turn in line</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">There are ten dollar winners</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">twenty, fifty, even many hundred dollar winners</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Who knows, you may even make the big spin</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And become a manager of a Wal-Mart</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or own your own McDonald’s Franchise</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or even a copy service agent</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">At Kinko’s</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Or become an student officer</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In the R.O.T.C.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">One of Busch’s Boys in Blue</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Protecting the Uncle Reagan’s country</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">If you are lucky enough to dodge all the cars</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In all the cross-walks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Buy a new computer</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">To calculate your life chance’s</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And figure some scheme</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Here you can make a little bit</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Stretch a long, long way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">You can even play now, and pay later</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Upon your stairway to Heaven.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Just Charge it on your new Discover Card</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Or pay for it on a Sear's or Wal Mart lay-away plan</p> <sub> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> </sub> <p ALIGN="CENTER">You are a Brahmin</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And I, untouchable</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">You sit under your Bo tree</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">While I’m supposed to slave beneath the blazing sun</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Your’s is the kingdom of Heaven</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Mine is the Wasteland</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Maybe in my next life-time</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I can aspire to be like you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">An equal among my betters</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I will pass in anonymity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">You might be remembered</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Maybe in some future world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We will even change places</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Can you imagine that?</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Me the Blessed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and You the Damned</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">To be poor in an affluent world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Is to be a pauper among so many princes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A little Indian brave among Big Chiefs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Worrying about it too much</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Becomes a joke you can play upon yourself</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">No one really cares whether you come or go</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Shut off and isolated like a complete pariah</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">One’s life chances are likely to be quite poor</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">With few opportunities for social intercourse</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">People will call you a risk and a liability</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">An unreliable, unreformed character</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In desperate need of reform</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">By shutting you off socially</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Your image can be socially controlled</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Sanctioned and manipulated</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Without your slightest choice</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Without a least little chance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Whether one chooses to play the game or not</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I have resigned myself</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">To live within my lonely world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and to accept my meager lot in life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I find escape within my daily dreams</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And seek success in the little things</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I do for myself</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I will take little from the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And leave little behind when I leave</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">This common cup of clay</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Its lips are cracked</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It surface spotty and uneven</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Molded of rough, soiled hands</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Fired by wood from the forest</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">What it lacks in elegant refinement</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It more than makes up for in utility</p> <p> </p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="WalkingMovements">WALKING MOVEMENTS</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">When the way prevails in the empire,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">fleet-footed horses are relegated to plowing the fields;</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when the way dose not prevail in the empire,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">war-horses breed on the border</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">There is no crime greater than having too many desires;</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">There is no disaster greater than not being content;</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">There is no misfortune greater than begin covetous.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Hence in being content, one will always have enough</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(XLVI, Tao Te Ching, trans. C. D. Lau, 1963 :107)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>Humans were designed by several million years of evolution for walking bipedal in a slow, steady upright gait. That we should so eschew in the modern world what has been so natural and basic about our identity during the entire length of our evolution comes as something of a grand and tragic paradox.</p> <p>The walking pace is one at which we are especially attuned for the relation to our world. In an age of jets, fast cars and bullet trains, it remains the most human speed we can seek to travel in. It seems that living a lifestyle adapted to the fast lane of the freeway is particularly unsuitable to the way which must be walked to be best appreciated.</p> <p>I prefer to walk over taking a car whenever I have the opportunity. I never cease to enjoy looking at the trees or listening to the birds, and never become bored with the slowly moving scenery as I walk. On the other hand, I have become sleepy behind the wheel of a car on many occasions. Walking sets the world within human proportions. If something is so far that it cannot be easily reached by foot, it is probably too far away from home anyways.</p> <p>After several years of hassling the freeways and congestion of Los Angeles during rush hours, I do not miss not driving a car at all. When livelihoods, groceries, necessities and pleasures become so far away that one cannot reach there by walking, then a basic formula of human evolution is being violated. There is no saying that this is a necessary reality--that it cannot be any other way.</p> <p>While I walk, my sense of being in the world is often heightened. When I'm in a car it is my sense of detachment from the world, of enclosure and separation within a speeding, glass and steel bubble, that I most strongly feel. It is easy to drive by many things without being affected by them, or even bothering to look at them.</p> <p>It is a shame that modern industrialized societies attach so much status to the kind of car one drives, and derogates the position and status of the pedestrian to that of a third or fourth class pariah or street person. People spend the greater part of their lives working for, paying for and driving in cars that are virtually designed to be outdated within a decade. This preoccupation with cars, their status and mobility, is the antithesis of earth being.</p> <p>We may state for the cultivation of greater earth being the following order of preference of modes of transportation: 1. by foot; 2, bicycle or horse, sail boat 3 bus or public transportation; 4. car or motorcycle, large ship or motorboat; 5. airplane. That this is precisely the opposite of the "normal" order of things in terms of power, energy expended, speed, so-called "efficiency," and the level of associated status, suggests the radical, revolutionary character of earth being in very fundamental ways. It is not to say never to fly a plane, but whenever possible to ride a bus instead. It is not to say never to drive a car, but if possible use a bicycle or go by foot.</p> <p>We can use a similar scale of earth being when it comes to other aspects of our lives. For instance, it is always better to eat at a lower rung of the food chain rather than higher up. Americans consume mostly beef as the principle part of their protein diet. An earth being diet would suggest substituting chicken and fish for beef and pork whenever possible, and substituting bean curd and cereal grains for chicken and fish whenever possible. It also suggests that if we insist on eating the cow, then at least to eat the "whole" cow in the way that the Vietnamese chronically do, so that little of its protein goes to waste.</p> <p>Cultivating an earth being way means that we do not have to totally sacrifice our love of steaks and ham, but to just eat it less often and savor it more when we do eat it. These are relatively easy principles to put into practice.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the lightning came today</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the thunder rolled and rolled across the land from far away</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it never seemed to want to stop</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the gray clouds darkened on the western horizon</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the winds blew in from this direction</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the rain soon followed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a few drops at first</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and then a heavy cascade of water</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">falling from the broken rain gutter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">flooding the streets and gutters like streambeds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">then tapering off to a long, steady rain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I watched the entire event unfold</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">from the closed window</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the raindrops splashing against the panes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the lightning flashes lighting the dark room</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">no matter how many times it has come and gone</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">its always as if its the first and last time</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Sing in sadness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A Nandene song</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a few short syllables</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">emptied of content</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bereft of context</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sing of a people</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">lost past</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sing of children</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">lost heritage</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">an anthropologist's recordings</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">an old woman's silence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with her passing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a culture vanishing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">better to take with her</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the little that's left</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the few remaining</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bits and pieces</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">some simple songs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of a stressed memory</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">promising only a skeleton</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a threadbare reconstruction</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">better to let it crumble away</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to dust blown by the wind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">than to let it sit</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">collecting dust</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in some file cabinet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or upon some bookshelf</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or in a glass case</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of some museum</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">young man</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">whistling loudly</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">along the trail</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without concern or are</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a poor rendition of a popular tune</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">paying no attention to who is noticing or not</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">he could as well be in the Philharmonic</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">he cannot hear what he sounds like</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">intently listening to his own musical production</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it makes no matter and no never mind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it is enough that it flows forth</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">through the tree along the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">lost in the sonorous rhythm</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the surrounding silence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">his own melody of moment</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">walking down the trail</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">how ironic</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to be a child</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so contemptuously upsetting</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">every sense of possible order</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in childish chaos</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so anti-intellectual</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">disturbing continuously</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">my linear train of thought</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">derailing my mind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">disheveling my world of words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">interrupting my interior sense of order</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">how ironic</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your empty head and blank mind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so innocently empty</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">yet free of lies and illusions of life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without even an awareness of death</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and yet like a sponge</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">soaking up everything and anything</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a brain knowing nothing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that can't stop learning everything</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">if only I could exchange</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a lot of my knowledge</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for a little of your boundless potential</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your messy movements</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">making a foolish mockery</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of my well ordered world.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Will the real London please stand up?</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Not just any old London</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Not Thatcher's or Churchill's</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or Cromwell's or Shakespeare's</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or Dicken's or King Henry VIII's</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we do not want the tourist's bird's eye view</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">nor the Indian's or the Black's or the White's</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It is not just a spot on a map</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">nor a line drawn around its outskirt's</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">not an empty city filled with empty buildings and empty streets</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">nor the one that the German's blitzed and rocketed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we do not want just the common working class view</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">nor the received Royal view</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we want the real thing--lock, stock and barrel.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bridge and all the burned up buildings</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">more than just an archaeological excavation</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but less than the sum of every person whose ever been there</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or even just seen or heard about it on a map</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">will the real London please stand up?</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Beside the real Rome, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo, Manila, New York, etc.</p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="MindingMotives">MINDING MOTIVES</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The spirit of the valley never dies.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">This is called the mysterious female.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The gateway of the mysterious female</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Is called the root of heaven and earth.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Dimly visible, it seems as if it were there</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Yet use will never drain it.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(Verse VI, Book One of the Tao Te Ching, D.C. Lau, 1963:62)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>I've grown accustomed to myself, and I am happy with who I am. Though no one wants to stay my friend for very long, and though I've long been poor and jobless. Despite the many mistakes I've made in my life, I would not trade places with anyone. I no longer need other's approval or disapproval of my being, their approbation or respect, and I no longer permit others to interfere with my inner sense of being in the world. I no longer blame myself for my predicament, nor do I blame others, and I do not feel dissatisfied or regretful of my position. I no longer find fault in others, or blame them for their predicament or lots in life, or for their sometimes desperate actions to alter their plight.</p> <p>The pathway has twisted and turned in unseen directions, and there have been many alternate ways to take. I have found many dead ends, and retracing my steps, I've learned that we are in a labyrinth in a forest. I've slowly learned my way through to the other side. There are many ways through the forest, and each traveler must find her/his own way. We cannot judge the directions others go in, unless we walk in their footsteps.</p> <p>Each sees the forest in their own different way, and each comes to know their own parts of the whole separately. The analogy of the forest is a profound one, because it allows us to understand how much we are subjectively situated, and confounded, within a larger, surrounding objective world. We cannot know the whole for its many parts, and everyone's view of it is a little different.</p> <p>Walking along the way in life entails making many decisions about which direction to go in, which pathway to turn down, and which to pass by. Sometimes we mind our motives for why we are walking the way we are, and sometimes we forget our motives or change them in midstream.</p> <p>Sometimes our motives mind us along the way. Sometimes we are not fully aware of our motives, and sometimes we just walk for the sake of walking, mindlessly, without anywhere in particular to go. And sometimes we make up our motives as we go along to fit whatever we find along the way. Sometimes we discover new motives along the way, or discover that our original motives were misguided or mistaken. Our motives sometimes run out along the way, carrying us only part of the way, leaving us stranded somewhere inbetween. We may start out without any motives, and sooner or later discover them along the way.</p> <p>Waking, motioning, walking, all entail eventually "minding" what our motives are, whether it is "re-minding" ourselves what we've forgotten, or minding something new that we hadn't known before. Coming to know our motives "make up our mind" for us in the same way that increased involvement leads to increased commitment.</p> <p>Minding motives rarely comes all at once. It often requires a lot of time and seemingly much wasted effort before we can begin bringing our motives together and making sense of them in relation to the wider world. Sometimes it never "happens" to us, even if our hidden motives have always been "minding" us anyway.</p> <p>Bringing our motives into clearer focus gathers a kind of momentum of movement and minding which creates its own sense of direction and purpose which becomes difficult to simply change or stop. Our motives connect us to the wider world, realizing within us parts of the world as its on-going history. Minding our motives sooner or later makes us in the world.</p> <p>Whether we are ever aware of them or not, we always walk in the world with our motives. They push us, pull us along, entice us, order us, prod us, energize us, constrain us, liberate us, direct us, imprison us, and render our lives meaningful and giving it purpose, sense, a reason for being, a destination, a sense of fate and destiny in the world. However repressed, hidden, secrete they may be, we cannot escape the sense of Kharma and prophesy they confer upon our lives.</p> <p>Motives make our world happen to us, but never very directly. They always work in roundabout ways which are often difficult to understand. Minding our motives becomes a matter of trying to bring them to clearer focus, to manifest themselves upon the surface of our being in clear manner. Sometimes our motives are mixed, confused and even self-contradictory. Minding them is a way of straightening them out into a reasonable sense of order, thereby putting a handle upon them in order to better control their influence upon our lives.</p> <p>Understanding our motives becomes important in our lives, because if we fail to understand them and control them, then our motives come to exert an unconscious, compulsive influence upon our lives and come to control everything we do without our full awareness or ability to resist.</p> <p>But understanding our own motives is not all there is to walking in the world. Through this understanding we come to know better the motives of others we meet along the way, and thus we become better able to mind the ways of others in the world. It leads to the way of wisdom in the world.</p> <p>Though we may be constantly minding our way, mindless we remain along the way. Our motives are never pure, but always come to our consciousness already mixed. We may live our lives with the illusion of the purity of our motives, and never founder upon the rocks of doubt and despair, but without some anchor point, some distant shore-line, our lives are spent floating aimlessly in whichever direction the mysterious winds and currents of change carry us, without ever realizing that we were traveling at all.</p> <p>Discovering the imperfection of our own existence, and the ultimate uncertainty of our motivations and our movements is the first step, and the first choice taken in our journey. Though we may have been journeying all our lives, our way is always just beginning.</p> <p>The way never brings our feet closer to the mountain, but moves the mountain closer to our feet. However far we may travel, the horizon is never closer to our view.</p> <p>Our lives are made of many reasons which we may be unaware of, and which may seem contradictory and at odds with our own willpower and best interests. Our life along the way will be spent in discovery of the hidden treasure buried both within the earth and within ourselves.</p> <p>The way of the world will not be found in words or even in deeds. Thoughts and acts and the many material things of the world are but figments of the imagination that trick the mind into believing in the illusion of their reason and importance. When we die the only thing we take with us is the way.</p> <p> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">little Alyce</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">living in a strange world of words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">dinosaurs and cock roaches</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">candy and cookies</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">poopoo and peepee</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and Popeye the Sailor Man</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a world of fragile feelings</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">harsh hurtful words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">ready-made tears and nonsensical laughter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a world of physical constraints and obstacles</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">climbing and falling</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">running, jumping and dancing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sleeping and dreaming</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">an imaginary world of unlimited possibilities</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">just waiting to be explored</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">high and mighty</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">big bad Brahman</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">doing double duty</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the business of salvation</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">keeping his appropriate distance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">classless, careless carcass carrier</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a penniless, part-time existence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">gaining only intermittent employment</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without the possibility of transcendence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">still keeping his distance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Proud and Humble</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Living in the same small village</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">dwelling in different worlds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">existing in different villages</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the same small world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you are a priest</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and I am a shaman</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you deal with high-minded ideals</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I traffic in lowly matters</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you're a professional</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I'm the amateur</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you're a person</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of a very important position</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and I am a classless fool</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without any position</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Our ways come together</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">many different times and places</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but never the twain shall meet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">face-to-face</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">eye-to-eye</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or hand-to-hand</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I interpret loosely</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you analyze strictly</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I delight in disorder</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you impose rigid structures</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you must suffer my satirical seriousness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I suffer your great comical ego</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you're clearly on top</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and I'm somewhere at the bottom</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but this world is always changing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">three bare trees</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">standing starkly against the gray winter sky</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with a squirrel on a lower branch</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">two red robins in the other tree</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a bright red crested male and its partner</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and another blue bird in the third tree</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">up above the construction site</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with all the pedestrians walking along the paths</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">little creatures in the trees</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sitting and safely viewing the human world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">solitary squirrel</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">inconspicuous creature</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">suddenly lost and alone in a human world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">scampering about the pavement</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">trying to dodge the sea of human feet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">slowly you make your way across the street</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and then quickly dive into the bushes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">few of the students even take notice of your presence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">if you search for friendship in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">then you have not looked deep enough</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">into the shallow pools of reflection</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">if you need a walking companion</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">look at the shadow trotting along beneath your feet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">strength will not be found</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by leaning against this knarled old tree</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">if you pick up your feet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you will find it there</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sewn to the souls of your shoes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">trailing far behind in your many</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">forgotten footsteps</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">one</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">once and for all</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">not many</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">no more need for the part</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">just the whole</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">difference eliminated</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all deviance controlled</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">on structure</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">universal</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">at heart</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a purist</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">smiting</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">secretly</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">every foe</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">intolerance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of intolerance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hatred</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of all hatred</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">anger</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">smoldering</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the soul</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">suffocating</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all spirit</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">begging</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the obvious</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sitting in class</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">weighing up the brains</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">measuring the measure</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sizing and fitting human</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">how small the container</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">how convoluted the case</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">how great the capacity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">comparing modern virtues</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">competing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for the same prize</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sleeping Sorrow</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">head tucked</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">between two</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">drawn up</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">pigeon-toed legs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sitting just inside</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">this glass door</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">at the end of a long corridor</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it is early yet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and you still need your sleep</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">go home young girl</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and come back</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">later</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so much command authority</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">such firm action</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it leaves me authentically awestruck</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a very impressive persona</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">incarnate of the absolute and the apparent</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the veil of greatness transcends</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the air of wonderment</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the very breath of your being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">maybe in our pretentious arrogance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we may aspire to be reborn as highly as you are now</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">instead of being reborn as humble little ants</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that crawl across the floor</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">if we submit our applications</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and then await official approval</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">maybe we can thus aspire to salvation</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to escape this wheel of life and rebirth</p> <p> </p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="MentioningMatters">MENTIONING MATTERS</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way:</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The name that can be named</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Is not the constant name.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth;</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The named was the mother of the myriad creatures.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Hence always rid yourself to have desires in order to observe its secrets;</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(Verse I of Book 1 of Tao Te Ching, C.D. Lau, 1963: 57)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>Discourse gives form and substance to things only imagined, and in doing so blurs the distinction between what is real and what is fantasy. Speaking words out loud confers credibility to our beliefs and thoughts, and renders them susceptible to social validation and legitimization. The spoken word at once clarifies and obfuscates, creating the possibility for both truth and falsehood in the same instance. The word, once uttered, cannot be taken back or recovered, and leads to unexpected consequences beyond our control. It is lost forever in the world. Our words are always the source of much paradox. Complete truth is never possible with words, but any truth is also impossible without them.</p> <p>Words create power not only through their expressive affirmation of inner human identity in the world, but by the capacity for significant communication by which social constraint, conformity, coordination and control of social behavior is achieved. The expressive and communicative functions of discourse, and the texts that are the by-products and reifications of such discourse, constitute the dialectical extremes of a single language continuum.</p> <p>No discursive act or text is purely expressive or purely communicative, though some forms such as poetry may be more one than the other. Enhancing the expressiveness of the enactment of discourse may be had only at cost to the potential communicative efficacy of the message. Either way, the play of words in expression of the human imagination and in the social construction of reality becomes unavoidable play with a crucial instrument of human reality.</p> <p>Language and its restriction or promotion becomes a critical source and functional instrument of power in the world. Exclusion of people from normal dialogue is a source of denial of the very humanness of those people. Language used in this way concretizes, reifies, legitimates. It is language, in its definition and forming of the person's subjective basis and experiences in life, which constitutes the very foundation of humanness and humanity.</p> <p>Language can be used to imprison, and it can be used to liberate. It can be an instrument of unpower and freedom as well as one unfreedom and power. Words used freely, openly and independently are the principle vehicle of expression for thoughts and imaginings that are free and independent. Because deeds soon follow words, suppression of open speech and dialogue is tantamount to the repression of thought itself.</p> <p>It is the power of language that renders it something relative to the speaker and its speech contexts. If language were the same for all humankind, if there were a tower of Babel, then its differences, variation and diversity would be inconsequential as a means of separation, unity, as a means or an end of power. That language is such a central and critical instrumentality of power--in court rooms, in government, in newspapers, in everyday life--can be taken as evidence of its differences constituting something that is relative in the world.</p> <p>The way weaves between words and the pages upon which they are written, but it is these words which must mark the way. Following the way depends upon the open and independent use of words in nonconformity to any established sanctions. It is a basic exercise in mental and verbal freedom, a form of freedom of action and liberty that is inherent to earth being. It is in the discovery of the importance of language in our world and in our lives that we discover as well our own sense of humanity and by which we find our way in the world.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with these words I write</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I sketch my own identity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a simple name that saves my soul</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and gives my spirit a frame of meaning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">from the absolute anonymity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of an indifferent world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">while I write the words flow forth</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the pages pile upon one another</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like all the many passing days</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to eventually become forgotten</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and lost beneath the growing mountain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the thin line of ink upon plain paper</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all that separates us from the beasts</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">words that make and break us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">paper and ink realities that people fight and die for</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that make people rich and powerful</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or imprison people in an impoverished world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it is paper that purifies us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and legitimates us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and makes us significant in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the strange paradox of a thin paper world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that is so combustible and prone to destruction</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we are lost</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">words illuminate</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the surrounding darkness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like the flame of a candle</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">casting forth its feint light</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but it blinds us to the shadows</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that dance beyond the reach</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of the candlelight</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and to the stars</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that shine in the night</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">better to be lost in the darkness of the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">than to be enlightened along the wrong way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">colorful parasols</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bobbing up and down</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in gray sullen skies</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">rain dripping from the barren branches</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">cars splashing along the streets</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">umbrellas in every shade and hue</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">blue, red, green and white</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">drifting in the wind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a colorful parade</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">an overcast promenade</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">stepping diligently between the puddles</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there is nothing so hard</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that it will not eventually crack</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">beneath the weight of time</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and eventually wear away into sand</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that blows into the wind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like stone we may seem to be</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but like water will we find our way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to the single common source of our being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so it is that our strengths are our weaknesses</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and our weakness is our strength</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">truth blows whichever way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with the changing winds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">wisdom dwells beneath the surface of the water</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">beneath the reflections cast upon its waves</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">spare the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the sense of social justice</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">which seeks in others</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the source of our own suffering</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">allowing us to commit so much wrong</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the name of what seems too right</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">which makes us segregate realities</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in terms so black and white</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all the wrong in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">does not measure up</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">against our own self-serving righteousness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that sees in other's gain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our own potential loss</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and other's loss as our own gain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it is all to easy to find in others</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">what we fail to find in ourselves</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We say good-bye once again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">both of us are honest enough</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to know these are our last words together</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for a brief spell along our way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our paths have come together</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and we have come to share what is in our hearts</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we both know there is no turning back</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so many good-byes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so many yesterdays and tomorrows</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when all we have together</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">is just this day</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">familiar friends we've become</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">soon to be strangers</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">along our separate ways.</p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="MakingMistakes">MAKING MISTAKES</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Were I possessed of the least knowledge,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I would, when walking on the great way, fear only paths that lead astray</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The great way is easy, yet people prefer by-paths.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The court is corrupt,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The fields are overgrown with weeds,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The granaries are empty;</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Yet there are those dressed in fineries,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">With swords at their sides,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Filled with food and drink,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And possessed of too much wealth.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">This is known as taking the lead in robbery.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Far indeed is this from the way.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(Verse LIII, Book Two of Tao Te Ching, D. C. Lau, 1963:114)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>Waking up in the world is not just an act of cognition. It is even more a necessary motion--a movement, and enactment of being in the world. Awakening comes of interaction with the world, an interaction which transcends the basic mechanics of body motion and becomes part of the movement of the entire universe.</p> <p>In this we learn our lessons from children. We are children of the earth. Though we are all in civilization like full grown adults, we are still with only a childlike understanding of the earth. Though it is the wisdom of our human ways not to forever remain in a childlike state, we must strive to preserve the spontaneity and openness tot he world that comes from the awakening and growth of youth.</p> <p>A child's awakening is necessarily sensori-motor in orientation--nothing is too sacred to touch, handle or break. Nothing is too dangerous to climb or fall from. Nothing is so uninteresting as to not warrant being poked, fondled or dropped. It is in the enactment of the child's awakening that s/he learns and acquires experience of the world.</p> <p>The first steps, the first words, the first realizations of pattern and purpose, the first lies, the first vicarious imaginings, are the most miraculous stages in a child's development. These stages open whole new fields for exploration and growth. Similarly, we must as adults relearn how to walk and talk in the world. An important part of the awakening of our earth being is learning to be peripatetic beneath the trees. The first steps taken, the first motions of awakening, and all else becomes possible.</p> <p>Awakening in the world is not just a passive recognition of new things in the world--it is an active involvement with the world. Learning how to walk well in the world is one of the first steps taken upon our way of exploration of the wider world. Our legs become the primary means of exploration of our world--we climb trees, cliffs, mountains, caves--with them nothing in the world is beyond our reach.</p> <p>By our feet, we walk the path of experience and come to know first hand all the ways of the world. Along the way we meet and journey with many people, and then eventually go our separate ways. We take many falls along the way, meet many obstacles block our path, come to many dead ends and wrong turns, and learn many short-cuts.</p> <p>We discover that the forest of life is a labyrinth of many intersecting pathways, and that there are many alternative routes to the same place. Somewhere along the way we may become lost, or change our destinations. Somewhere along the way we realize that there is no turning back.</p> <p>We soon learn that our way is never as short and direct as we first believed. There are many twists and unseen turns. The way sis always indirect and often indefinite. Thus the way is interminably long and sometimes intolerable and frustrating, but it is sometimes also a wonderful adventure. We learn a lot along the way, good and bad.</p> <p>One day we will meet death along the way, and come across our own shadow blocking our path and obscuring our view. We journey into the dark heart of the forest's depths, where we find incarnate the possibility of our own evil in the world. We then come to know the possibility of being of ourselves in others in the world as well. We come to understand the common ground of our humanity, and thereby the possibility of our spiritual salvation and reincarnation in the world. With recognition of our common humanity, we discover as well the source of our own greatness and divinity.</p> <p>Eventually, we learn that the way may have many stopping places but no ends. We discover that the paths all intersect in never ending circles, and one path leads to yet another, and all paths lead back to the place at which we started.</p> <p>We are basically blind to our own ignorance--we cannot directly see or know it for what it really is. It depends upon the illusion of its own non-being in the world as something other than what it is. The spell of its illusion is said to be necessary to empower us to act in way we might not otherwise want to act--especially when this comes to social enactment.</p> <p>It is in social relationships with others that our illusions and the ignorance which they disguise, become mirrored and echoed back to us as the empty expressions of our own words and deeds--in the process becoming exaggerated and distorted out of true proportion. Illusion is much easier to maintain when it is shared, and much more invisible when it is socially regarded as "common sense."</p> <p>The illusion of ignorance is so difficult to dispel precisely because it becomes socially involved and situated within the world. In the process of its enactment, it becomes "concretized" as something other than what it really is. It is difficult to see beyond the horizon of our collective illusions or to act in other ways than those dictated by our common knowledge of the world, because we cannot easily or simply break the bonds or trespass the boundaries which order the world. Our ignorance is always indirect in its influence upon our lives, and our illusions always predetermine that our actions will mislead us and become mistaken in the world.</p> <p>It is said that "understanding kills action,"--knowledge of the wider reality pops the bubble of illusion which surrounds our world and invites into it the uncertainty and threat of difference and change which we can no longer fully control. But there is nothing inherently immobilizing about understanding in the world except that world order depends upon our illusions. Popping the bubble requires us to act in other ways than our illusion and ignorance dictate to us. It forces us to find alternative ways of being and meaning in the world not buttressed or reinforced by the power of illusion.</p> <p>It is more difficult to act without illusion, as it forces us to make life-boat decisions without the legitimization of our own virtuousness. In transcending the illusions of our own ignorance, we must give up as well the naive innocence and irresponsibility in life for our actions which such illusions allow us.</p> <p>This has become the predicament we face in the modern world. We are pursuing development and progress for the sake of and in the name of progress and development, but at the expense of possible, alternative human-wise or earth-wise development. We are all constrained to serve a vast, massive, ultimately impersonal world order which is not constrained to serve us in return.</p> <p>The world system is quickly developing beyond anyone's or any group's ability to control it.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like a frog in a coconut shell</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we stand in the center of our world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">which has no center</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we look to the edge of our horizon</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">which has no edge</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the wider world continues around us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">encircling us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without us being a part of it</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without our taking notice of it</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we wait in our coconut shells</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for good things to come to us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">believing we are thus protected</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">from all the unknown dangers around us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">until something unexpected arises</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like a giant's shadow looming</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">across the edge of our existence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">someone comes knocking at the door</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the telephone rings at some off hour</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the mailman comes carrying a letter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we are left at a loss</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of what to do</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">forced to act in ways</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we usually do not have to behave.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">windows open to the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like glass eyes looking through the walls</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon different fields of view</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon different interior perspectives</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">seeing both ways</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">inside out and outside in</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">each window framing a distinct reality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">each frame containing a fragile, transparent picture</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a living reflection of our lives</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the way of life is mapped</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by the many mistakes we make</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the meaning of life is measured</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by all the treasure that's been lost</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it becomes difficult to rise in the morning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when yesterday no longer tells us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">what tomorrow may bring</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it becomes troubling</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to turn to a new direction</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or even to take another step</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when our way is not clearly visible</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our many moments in life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">are marked by the footprints we leave behind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where we are headed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">depends upon from where we have come</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Tumblelina</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bouncing like a ball</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">little girl</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all thumbs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when on your feet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">up each big step</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to the very top</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">then right back down again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">looking up after your fall</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">wondering if I'm going to pick you up again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Daddy pays no attention</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">back up the steps you crawl</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">calling out</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">then running away</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your chimpanzee gait</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">laughing joyously</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">looking back to see if Daddy follows</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your scratched knees</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your little legs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you can afford to tumble</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">as many times as you may</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">falling is not failing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">as long as you are picking yourself back up</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">always knowing in the back of your small mind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that Daddy is never very far away</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">tomorrow the steps wont be so big as today</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and that field won't be so far away</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Face to Face</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and yet so far away</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">born into different worlds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and now our worlds are colliding</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you look at me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and see but a reflection of your hidden self</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I see you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">as if looking at a shadow of my own fate</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I no longer have any hope</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that things may ever be otherwise</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you wish to see me change</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">only to become finally frustrated</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by my unchanging character</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">strangers in paradise</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">character too coarse and crude</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to be wasted upon the finer things in life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we wait in earnest expectation</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for each other's emotional embrace</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">only to experience the emptiness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of a lonely life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we live within a circle</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">searching for a way out</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">every direction we turn in</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">leads us back to where we began</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without any choice but to start over again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in some other direction</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="CoastLines">COASTLINES</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The world had a beginning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And this beginning could be the mother of the world.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">To see the small is called discernment;</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">To hold fast to the submissive is called strength.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Use the light</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">But give up the discernment</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Bring not misfortune upon yourself</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">This is known as following the constant.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(Verse LII, Book Two of the Tao Te Ching, D.C. Lau, 1963:113)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>The coastlines connect us to our origin. There is something basic and primordial about the coast where the ocean and the land meets. Whichever beach one stands upon, at the edge of the surf, one can sense a powerful movement of the ocean, and ocean that unites the entire earth in a vast belt of salt water. The waves that roll in to break before one's feet are those that have broken on the coasts of the lands of the dinosaurs. It is the same basic water--evaporated and precipitated countless times over. It is the same water that gave birth to all life on earth, and that has been the great source of evolution on earth. All life is dependent upon it one way or another. The primordial soup that life was supposed to have first been cooked up in was figuratively the amniotic fluid of the earth's placenta. We are all therefore children of the earth, whether we can feel it in our bones and blood or not.</p> <p>Coming down to the coast and walking through the surf has always been for me a time of reflection and retrospection, and a time for feeling a sense of attachment to the wider earth. To see a distant ship cutting the water across the horizon of the sea is to sense both the relative distance and proximity of exotic, foreign ports. The continuous, never ending rhythms of the waves rolling in and pounding the shore, of the tides which come in and go out, are resonate with the rhythms of the pulse of our blood beneath our skin, and of the rhythms of breathing and living and dying of all life one earth. Going to the shoreline of the sea is a time of renewal of our sense of earth being--an affirmation of our place within earth's larger order.</p> <p>To see the long term work of the waves--the stratigraphy of the crumbling shoreline--the wave-worn rocks and cliffs, smoothed over and compressed, the broken bits of shells and the turning of rocks into ever finer particles of sand, is to realize the cumulative power and the ceaseless work of the ocean in transforming the landscapes of the edges of the continent.</p> <p>It is recognition of this deep and vital connection to the ocean that we have come to regard the industrial depredations of the seas with special sensitivity and significance. Nothing connotes ecological disaster or invites our disgust as a huge oil slick in the sea. When we see fish floating belly up in the water amongst a bunch of human trash and flotsam, we see clearly in no uncertain terms the makings of an ecological nightmare.</p> <p>Like nothing else on earth, the sea invites us to our primordial sense of earth being--it awakens within us that sense of connectedness which sleeps while we barrel at 70 miles per hour down the freeway, spewing out a long trail of poisonous exhaust. Confronting the immensity and power of the sea, we can feel more acutely our own miniscule stature and weakness in the world, making all our man-made feats seem inflated and grandiose by comparison.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Standing upon the brink of darkness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We hark back to a younger world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">To an innocent age filled with youthful dreams</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the play of fantasy</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Unconstrained by the strictures</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of too much science and too much wisdom</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The cold wind blows upon our faces</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and blind us from our fate</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a lost, naive youth</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">full of naked love and raw violence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">stained by tears and mocked by laughter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">forlorn freedoms and minor infractions</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">flown with the winds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">blown by the breezes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">into the long night of our fear and longing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hapless hope and historical accidents</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Twisting and turning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Bending and unending</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Trials and tribulations</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Of unexpected and untimely transformations</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and distorting transitions and transitory distortions</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">leaving one's spine</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Misshapen and bent beneath the yoke</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">stretched out upon the rack</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of many hard and uneven resting places</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a rough rock for a pillow</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">fitful sleep and wakeful dreams</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">acute visions and sharp feelings</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">interrupting the spell</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like rain drops splashing into the stillness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of the surface of the water</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">broken bits and missing pieces</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">long lost fragments and forgotten moments</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like a shattered mirror</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">reflecting multiple images</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">partial and incomplete</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the only remnants remaining</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so many shards and splinters</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">mindful memories</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a lifetime's mosaic of meaning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The saltiness of the vast ocean</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">tasted in a single tear drop</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the watercourses that wind around the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">flow through our very veins</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the waves that roll and pound upon every shore</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">pound within the heart of our own chest</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the homeless winds that blow without rest</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">blow with our every breath</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the wind and water</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that erase all signs of the past</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and erode all forms of nature</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">wear away our own worn and wrinkled skin</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the sand and soil composing all life on earth</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">lies buried beneath our nails</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">squashed in the mud between our toes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The echoes of our evolutionary beginning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">still ringing deep inside the conch shell</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the roaring waves and howling winds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">resonate within its spiraling interior chambers</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and whisper mysteriously in our ears</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">calling us back to an earlier epoch</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">an age before words, before time itself</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of nameless dreams and dreamless realities</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">beckoning us back to our basic being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The sounds of our thoughts</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like ethereal spirits</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">float freely in the interior spaces</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of our vast boundless universe</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">eluding every act of our consciousness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">evading every facet of our existence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The gong clangs in the darkness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and clangs again and then again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and trails off into the dark empty spaces</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of the background silence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the chanting rises ever so slowly</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">its volume quickening in the tempo</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and rhythms of the gong's reverberations</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and then like a distant vagabond train</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">quickly fades away back into the cool night</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the train for lost and wayward wanderers</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">has made yet another journey across the night</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to the other world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">This solitary frame</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">focuses the entire universe</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by its dancing, entrancing light</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like a far-off flickering star</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">defeating the darkness and the cold</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">consciousness brought to bear upon a single point</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">contrasted by the playful shadows that are cast</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all around the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The distant bells ring at the top of every hour</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">broadcast slowly, steadily across the many spaces</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bringing to the world a singular sense of purpose</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a brief instant of unity and clarity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the chimes follow upon the breezes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and fill the air with a sublime softness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bringing to a stop the many momentary affairs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">suddenly seeming so trivial and crude</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by its surrounding comparison</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the noisy world becomes so silent</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and even seems to make a little sense</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so many masks we wear</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that we feel naked without one</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and beneath the mask</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our eyes tell of the silent truth</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that lies locked within our hearts</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hidden away from the everyday world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">even from our own reflection</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the mirror</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">masks of many colors</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that hide the lines of black and white</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">masks of gray shadows</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that cover over the many different colors</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we hide our truths behind our masks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">disguising our many imperfections</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">fashioning myths with our lies</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">making poetry and music from our fleeting dreams</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I met you before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a long time ago</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in a distant dream</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and when we first saw one another</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there was a mutual look of instant recognition</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">after the dream</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I woke up knowing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that I would meet you again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where and when was it that we first met</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that we had since forgotten about it</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and who were we when we knew one another</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that we must now get to know each other</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">once again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I recently had a dream</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in which you turned and looked into my eyes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and touched me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and now you stand here looking into my face</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but you hesitate to touch me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like you did before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">have we changed so much</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that all our differences now matter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">more than a dream</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In my earliest dreams</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">just bits and pieces</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">fragments of a lost world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there I was standing upon a pyramid</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and beneath the ramparts of a clay walled city</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the soldiers in their ranks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with metal shields and shinning, plumed helmets</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there I was again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">walking through the forest</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">on a shinny and quiet day</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">peering through the trees</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">at an adobe building</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there again was I</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">standing in the sand</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon the edge of a vast sea</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the waves were breaking</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">forcefully upon my feet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and there across the channel</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a long, solitary island</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there I am again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">standing in the midst of a battle field</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the enemy rushing at me in closed ranks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and then I am suddenly flying</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">as my feet just drift above the ground</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I hover over the field</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and then fly up into the clouds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I land again in a strange and distant place</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It is a mountain ledge</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and there are strange people waiting there for me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Monster dwelling deep within</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the dark mountain cave</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">distant words arouse its attention</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it awakens and arises from its lair</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and moves down the passage way in the direction of the sounds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the words grow louder and clearer</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">monster can almost grasp their meaning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">closer the monster moves to the mouth of the cave</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where the day creates a twilight of muted shadows</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Monster stops short in approximate understanding</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">then retreats again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in echoing silence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the beckoning calls</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">trailing off into the darkness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">one day cast in sun and clouded shadow</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">shadows dancing over shadows</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">dancing beneath the trees with spots of sunlight</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the next day shrouded in a somber still gray</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a cold diurnal twilight cast over a depressed world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the following day cast in rose colored filter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">glowing scarlet and pink in every corner</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the next day bright and vibrant</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the many rain-washed colors reflecting</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the blinding sun</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the following day a rainy one</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that's spent snugly inside</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">each day a little different from the last</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">no two days ever quite the same.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the saltiness of the vast ocean</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">tasted in a single tear drop</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the watercourses that wind around the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">flow through my very veins</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the waves that roll and pound upon every shore</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">pound within the heart of my own chest</p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="MaintainingMetalogues">MAINTAINING METALOGUES</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The way is forever nameless</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Though the uncarved block is small</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">No one in the world dare claim its allegiance.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Should lords and princes be able to hold fast to it</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The myriad creatures will submit of their own accord,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Heaven and earth will unite and sweet dew will fall,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And the people will be equitable, though no one so decrees.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(Verse XXXII of Book One of the Tao Te Ching, D. C. Lau, 1963:91)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>A metalogue is a statement, a conversation, a communicative event, the mechanical structure of which conveys meaning about the message. Metalogues create a feedback between the medium and the message such that the resulting configuration effective transcends the structure of the moment, and in turn reflects back upon that structure.</p> <p>Metalogues occur more frequently than we realize--a large part of our cultural and social context refers back to itself in a way that is coherent and consonant with its own meanings. The "structure" of our order resonates at various levels, and we can become aware of this resonance if we attune ourselves to its wavelengths.</p> <p>The level of metalogues to which I am referring are those at which the structure and patterning of the natural order become reflected in a metalogue of our own cultural order. Attuning ourselves to these natural metalogues allows ourselves to become in tune to patterns of our existence which are both consonant and clearly inconsonant with a transcendent sense of earth being. Tapping into these metalogues allows us to exert greater influence and cultivate our sense of earth being in more sophisticated and effective ways.</p> <p>Such in-tuneness to natural metalogues allows us also to participate more effectively and achieve more metalogues--to construct and realize such metalogues in our everyday life and in our activities.</p> <p>Metalogues are the outcome of the symbolic process of human organization of meaning--because symbolisms are borrowed from and based upon the natural order, natural metalogues are also a frequent and common part of the human organization of meaning. Such metalogues are vital and useful because they help to put us in touch with our earth being.</p> <p>Poetry is inherently metalogical, and a poetic nature is by definition full of the sense of earth being, especially when such poetry is tuned to nature. A poem mechanically conveys the message and meaning of the poem on several levels simultaneously and when it is effectively done it becomes art.</p> <p>Being poetic does not necessarily writing literary poetry. The poetic spirit can be expressed and made manifest in virtually all human relations that we maintain on earth, with one another, and with the many facets and things of our lives--we can even find poetry in those elements of our existence which would otherwise be deemed to be without any connection to the poetic. Science and technology for instance which drives development and which seems to lead us historically further and further away from our own earth being.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We rendezvous in your small office</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with the overgrown spider plant still hanging in the window</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we discuss all the big things in our world and lives</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a brief academic appointment</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a meeting of minds upon important intellectual affairs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a temporary line drawn upon a piece of official paper</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">long-lasting questions of what classes to take</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and all that professors have taken</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">between our words I feel an uneasiness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our chairs are hard and cold to sit upon</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so much wasted and turbulent water beneath our bridge</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you a professorial student</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and I am an amateur professor</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">never the twain shall meet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">this knot of our mutual existence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">twisting and turning in so many different directions</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our impatience growing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">threatening to prematurely sever our ties</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">before they've had a chance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Million dollar miracle</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the money-faced Buddha</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there is no brand of sacredness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that cannot be made more golden</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by a more expensive offering</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all qualities can be thus transmuted heaven bound</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">touch its hand, kiss its feet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">rub its shoulder with your palm</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">burn the paper money</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the joss in copious quantities</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">receive the blessing of the head priest</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the gates of heaven will open wide</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to receive all those beautiful Buddhists</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">who've been so bountifully blessed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Nirvana awaits the healthy</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">however so patiently</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">silence hangs upon your words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">which fall like so many small stones</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">ever downward into the bottomless abyss</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the accumulating echoes weigh heavily</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon my tired mind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the grand game</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">life's lottery</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">who's first in line</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">who gets left behind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the daily race</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the unending roll of the dice</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">today you win and I lose</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">tomorrow you lose and I win</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">gambling against the odds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">playing musical chairs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with our over-inflated egos</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">tiptoeing on thin ice</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your seeming superiority</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">is merely the cosmetic veil</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of life's illusion</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you've invested everything</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">on the critical moment</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of the marketplace</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the superficial show of class</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the arrogant privilege of money</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that buys so much opportunity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">making more money</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a spiraling stairway to Heaven</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or the vicious descent into Hell</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I pop the bubble of your illusion</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">To find only the thin emptiness of your ego</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a life bereft of great significance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">status forfeit its balance and symmetry</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">ugliness that has worked its way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">down deep beneath the skin</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Now that you have framed my life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In a way that suits your fancy</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">How convenient to find a place upon the shelf</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon which you can securely put me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so that you may take me down whenever you like</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">brush off the dust and handle me as you will</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and then put me back again as before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">objects of love</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">objects of hate</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">used and perused</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">mark well your final words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for they will be the last you will speak to me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">at the very moment you have captured me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you have lost me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">irretrievably</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we do not yet know that this marks our final farewell</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a parting of our ways</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without understanding.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I close my eyes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the bright light still shines</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon my face</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">small shinning circles and stars</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">float about in the darkness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of my eyelids</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and there another strange face</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">comes into full view</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">staring directly into my eyes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it glows and glowers in a look</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of angry madness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">its eye's dark hollow holes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">blank spaces between its cheeks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it grows in intensity and contrast</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">burning its imprint upon my brain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">then explodes in a shower of sparkles</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">its impression slowly fades into the shadow</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I try to follow it</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">as it drifts to the corner of my eye</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and then disappears from sight</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I open my eyes and look around</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">nothing is there but my own shadow</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hiding our motives</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">beneath a veneer of thickened</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">weather worn skin</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and multiple layers of clothes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our nakedness of our natural condition</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">kept from public view</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">beneath the veil of grand illusion</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">something we are made to feel ashamed of</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">guilty of its taboo exposure</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our bodies are but the outer layers</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of the inner-most sources of our soul</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our spirits enchained by basic</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">insatiable biological needs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">mortal we are and will always remain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">imperfect and incomplete</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">from beginning to end</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">looking for a victim</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hunting for a target</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">stalking the sidewalks and concourses</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">nameless and faceless</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">absolutely anonymous</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it is important</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">not to get to know</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">those one decides to hate</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or take advantage of in life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it is important to ignore</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">those one has created failure in</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">transforming them into convenient</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">instruments and objects of possession</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and private designs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we do not have to sympathize with their suffering</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or suffer from their sympathies</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">creatures of our darkness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">half-human and half-animal</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">who come to dwell permanently in our shadow</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">twisting and turning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bending and unending</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">trials and tribulations</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I have burned all the bridges behind me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the ghosts have all been left on the other side</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">though we meet each other once again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in this small world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it is no longer quite the same as before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">something vital is missing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and there is no longer much to talk about</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">except the weather and the time of day</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and how we both are what we've both been doing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">since we had last seen each other</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we exchange our current addresses and phone numbers</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and make empty promises of getting together again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">both of us knowing we never will</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">running out of much more to talk about</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we both hesitate, and then say good-bye</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">"It's been nice seeing you again"</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">"Quite a pleasant surprise"</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">those were bridges I burned long ago</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and have since forgotten about</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">things seem to have changed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I do not know exactly how</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it was all so slow to happen</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and there were so many things happening at once</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all in between</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and now I am a little stranger than before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I no longer laugh at much</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">except in passing humor</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to hid my disillusioned seriousness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I sit now in solitude and silence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and still stand out from a crowded placed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I've given up most every hope and ream</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">as so much false illusion</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I no longer can enjoy the shallow waters</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by making big splashes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I only seek to cool my bare feet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and to sometimes wet my whistle</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">now that it all seems so different</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I can no longer recover my spirit and strength</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I get sleepy early in the evening</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the day has grown only shorter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">living in a shoe box</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">drinking through a paper straw</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">tiptoeing around on eggshells</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">trying to skate on thin ice</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">afraid of falling</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">tunnel vision</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">blinded</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by a single</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">solitary point of light</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our horizons are the brim of a coconut shell</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">little do we realize what lies beyond</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">until we try slipping over the edge</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I know that you know that I know that you know that I know that you are not paying any attention to me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">How good you are at it as we stare into each other's unfriendly faces at long distance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">neither will be the first to avert our eyes in a show of prideful weakness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all petty things we do</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to impress ourselves</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of our importance</p> <p> </p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="MountainScapes">MOUNTAIN-SCAPES</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The spirit of the valley never dies.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">This is called the mysterious female.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The gateway of the mysterious female</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Is called the root of heaven and earth.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Dimly visible, it seems as if it were there,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Yet use will never drain it.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>Challenges confront us from almost every direction. Everyday we face unforeseen challenges which become our existential dilemma to deal with and somehow overcome. But overcoming our life's challenges serves to strengthen us and give us courage and skill in meeting new challenges. Facing and resolving such challenges is a natural state of our existence. It is an expression and honing of our instincts for survival in life, and as such also constitute a vital expression of our own earth being.</p> <p>A large part of the neurotic condition of modern life is due to the escape from challenges which is promised us in the illusion of convenience and technological solutions to our problems, to the inflation of our needs, the contrived substitution of "canned challenges" with known outcomes, and so on. The thing about genuine challenges are that they have unknown outcomes and unexpected consequences--we cannot know ahead of time what effects our reactions will ultimately have. Thus we are forced to act within an existential dilemma of basic uncertainty and doubt that it becomes our predicament to learn to deal with and control in an effective and successful manner.</p> <p>Even when challenges are removed, it is found that human's have an "instinct" for challenge which drives them to seek it out in their worlds anyway-they climb mountains, swim in deep oceans, drive fast cars, jump out of airplanes. We have evolved into what we are now as a consequence of meeting and adapting to such challenges in life.</p> <p>It is by means of overcoming these challenges that we infuse our lives with greater depth and breadth of meaning--of meaning that is more in tune to our own and others' earth being.</p> <p>We climb mountains and though the uphill going is difficult and sometimes risky. We are rewarded with breathtaking vistas when we reach the summit.</p> <p> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">silent stairway</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">long and steep and lonely</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">leading up and up and up</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">forever upward</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">each step up</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a step in greater solitude</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">either side a deep chasm</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">threatening to fall into nothingness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">into a bottomless abyss</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our ascent up into the heavens</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">leads us further and further</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">away from the ways of the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it never ends</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and becomes increasingly difficult</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">fearing to look back down</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">no one talks</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and no one reveals their names</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or their true identities</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">no one is overly friendly</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">as everyone rushes like a mad crowd</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">up along the steps</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">as fast as they can go</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">as hard and long as their legs can carry them</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without waiting for each other</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without wanting to be bothered</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">cannot stop or slow down</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without becoming left behind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and soon forgotten</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">trampled beneath the many feet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">along with the names</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">what was important before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">is now all so trivial</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">leaving me to wonder if what is so important now</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">might not soon become trivial as well</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the old arguments have been replaced</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by new ones</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I reached some point</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a few semesters back</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when I began writing too much</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to independently, too clearly</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it was at that point</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that I learned too much</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I suddenly found myself</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">no longer in conformity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">not for what I didn't know</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but for knowing too much</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">leaving me to doubt</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">whether however I play the game</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I will always be guaranteed to lose</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In our grand game of living</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sitting silently in the corridors</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">between all the classrooms</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so many young faces</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">coming and going</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I've suddenly grown too old</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and I'm still sitting as I was ten years ago</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">along the edge of the halls of higher learning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">nothing that happened inbetween having much mattered</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the only real difference now being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that I'm ten years older and no wiser</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sitting cross-legged like some anonymous Buddha</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">my back is chronically sore</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and my body is not as slim as before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I'm a bit more burned out</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Now I'm waiting to become reconditioned</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">just like I was back in the beginning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">caught in wheels within wheels</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">within the grand gears of being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">something's supposed to be wrong</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with reinventing the wheel</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It's all been done before, you see</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we want something new and different</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">than just the same old wheel</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it doesn't matter how it's been done</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">doing it all over again can't help at all</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so it all goes without saying , you see</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that its boring and uninteresting</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all this stuff about wheels and things</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">nothing new is to be gained</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by drawing a perfect circle</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or standing still at the hub of a turning wheel</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like a mousetrap or a can opener</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a better wheel can't be done</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you see</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Sometimes we get lost along the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">losing our way that becomes difficult to find again</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we become disoriented as which way to go</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we become confused about our sense of direction</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and darkness of the shadows deepens</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sometimes we travel too far along the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sometimes we come to too many twists and turns</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">meet too many obstacles and suffer too many trials and tribulations</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sometimes we become transformed along the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">forgetting who we were or where we were headed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sometimes we lose our innocence along the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">gaining in worldly experience</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we come to know what lies in our hearts</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we venture to spaces of reality so remote and strange</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there is no returning from our adventures unchanged</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">if we ever return at all</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sitting at the steps of the great gateway</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sunning myself beneath the flapping flags</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the sky a bright blue</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sitting in clarity no longer caring</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">after all that's been said and done</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">my life has come to this, at the footsteps</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">not noticing anymore if the gates</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">are opened or closed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or whose standing behind them</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and whose passing between them</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">nothing is new about this same old game</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">only the faces have all changed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">conceited, class-conscious clown</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">parading like a peacock</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you are not my father or my brother</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your intellect has not come freely in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the price you have paid has been the wisdom of your soul</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the grand sympathies that allow a person to feel the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the footsteps of others</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">no matter how humble</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">no matter how ignorant and unschooled</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">standing upright</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">squarely upon two legs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">feet firmly upon the ground</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">surveying the distant horizon</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">encompassing the visible earth</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there upon the shoulder</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">storm clouds are building</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there in the distance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a tree is swaying in the wind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a fish is jumping from the water</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the white-caps of the waves are spraying</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">man seeks his natural level</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where ever he may be standing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">whether high upon a mountaintop</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or in the middle of a valley plain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">always about five and a half feet above the ground</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">no dream man can have</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">will come to anything</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">unless it can be carried upon two feet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">humankind was not made to bow down</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and crawl upon the ground</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there is no hieratic order</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of princes and paupers</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the natural kingdom</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">not borne upon the backs of human beings</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bent over like beasts of burden</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">yoked to the end</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of some master's chain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">fly upon the fragile glass</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of a large picture window</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">through which the sun has shown so many times</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">outside upon the sidewalk the school children to and fro</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the same way that school children have always done</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a small segment of the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">shinning through this transparent pane of glass</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it could be ten or twenty or fifty years hence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">fly flits in studied indifference</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a focal point providing perspective</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">how fragile is this window of glass</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that a little weight or a slight knock</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">would break into so many odd pieces</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and all the history that it has mediated</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">lost in a single instant</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">fly buzzes and moves its legs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">an intrinsic part of the scheme of things</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in a world of fragile glass</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I had a vision of paradise</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where there are no roads or cars</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and all the paths are dust and dirt</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where the nearest plumbing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">is a distant outhouse</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and a running stream</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">at the bottom of the hill</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I have a dream of being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where the trees grow tall and green</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where the only chore to do</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">is to chop some dead wood</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and make a meal-time fire</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">this dream is carried by the afternoon winds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that blow across the trees and make them sway to and fro</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where the thunder clouds form late in the afternoon</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and lightening strikes violently at the trees nearby</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where the only buildings are made of wood</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and there are no skyscrapers or shopping centers</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">this vision was a childhood dream</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the road has since been paved with asphalt</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all the way to the top of the mountain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">everyone now has fixed pipes and plumbing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and lightening rods and aerials on the roofs of their new cabins</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I guess this has been an old story</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it could have been a hundred years ago</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or just yesterday</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I am glad that I could have this dream still in my lifetime</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I am sad that my child will not have the same dreams</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I walked across an undeveloped field</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">surrounded by modern buildings</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and construction sights</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I marveled at the unpaved pathways</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that cut an "x" diagonally across its center</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I rejoiced at its unleveled landscape</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">rising here, dipping there</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">an old tree over grown off in one corner</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the unkempt weeds everywhere</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I noticed the dust being kicked up</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">at the heels of the pedestrians</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">taking the well-worn short-cuts</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">across the grass</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I hoped that the school administrators</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">had not made any plans</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to make nice smooth concrete pathways</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where there has been only mud and ice</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I hoped that no more money would be spent</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in leveling this lot</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and turning into perfect park</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or a parking lot</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">better that the gophers make their tunnels</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and leave mounds of fresh earth</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">here and there</p> <p> </p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="CurvesCircles">CURVES, CIRCLES AND SQUARES</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Turning back is how the way moves</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Weakness is the means the way employs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The myriad creatures in the world are born from</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Something, and Something from Nothing.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(Verse XL, Book Two of the Tao Te Ching, D. C. Lau, 1963:101)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>Few squares occur naturally in the world. To find squares, we must look at the human made world, where we will find many examples. On the other hand, naturally flowing curves are not common in the human world, but abound in a fountain of chaotic beauty in the natural order. Where human's draw perfect circles, natures circles are found in the sun and full moon, in the orbs of eyes and in the centers of flowers. Nature's equivalent of the human's perfect circle is of course represented as a cycle of time, the clock of the day with the arc of the sun across the sky, and the seasonal paths of the moon against the stars.</p> <p>We now live in a world in which it would be unwise to strictly separate all of our squares from the curves and circles of our world. To do so would be to draw a rigid and arbitrary boundary between the human-made and the natural order, and to forget that the human-made order is itself rooted in the natural scheme of things.</p> <p>Earth being can be found in the most repetitious and rectangular of city scapes, as well as it can be found in the ocean and the flow of earthlines across the landscape. Thus there is hope for our salvation, for the salvation of the earth, even in the dankest and most seedy corners of little apartments and in back alleys of the most desolate and crowded of megalopolises.</p> <p>Nature retreats from the onslaught of development, only to recover itself and burst forth in every nook and cranny, in every inbetween space that civilization has not covered over with concrete. In the long run, nature takes back that which was stolen from it, it recovers that which was lost and destroyed by the short-sighted ravages of humankind. Humankind sets its own epithet in the cement of the new global foundations of its world order when it continues to ignore unimpeded the danger signals that something is wrong with its mother earth. Given enough time, life will adapt to the new human-made order of squares. It will recover its spaces and transform the geometric landscape into a jungle of newly entangled life forms.</p> <p>Even now its newly emergent adaptive forms are appearing--in new strains of viruses and bacteria, in new strains of insects, new weeds, in the florescence of cockroaches, rats, coyotes, crows and monitor lizards that have made the inbetween spaces of the square landscape the foundation of a new adaptive plateau. Nature will learn, however blindly by trial and error, to fit its natural evolutionary curves into the square inbetween spaces of the human order, and in the process, which succeed where human beings will have failed.</p> <p>We now live in a world of entangled curves, circles and squares. We cannot separate these things in some simple matter. It has become part of our earthbound dilemma to fashion a new sense of order in which these things can be reconciled and mutually adaptive. We have the responsibility to shrink and round the corners of our squares in order to leave more room for the growth of natural curves and circles.</p> <p>In this endeavor new earthbound responsibilities and dilemmas have come to the forefront of our lives--modes of work and play, the central dilemma of making money when doing so entails indirect participation of the destruction of the natural order. We must figure out and implement new compromises in our earthbound existence--compromises that will steer us clear of global disaster.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">So many talented, experienced people to choose from</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">So why not pick the best, and leave all the rest behind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">No need to settle for seconds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">There is no more point in my trying to compete</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">When there is less and less to go around</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And more and more people demanding their share</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">There is no more place in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">For me or my kind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We may wish or hope in our hearts</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or refuse to believe otherwise</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but this is a poor substitute</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for the real thing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A position with a purpose in life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">beyond the immediate rewards of doing another's bidding</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I can live with my own disillusion in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">But do not ask me to bear your illusion as well</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It is one thing to continue casting stones</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It is another to deny doing so</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I can sit still in silence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">time is on my side</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">because I have learned the lesson of patience</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I meet the critical moment</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with a studied, deliberate silence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the well-aimed words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">miss their mark</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and bounce hollowly off the walls</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the subtle effect of the silence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">which speaks louder than all the words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">leaving what's known and what's not</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">an unfinished field of possibility</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">leaving nothing left but to fill in the absence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">between the presence of the words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I met a long haired young man</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the library today</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we exchanged side-long glances of immediate recognition</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">he was in one of my classes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I asked him what he was studying</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and we immediately began discussing things</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that we had been talking about in class</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our conversation ranged over the whole of human evolution</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or the dynamics of civilization</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the difficult future of humankind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the issues of anthropology</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon the edge of science</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we discussed electro-magnetism in humans</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and cannibalism</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we talked about reification</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and non-beingness in the modern world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we wondered if primitive humankind reified their world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and we touched upon co-dependency</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">he was only twenty-one</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and already worried about what kind of future</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">his children and grand children would have</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">he talked about learning how to live off the land</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and about how to cope with the system</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we talked about evidence of class relations within our class</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and we talked about what it took to be a warrior in life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to face the heart of darkness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to deal with the evil of others</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in ourselves</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and how not to let the System get us down</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I lost track of the time</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and was late to my next class</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I have grown alone</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but I have not grown lonely</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I've become quite comfortable</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">living within my aloneness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It has become a good substitute</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for all the loneliness of the past</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">many people come and go in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and they make the world a lonely place</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">But I am always left all alone</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Remaining by myself</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with myself</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">My aloneness is not a selfish way of being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">But it is a selfless way of becoming</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Loneliness is the empty reflection in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Aloneness is the self which is reflected</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Loneliness seeks refuge</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In the weakness and darkness of the self</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Aloneness seeks modest compromise</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with all the many mistakes of the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it cannot do more than to correct itself</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in harmony with the ways of the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in finding my own aloneness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I can let go of my loneliness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and I can find the aloneness of others</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and learn to live with it</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in silent respect and tolerance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">if you ever look for me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you will not find me in a crowded place</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">seek for me in some empty space</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Dreams seeming so real</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It sometimes becomes hard to tell</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">which is real from what isn't</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waking up confused and disoriented</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">inbetween states in an inbetween world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">what if our dreams were our reality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and our waking states but a continuous dream</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where is the clean line</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the clear boundary separating one form of consciousness from the other</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">between our inner worlds of imagination</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and our outer worlds of existence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that does not sometimes become obscured</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waking up is sometimes difficult</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">especially when we do not know</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">what we are waking up to</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or when and if it is any more real</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">than the dream we are waking from</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sometimes our dreams</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">are but an extension of our realities</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sometimes our worlds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">are but permutations of our dreams</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and we have no real way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of telling the difference</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or understanding why</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where do we end in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and others begin in our lives</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">how do we define the boundaries of ourselves</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that are not continuously changing with the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">how do we know what we are really being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when we are always becoming or unbecoming something else</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we carry a name and a fragile sense of self-identity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bound forever by the morality and weakness of our bodies</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when we awaken to our worlds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we become aware of the difference of others around us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we become sensitive to the differences within us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It comes with letting others into our own world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and allowing ourselves to enter the world of others</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">then the boundaries separating our self and our world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">become blurred and broken</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our destiny becomes bound by the fate of others in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the destinies of others becomes our own narrow fate</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waking up in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">is to relinquish a false sense of control over our lives</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and to gain a limited sense of control in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waking up is always difficult, but never mistaken</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">what we have gained is always more than what we've lost</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">though it may sometimes seem otherwise</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">though we may never really know</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all that we've gained</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and all that we've lost</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waking ourselves up, we also always wake other's up</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and others waking up always arouses us from our own slumber</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waking up in the world and an awakening world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">may lead us along ways we may not want to go</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but once awakened</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we cannot return undisturbed to the dreams that we once had before.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">weakening up also entails learning when to fall asleep</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sometimes slumber is the only solution</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sometimes it is better to dream about reality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">than to live in a reality that is a nightmare</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waking up sometimes entails learning when we are tired of the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and need the illusion of our dreams to entertain us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sometimes a world without illusion becomes a seemingly impossible place</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">beyond the edge of our tolerance or ability to understand</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sometimes we must seek refuge</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in a small harbor of illusion</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">where the world of others and others in the world will no longer encroach</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waking up entails finding a place in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for our illusions</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It entails learning how to live within our limits</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and allowing our dreams to sometimes entertain us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waking up does not deny illusion</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it only destroys its hold upon our lives</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waking up does not forever dispel us from our dreams and delusions</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it only helps us better to know the difference</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and play the part</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Waking up is more than a matter of knowing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It entails a way of enacting the difference</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">waking up is a matter of motivation</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">willpower and volition</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It is not enough to passively wait</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">understanding comes through its motioning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Its practice and performance in the world.</p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="SpiritWorlds">SPIRIT WORLDS</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I do my utmost to attain emptiness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I hold firmly to stillness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The myriad creatures all rise together</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And I watch their return</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The teaming creatures</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">All return to their separate roots</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(Verse XVI, Book One of the Tao Te Ching, C.D. Lau, 1963:72)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>We can be oblivious to the fact of death around us, and yet when it comes to even the hint of the possibility of our own demise, we retreat into a world of fear and neurotic compulsion. When we learn to see in the death of others, even of other beings, the possibility of our own death, we become aware of the possibility of feeling, suffering and life in the world around us. When we come to understand that their death, which is also a part of our own death, is even indirectly caused by us, then we become sensitive to the importance of a nonviolent orientation toward life.</p> <p>It is the fact of our inevitable death that links us to the natural order in a bond that transcends all our other ties. Death is a natural state--a part of the process of living and dying. While we envy those who have a long life and saddened by those who have very short lives, the fact of eternal life or of extraordinary longevity is a fiction beyond our science.</p> <p>But there is a sense that a spirit world fills in our imagination the great and absolute void that death creates for us. This spirit world can take many forms--angels in heaven and demons in hell, or just a vast cycle of rebirth. I prefer the version of ghosts and spirits inhabiting the landscape, because it then infused the world with an animated sense of being, a force, an energy, and a sense of possibility which lies beyond our own sense of possibility. It renders us vulnerable in ways we do not like to be.</p> <p>This is not merely some narcissistic projection of our insecurity of death. It is a symbolic coming to terms with death in a way that it can be celebrated as a part of life. It can then be understood as something not evil or equal, but as variable and different. Then lamentation ceases, propitiation and respect begin.</p> <p>We die many times during the course of our lives. We face death in small ways almost everyday. Each time we relocate to a new surrounding, or part from a friend for a final time, we suffer a small episode of death. Part of the cultivation of our sense of earth being is the development and sensitivity to the fact of continuous dying and death, and of learning how to accept these facets of our life as integral to it.</p> <p>Learning how to put a spiritual handle on death is indeed vital to the cultivation of a healthy sense of our earth being. Only thus can we overcome the hold that an uncontrolled death has over us, as well as the projective neurosis, the compulsions, the anger and the violence which are the product of such uncontrolled death.</p> <p> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I walked by the stone lions</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">still guardians of the gate</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">warding off errant spirits of darkness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">nearly five hundred years</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and in better condition</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">than the concrete</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon which you rest</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the sensuous flow of your smooth surface</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the curving grooves chiseled by the anonymous human hands</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of some ancient master stone-carver</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">how many gate-ways have you graced</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by your stately presence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">how many souls have passed between you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">on their wayward journey</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">how many spirits have touched you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your strange lines and form</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the product of a different reality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in stillness you stand</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">older than everything around you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">anachronisms of a bygone epoch</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the majesty you were designed to protect</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">has long since disappeared from earth</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your disregarded silence is a supreme testimonial</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to the wisdom of the way you embody and protect</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to the spirits that embrace you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your blind eyes have witnessed many events</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that strange expression is like no other in existence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">composed of emotions of an alien timber</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of a different stock of human experience</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">near you I stand next to solid ground</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">while the cement beneath me crumbles</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon you I can bring my hopes and fears to rest</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you immovable solidness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a veritable fulcrum of spirit history</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Guardians of the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you speak not</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but your cold silence tells</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">all paths pass here between you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">at the gateway of Heaven and Hell</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">many minor spirits have hurried past you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">too busy to acknowledge you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">too impolite to show you the proper respect</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Kingdoms and empires have come and gone</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">before your feet</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and you still stand</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">motionless in strength</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">immovable in the way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for those who pass and do not notice</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you shut the gates</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for those who stop to pay homage</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in admiration of the invisible hands</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that created you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">you open your invisible gate</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">allowing passage beyond</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">for all pilgrims</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to safely continue upon their way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">token hands that touch you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">are touching a bit of time itself</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your stillness moves</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your way is clear and open</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your massiveness reveals its purity of purpose</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">your essence remains untouchable</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">flesh and blood</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">transformed to stone</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Mysterious Magic in a piece of marble</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Autumn is always a sad time for me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">leaves turn brown and fall off the trees</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">life withdraws back into the earth</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the days grow shorter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the nights become longer</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the skies turn sullen gray</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and cloudy all the time</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It grows colder by the day</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">until the first ice comes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">soon followed by a thin blanket of snow</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I get depressed late in the Fall</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and seek refuge and warmth in my own little inner world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I look back and the worst events of my life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">have always happened in the Fall</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and it still follows me like some weird seasonal Kharma</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I suffer my many little social deaths in the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">as I risk its separation from my life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">too afraid to brave a single ultimate Death</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like a coward I've run from my past</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">rushing impetuously and blindly into the future</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I wake up each morning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">not knowing what the day might bring</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I start out each week</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">not knowing what I may be doing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I lose track of the time of the clock</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the dates of the calendar</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the months of the year</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">All I have left now to show for myself</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">are a few yellowing manuscripts</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">just collecting dust upon the shelves</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Fall has always been a bad time for me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a hard season to face</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without a Halloween mask</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I once looked death in the face</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It wore the mask of a young red-headed man</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">A freckle-faced father with a pregnant young wife</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bleeding from the ears and nose</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">bubbling blood</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">oozing from the lips</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">moaning and groaning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">calling for Mom</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Death came quietly</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in a final exhalation</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a body punctured of its life-force</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I tried calling the young man back to life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but death would not relinquish its hold</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Death disappeared with the breath of the boy</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and left a lifeless, empty corpse</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It wouldn't have been more dramatic</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">nor any less real</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">if it had been a staged production</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">instead of just a fragile social construction</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">suddenly shattered in a barren ravine</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I, the solitary spectator</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">clapping my hands from the far off balcony</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">calling for an encore</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by all the strutting officers of life's illusions</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and their staff and stage-hands</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the spotlight faded out</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the curtain finally fell</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I was left alone in a dark and empty theater</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with nothing but his broken body</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">lying on its back</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon the deserted and silent stage</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I used to look for you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when I was a child</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Sometimes I thought I found you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Lurking in the darkness of my bedroom</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I thought that maybe you hung around at night</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hovering there over my bed</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hiding over there in the corner of the room</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The children would hold a seance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">block out all the light from the windows and doors</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">sit around on the floor holding hands</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and call for you to appear before us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the darkness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the older I became</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the less I looked for you</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I became busier with the real things in life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the business of growing up</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">without a guiding hand</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I used to shut my eyes real tight</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and wish with all my might</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that you would return to me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">even for a little while</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I would open my eyes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and sometimes see a strange spot of light</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">obscured within the shadows</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but that's the most of you I could ever find</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">now that the business of growing up is over</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and I've come face-to-face with my meager destiny</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I can think back on the many things you had taught me as a boy</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when we still had the time together</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with a baby of my own to care for now</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I no longer need to look for you any more</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but I remember your lessons well.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I sit again by the fountain</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the sun is shinning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the water is splashing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the mist is spraying in the breeze</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I look down the pathway</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and notice the deep perspective</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of people walking in the distance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I sit for several minutes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Intent on what's going on around me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and only gradually do I begin to realize</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">There is a big banner strung across the pathway</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Just above my line of sight</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It read "Parent's Week" and was brown against a clear blue sky</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It struck me how I had failed to notice its presence before</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">How only gradually it came into my field of notice</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Though it was so blatantly in front of me</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Was it something about the words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I unconsciously blocked out</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or perhaps it was the big brown banner</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I decided not to notice</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It did not come to my attention immediately</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">But only gradually, as if from a vague blue</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Into sharper focus</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The words just seemed like yellow letters</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in a meaningless row</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The ropes supporting the banner seemed more immediately interesting</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I thought it strange how much we miss</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">In the world around us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">How much important detail passes by us ignored</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">How when we fix our focus upon "interesting" things</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">All the rest becomes obscured to our field of vision</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Even when we are not intentionally searching for something</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">We still fail to see a great deal more</p> <p> </p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER"><font size="5"><a name="LastMinutes">LAST MINUTE MUSINGS</a></font></p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">The world had a beginning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And this beginning could be the mother of the world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">When you know the mother</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Go on to know the child.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">After you have known the child</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Go back to holding fast to the mother,</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">And to the end of your days you will not meet with danger.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">(Verse LII, Book Two of the Tao Te Ching, D.C. Lau, 1963:113)</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p>We are confronted by many earthbound dilemmas in the modern world which are not easily solved. Cultivation of our sense of earth being depends upon our ability to at least partially resolve some of these dilemmas in our lives.</p> <p>There is a very real sense that we can act in local ways to affect global changes--but only if we adhere strictly and unswervingly to the paths we set for ourselves. "Act locally, think globally" has become the earthbound dictum of our age. If we can by our actions set examples that influence others to act in similar ways, we can achieve a "groundswell"--a genuine "earth movement" which can have lasting, worldwide impact.</p> <p>There is a sense that our earthbound dilemmas are now inescapable, and set for us a new moral order, albeit one that is ecologically inscribed and which transcends all previous moral systems. We can legitimately claim that seeking our a greater sense of earth being in our lives is not just a right or a privilege of our exercise of freedom, but it becomes a responsibility to do so, if this means overcoming and controlling the compulsions and violence which otherwise dominates our worlds.</p> <p>Even the exercise of freedom, as a right, becomes a responsibility that is tied up with our sense of earth being and its realization on earth. Freedom of thought, of imagination, of speech, of values and life-style, is central and paramount to the achievement of a sense of balance and harmony in the world.</p> <p>Thus, if working for a bomb factory which produces pollutants and saps precious raw resources is inherently destructive of the earth, then we have the right to choose not to work for the factory, but the responsibility to chose otherwise. If working within a global industrial system entails participating in the continuing destruction of the earths fragile ecology and the wasting of its resources, along with the lack of realization of human potential, then we also have a concomitant responsibility not to define our lives according to its powerful dictates.</p> <p>And yet the coercion of money is there--the need to make a living, survive and prosper within the larger system, no matter how destructive it might be. It is, in a global system, an unavoidable and predominant coercive force in our lives. It structures and even predetermines our actions and responses in ways we cannot easily resist.</p> <p>Even the paper on which this work is printed represents a destructive incursion into the natural order that may be better to be avoided. If we eat less red meat and more poultry and stock fish, if we eat less overall, then we are contributing in a small way to cultivation of a wider sense of earth being. If we use less paper, and we take fewer plane flights in our lives, and walk more often, then we are also contributing to an enlightened sense of earth being. If we grown our own vegetable patch, no matter how small, then this is better than buying vegetables shipped from across the country.</p> <p>Whether or not these kinds of things are sufficient to turn the tide of battle, this is the crux of the future war that humankind must fight. We are faced with powerful profit making organizations who manipulate our values and world view through the media and convince us, among many other things, of our right to possess automatic weapons and to kill small animals. I used to hunt as a boy. I used to fish along the coasts and inland oceans. I have given up both because there are fewer fish and game in the world. Now I much prefer the use of a camera, even though this itself is destructive, and so I take photographs only rarely. I lament the rabbits and quail and doves that I have unnecessarily killed in my youth, and would never do it again.</p> <p>We must turn our swords into ploughshares, and render the pen our most powerful weapon. By setting examples in our everyday lives, we become the example for a new possibility of being on earth, one that is inherently less destructive and asynchronous with the natural order. This is our earthbound responsibility, the path toward realization of our earth being.</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Now all I do anymore</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">is to spin my web of words</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Everyday I am at my weaving machine</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">everyday my webs grow longer and longer</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">hoping to catch someone up within its entanglement</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It has been a lonely web I've woven</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">empty of its pray</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like a spider</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">everyday</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it is all I can do</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to continue spinning and weaving</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">my long strands of words together</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">patiently waiting for some hapless victim</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to fall within its lair</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I've given up on most every other way</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I can no longer build mountains</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">from minor mole hills</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or reinvent the wheel</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or play with fire</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">my webs refract the light but poorly</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">always trying to figure out some new design</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to catch up the light</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to create new rainbows of color</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">new patterns of line and shadow</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">playing with the sun and shade</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">everyday a different pattern</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a different topography of meaning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a novel approach</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">though no pray strike within my lair</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I've come to enjoy my daily spinning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">an epigrapher I've become</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">writing last one liners</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">row after row</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">time upon time</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">day by day</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">everyday knitting epigraphs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">about everything and anything</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">transforming all reality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">epigrammatically</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon a type-faced</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">two dimensional paper world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">commemorating the dead</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">celebrating life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">commiserating the sad and tragic</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in basic Anglo-Saxon</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">conferring a solidity of meaning</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">concretizing ideas</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">conceits and other fictions</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">as if they were of some stone-like substance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I cannot help my epigraphic tendencies</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It is a curious sort of madness</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">an obsessive-compulsive fixation</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon the keyboard of the typewriter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">commentary and critique</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of generalia divers and sundry</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">I do not know why I do it</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">except that it helps me to continue</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">like a clock that marks my passing</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">into small meaningful units</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">composing my life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">coping with death</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Human being in the mirror</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">another person in a reversed world</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">the reversed world of the other</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">seen through the silver window</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of a looking glass reality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a strange, alien being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">with a wild look in the eyes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and a queer</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but familiar expression</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon the face</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we think we see our own reflection</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">but it is only the trick</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of our ego in mimicry</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of our transparent vanity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and looking-glass illusion</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">stranger in silent, perfect pantomime</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of our every gesture</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our every move</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">so self-impressed are we</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that we fail to see the other's impression</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon the smooth surface of our reality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we cannot imagine what it is like</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">to be looking from the inside out</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">our fingertips touch in cold identity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">at the interface of our glassy essence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of our shared reality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we speak but cannot hear</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">what the others are saying</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">catching it off guard</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">from out of the corners of our eyes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">When we redouble the mirrors</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">upon our own being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we open up the doors of infinity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the presence of alternative possibility</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">frames within frames within frames</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">diminishing forever into hyperbolic space</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">at that frozen moment</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we create an endless bridge between two worlds</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a physical window onto our inner reality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">redoubling the mirrors</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we create the abyss of our own being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">an infinitude of simultaneous selves</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">looking into the time tunnel of eternity</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we come then upon the edge</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of the labyrinth of our understanding</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">looking along our own horizons</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">seen for once as a parallel point of perspective</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">turning the mirrors upon themselves</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we momentarily forget the possibility</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of our own presence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">absorbed we become</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">in the glassy illusions of our reality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">each frame is broken upon the edge</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">by the frame which it contains</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">each successive image is incomplete</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">filled in only by our multiple imaginings</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">turning the mirrors upon our selves</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we learn the lesson</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">of our own depth of vision</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and of our own fragile superficiality</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">turning this way, then that</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">there is ultimately no escaping</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER"> </p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">Why is written in the wrinkles</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">whispered in the wind</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">why is where the world began</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and where it will end</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">why is the way the water falls from the sky</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and washes down the hillside</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">why is a dream that sleeps in silence</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">It is the solitude we feel</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when we are alone</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">why is a life that's full of death</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and death that's full of life</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">why waits patiently</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">while everything else changes</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and still remains when all else passes away</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">a newborn baby screams why</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">at the top of its lungs</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">we breath why</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">every moment of our being</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and it parts us</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">when we come to our end</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">why is the laughter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">that comes with the tears</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the tears that flow with laughter</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">why rises with the sun and the moon</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and shines forth from every star</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">why sits upon every horizon</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">whys is the victor's demise</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and the final victory of the defeated</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">why is found in the proud person's ignorance</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and in the poor person's lessons</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">why cannot be measured by money</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">or weighed by material things</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">it cannot be explained in theory or by science</p> <p ALIGN="CENTER">and does not wait for words</p> <font FACE="Arial"><font FACE="Times,Times New Roman" SIZE="2"> <p> </p> <hr> <p><a name="Copyright">Blanket Copyright</a>, Hugh M. Lewis, © 2005. Use of this text governed by fair use policy--permission to make copies of this text is granted for purposes of research and non-profit instruction only.</p> <p>Last Updated: 08/25/06 </p> <hr> <p> </p> </font> <p> </p> </font> <p> </p> </font> <p align="center"> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> s="na";c="na";j="na";f=""+escape(document.referrer) </script> <script language="javascript1.2" type="text/javascript"> s=screen.width;v=navigator.appName if (v != "Netscape") {c=screen.colorDepth} else {c=screen.pixelDepth} j=navigator.javaEnabled() </script> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> function pr(n) {document.write(n,"\n");} NS2Ch=0 if (navigator.appName == "Netscape" && navigator.appVersion.charAt(0) == "2") {NS2Ch=1} if (NS2Ch == 0) { r="&size="+s+"&colors="+c+"&referer="+f+"&java="+j+"" pr("<A HREF=\"http://www.TheCounter.com\" TARGET=\"_top\"><IMG"+ " BORDER=0 SRC=\"http://c1.thecounter.com/id=515383"+r+"\"><\/A>")} </script> <NOSCRIPT> <a HREF="http://www.TheCounter.com" TARGET="_top"><img SRC="http://c1.thecounter.com/id=515383" ALT="TC" BORDER="0" width="88" height="31"></a> </NOSCRIPT>  </body>