Spring

Start of todays journal poem: Took some time off to just sit next to a pond.

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Redwing blackbird pierces out spring.
Cattails brown, stalking out fall.
Cattail shoots, renewing green.

A criss-crossing about amid a cacophonic symphony of life.

Reed Finches thrumming, fluttering air
... Inspecting each lily pad, upon a hop.
Mallard ducks sliding past,
... Skidding arrayed, upon water landings.
Pond Lilies raising stems tipped in golden buds.
... A liquid field of sunrises soon to burst.
Wooden knocking echoes around.
... An insistantly intermittent Woodpecker tempo.

Simply a pond, flowing into a much larger heart.
... Attuning with the music
... ... in a reed instrument's beat
... ... Of the Redwing black bird song.

I was not born to be absent

My brother' band: Two loons for Tea is something I love to watch grow over time. One of his songs: Looking for landmarks has the following line which I just love:

I was not born to be absent
breathe , just breathe


Much luck bro as your new album unfolds to the world!!

Zen Garden

Expanding the Zen Garden on the site.

I have been discovering hidden Zen gardens in my meandering of America. To discover for a Taoist, at least for myself: a Zen garden is always centered in my heart. So I ask of others, where have you wandered across a moment of Zen: a place you have to your surprise discovered a Zen garden in the lines of movement within your own life?

Gifts to Strangers

Today I was playing about, talking to strangers, making some people laugh, some people giving me space as they thought I was being strange (and since i was talking to strangers, well that seems to be considered to be strange here in Richmond) others enjoying my free form style of trying to write a new poem on the fly, just rolling from person to meandering in the street back to joking around with someone else in the hotel elevators, back to the streets to talk to more people. It was a chaotic flow in just being bounced about by the whims of what passed on by. This started me to think more seriously...


I started to reflect upon how many poems I have handed out over the past few years, how many smiles, I have given to people lost in a dark moment.

It felt wonderful to realize I have done it so often that I have lost track of it all.

To live is to roll in the tides of emotions. Its nice to give comfort and help others laugh in the tumbling about.

Peace

Peacock

Being shy is nice for peace
but some days you just have to play
and fly about :)


Peacock
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A long day,
I was totally amazing of course
spectacular, ablaze, fiery in my magnetism.

now evening
now silence

It's our insecurity which makes life interesting
colorful bursts of peacock if only to say
In my spectrum witness I am worthy...

Being a peacock is to play but now alone: I find silence
If only because : I have already played myself

A Country of Possession and Law

As a Taoist
We are not our possessions, we are our life expressed in living.

Now compare this to the United States where possesion is 9/10th of the law right? Follow this to where you can get sued, if someone else uses your property wrongly. As if in their misusing your property, it was your own action which is the source of harm.

Effectively property is not something unto itself but indeed an extension of the owner...

The culture in the United States is in so many ways opposite to Taoist practice. I wonder how it will react as more people reject these silly laws in order to be simply themselves? Laws never define a person, instead laws are defined by how we act and react to each other. Too bad many people seem to have lost sight of this fact.

Do you chase an America dream of material gain? If so do you accept the hidden price of being owned and then defined by the resulting laws of material gain over human needs?

Reminds me of the picture in the aftermath of the hurricane in New Orleans, where the national guard was protecting the consumer goods rather than helping those suffering in the streets in front of them... That is where the laws have taken people to within the US. Material goods are more important than human life.

Ok I am getting off my soapbox now. Just talking to someone who almost got sued becuase someone else stole their car and crashed it and then could have been sued for leaving their car in position to be stolen and misused... It wasn't the action of the thief to be punished for driving recklessly or for even stealing the car: Rather the officer and law were threatening the owner who let their car open to be stolen as being the transgression...In other words we will hold you responsible for your properties actions, not the person who committed the actual crime actions... Kinda mind blowing in the implications, in how people are merely legal extensions of their possessions.

In summary:
We do not own anything, except by the laws which declare we are owned by the possessions we do covet.

Questions Questions Questions

So someone was asking:
How does the body relate to your spirit?

As a Taoist my first thoughts on this were:

First you have to define Spirit, which I think as:
the movement of the soul thru living.

While the body is:
the representation and focus of our life (soul) at a given point in time.

The two are strongly connected as they represent different aspects of our soul.

So

If we approach life from a spiritual angle, we are defining our bodies thru the intentions of our path, by the movement of our life.

If we approach life from a physical angle, we are defining our spirit by purely our bodily presence and desires.

In practice people merge a little of both , meaning it becomes confusing in the separation of body and spirit as the expressions of each blends into what we define as our soul.

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Ok : I open this up for debate, what do you think, this is my first 15 minute pondering of how to best to answer a question which might never be easily answered.
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Updated Poem

Added The Wail to the poetry section.

Updated Art Section

I am beginning to add new items to the Personal Tao Art Gallery. I especially love the water color Isabella, (which gets it own page soon).

The goal is to have a spot where people can post art touching some aspect of their Personal Tao. I realize it will take some time before it grows very fast, so what is there will work well for now. Once the section seriously begins to grow and more people begin to contact me, I will expand my server to have a Wiki interface so people can add and help in the process of creating an art Zen garden directly to the site. Not sure how long it will take to happen. No rush, just letting it happen as it happens. Really more depends on the response I get from others, since I can have the Wiki up and running in a months time easily enough.

working personalities

So at work , my office is going thru trail runs of a new annual review process. The goal is to help everyone work to their strengths. So we all took these tests to reveal our strengths.

I was an (or my strengths were):
Activator
Positivity
Adaptability
Futuristic
Ideation

Well this makes me feel like a power ranger. Maybe I should be riding a giant battle cat and shout about the power of Tao... (ok ok I lived thru the he-man cartoon age, not exactly a crowning achievement of western culture)

This is all great and good. However, in thinking about these traits, it makes me realize, hmm in many respects I am not a match to my daily paying job. Ok again not a surprise, this is why I shifted from my work field to become a poet several years back.
But I still have a paying job, poems are great for the soul, not as filling in the dinner plate. A week ago, I gave myself till fall to
complete the transition into something which matches better to my skills. Again something I have been working towards for years
but now have placed a date for making the final changes. This strength test just confirmed my feelings and ideas of future pathes to meander.

So anyway, I had to report back to one of the heads of the company the results of the test.
I reported that the test said I was:

Alien
Indescribable
White Crystal World Bridger
Magician

I suppose Alien and Indescribable are the same thing. Oh well maybe I should have written

Meandering Taoist...

Anyways, I suppose some will think I should be serious, Well I am serious, I am always seriously myself. Its silly to be anything else but oneself, including when joking around and living.

peace in your path

seriously smiling :) me

snowing take two

I didnt like yesterdays journal poem

so i dusted it , here is the current working copy

will look again tommorow or later
to see where i will take it...



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snowing
softly falling -- but determined --
to get the ground quickly, flakes


writing
wording out a journal entry
in beat, flowing, joining towards,
what is seen from under and behind the glass...


snowing
Nature's ballroom, of the world ,
swirling to the street dancing snow


writing
no, not really...not capturing the essence at all
becoming time to go play.
spinning past joining into with the tumbling snow
to feel the biting sting of reality
as ice tigers claw at my skin
becoming wet reminders of serenity
being a state of mind
As it all continuously swirls about me

not every day is a bad one

So I did my yoga and got the balancing of food right again.

The past week was crazy, so I ran out of several important foods I use in my natural treatment for allergies. I also stopped doing yoga for a week as I needed to take care of other business. Its amazing how fast I went downhill and its amazing how quickly I was able to make a positive difference just by kicking back into the yoga, and starting again the acidophilus drink / my fish liver oil for vitamin D. It all makes a difference. After the yoga, it helped to calm my mind and get the blood flowing. By this morning while I can feel the morning soreness of my body fighting the allergens, At least I am 80% functional again.

This just reinforces to me: If we simply followed what our bodies, mind and spirit needed naturally, our lives would be in harmony. Living in a culture which guides us against our very nature means, we have to actually work at maintaining our balance that much harder (in my case the yoga, exercise and supplements) .

It isnt hard, yet because of how we rush about trying to meet so many outside expectations. Is it any surprise people rarely take the time to be themselves, or to take care of their needs?

It's a good day... might even finish that poem from yesterday now..

peace

not every day is a good one

Having a bad day

allergies and depression are ripping into me


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The slow moving tar of depression
Getting stuck -->  inside <-- myself 
It's an out of body feeling as the mind
    --- stretches ---    drum thin 
tied taut by  squirming gut feelings 
trying to escape  
viewing it all ... through  some strange mask
as if...
I am being played
                  out,
                        by myself.

Staring,  out of these eyes not mine
Reeling,
         back...into
                      breaking...

                        
--------- Into BREAKING FREE Into ---------  
           ??   Inspiration  ??

This is not about 
depression, regression, or any similar expression                                      

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The poem ends here: not finished -> but no more flowing yet
I dont know where it goes from here, so
I will sit in the sun (breaking out from the rain
for this lunch break) and breathe

Following my way just means to relax
I will think about things tommorow
something new will happen
I will puzzle it out a bit later

as it happens.

Just becuase each day is an Inspiration ,
doesnt mean each has to be good

I will learn something from today
use it for building something later
unexpected...

at least I am living it
that is what matters