great and small

When we look at things in the light of Tao,

Nothing is best, nothing is worst.

Each thing, seen in its own light,

Stands out in its own way.

It can seem to be "better"

Than what is compared with it

On its own terms.

But seen in terms of the whole,

No one thing stands out as "better."

If you measure differences,

What is greater than something else is "great,"

Therefore there is nothing that is not "great";

What is smaller than something else is "small,"

Therefore there is nothing that is not "small,"

So the whole cosmos is a grain of rice,

And the tip of a hair

Is as big as a mountain -

Such is the relative view.

You can break down walls with battering rams,

But you cannot stop holes with them.

All things have different uses.

Fine horses can travel a hundred miles a day,

But they cannot catch mice

Like terriers or weasels:

All creatures have gifts of their own.

The white horned owl can catch fleas at midnight

And distinguish the tip of a hair,

But in bright day it stares, helpless,

And cannot even see a mountain.

All things have varying capacities.

Consequently: he who wants to have right without wrong,

Order without disorder,

Does not understand the principles

Of heaven and earth.

He does not know how

Things hang together.

Can a man cling only to heaven

And know nothing of earth?

They are correlative: to know one

Is to know the other.

To refuse one

Is to refuse both.

Can a man cling to the positive

Without any negative

In contrast to which it is seen

To be positive?

If he claims to do so 

He is a rogue or a madman.

Thrones pass

From dynasty to dynasty,

Now in this way, now in that.

He who forces his way to power

Against the grain

I called tyrant and usurper.

He who moves with the stream of events

Is called a wise statesman.

Kui, the one-legged dragon,

Is jealous of the centipede.

The centipede is jealous of the snake.

The snake is jealous of the wind.

The wind is jealous of the eye.

The eye is jealous of the mind.

Kui said to the centipede:

"I manage my one leg with difficulty:

How can you manage a hundred?"

The centipede replied:

"I do not manage them.

They land all over the place

Like drops of spit."

The centipede said to the snake:

"With all my feet, I cannot move as fast

As you do with no feet at all.

How is this done?"

The snake replied:

"I have a natural glide

That can't be changed.  What do I need

With feet?"

The snake spoke to the wind:

"I ripple my backbone and move along

In a bodily way.  You, without bones,

Without muscles, without method,

Blow from the North Sea to the Southern Ocean.

How do you get there

With nothing?'

The wind replied:

"True, I rise up in the North Sea

And take myself without obstacle to the Southern Ocean.

But every eye that remarks me,

Every wing that uses me,

Is superior to me, even though 

I can uproot the biggest trees, or overturn

Big buildings.

The true conqueror is he

Who is not conquered

By the multitude of the small.

The mind is this conqueror -

But only the mind

 Of a wise man."

~ Chuang Tzu

translation by Thomas Merton

gratitude

The sounds of engines leave the air.

The Sunday morning silence comes

at last.  At last I know the presence

of the world made without hands,

the creatures that have come to be 

out of their absence.  Calls

of flicker and jay fill the clear

air.  Titmice and chickadees feed

among the green and the dying leaves.

Gratitude for the gifts of all the living 

and the unliving, gratitude which is

the greatest gift, quietest of all,

passes to me through the trees.

~ Wendell Berry

from Leavings

Alex & Me

 

A new study shows the African grey can perform some cognitive tasks

 at levels beyond that of 5-year-old humans. 

The results not only suggest that humans aren’t the only species 

capable of making complex inferences, but also point to flaws

 in a widely used test of animal intelligence. 

The study is described in a November paper published online in Behaviour.

African Grey Parrots

Irene Maxine Pepperberg is an American scientist 

noted for her studies in animal cognition,

 particularly in relation to parrots. 

She has been a professor, researcher and/or lecturer at multiple universities,

 and she is currently an Adjunct Research Professor at Boston University.

Movies: Life with Alex

Education: Harvard University (1976), Massachusetts Institute of Technology

the haunted room

In Ireland there are many stories of haunted houses.  

There may be a room in which one senses a presence 

or hears footsteps or a strange voice.  Such haunted places 

remain uninhabited.  People are afraid to go there. 

 The place is forsaken and left to deepen ever further 

into the shadow of itself.  

 

The way you think about your life can turn your soul into a haunted room. 

 You are afraid to risk going in there anymore.  Your fantasy

 peoples this room of the heart with sad presences, 

 which ultimately become disturbing and sinister. 

 

 The haunted room in the mind installs lonesomeness at the heart of your life.

  It would be devastating in the autumn of your life to look back

 and recognize that you had created a series of haunted rooms

 in your heart.  

 

Fear and negativity are immense forces,

 which constantly tussle with us.  They long to turn the mansions

 of the soul into a totally haunted house.  These are the living conditions

 for which fear and negativity long, and in which they thrive. 

 

 We were sent here to live life to the full.  When you manage to be generous

 in your passion and vulnerability, life always comes to bless you.

  Had you but the courage to acknowledge the haunted inner room,

 turn the key, and enter, you would encounter nothing strange or sinister there. 

 

 You would meet some vital self of yours that you had banished 

during a time of pain or difficulty.  Sometimes, when life squeezes you

 into lonely crevices, you may have to decide between survival or breaking apart.

 At such times, you can be harsh with yourself and settle to be someone

 other than who you really long to be.  At such a time, 

you can do nothing else; you have to survive. 

 

 But your soul always remains faithful to your longing

 to become who you really are.  The banished self from an earlier 

time of life remains within you waiting to be released and integrated. 

 The soul has its own logic of loyalty and concealment.

 

  Ironically, it is usually in its most awkward rooms that the special blessings 

and healing are locked away. 

 

 Your thinking can also freeze and falsify

 the flow of your life’s continuity to make you a prisoner

 of routine and judgement.

~  John O’Donohue, 
from  'Eternal Echoes

clinging

I imagine one of the reasons

 people cling to their hates so stubbornly
is because they sense, once hate is gone, 

they will be forced to deal with pain. 

*

Love takes off the masks

 that we fear we cannot live without 

and know we cannot live within. 

I use the word “love”

 here not merely in the personal sense

 but as a state of being,

 or a state of grace –

  ~ James Baldwin

from The Fire Next Time

art by Jumbo Prior 

from the Museum of  Tropical Queensland

 

some friends in the sea

 

A white whale called NOC began, spontaneously, to make unusual sounds. 

We interpreted the whale’s vocalizations as an attempt to mimic humans. 

Whale vocalizations often sounded as if two people were conversing

 in the distance just out of range for our understanding. 

These ‘conversations’ were heard several times before the whale was identified

 as the source. The whale lived among a group of dolphins and socialized

 with two female white whales. The whale was exposed to speech 

not only from humans at the surface — it was present at times when divers

 used surface-to-diver communication equipment. The whale was recognized

 as the source of the speech-like sounds when a diver surfaced outside

 this whale’s enclosure and asked “Who told me to get out?” 

Our observations led us to conclude the “out” which was repeated 

several times came from NOC.

As soon as NOC was identified as the source of these sounds, 

we recorded his speech-like episodes both in air and underwater.

 Recordings revealed an amplitude rhythm similar to human speech.

 Although there was variation, vocal bursts averaged about three per second .

 The rhythm of vocal bursts also reminded us of human speech.

~ from Current Biology Vol 22 No 20

Belugas are well adapted to life in northern waters. 

They have a thick skin and a deep layer of blubber to keep them warm

 and act as an energy store. This can account for 40% of their weight.

Their stark white colouring also helps camouflage them against the ice.

 Although beluga whales are predators, feeding on fish, crustaceans,

 and molluscs, they are also hunted by polar bears and orcas.

Belugas lack the dorsal fin that stands up from the back of many whales –

 think of orcas' tall, upright fin. These fins help to keep whales upright

 while swimming. But for belugas, which swim close under ice, 

a dorsal fin might have been more of a hindrance. Instead, a dorsal ridge

 down their spine and a rotund body may help them to move through

 the water more easily. Lacking a dorsal fin may also help them keep warm,

 as fins have a large surface areas that can lose heat fast.

When looking at belugas you can't miss their bulbous heads.

 The large fatty sack between their blowhole and upper jaw is known as a melon.

 It helps them focus and project sound, making belugas especially good

 at echolocation - using sound to detect prey and communicate.

the mystery

I am the wind which breathes upon the sea,

I am the wave of the ocean,

I am the murmur of the billows,

I am the ox of the seven combats,

I am the vulture upon the rocks,

I am a beam of the sun,

I am the fairest of plants,

I am the wild boar in valour,

I am the salmon in the water,

I am a lake in the plain,

I am a world of knowledge,

I am the point of the lance of battle,

I am the God who created the fire in the head.

Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain? 

Who announces the ages of the moon?

Who teaches the place where couches the sun?

(if not I)

~ Amairgen 

(chief poet of the Milesians,)

from Anam Cara, by John O'Donohue

This poem is ascribed to Amergin,

 a Milesian prince or druid who settled in Ireland

 hundreds of years before Christ 

and is from the Leabhar Gabhala, 

or Book of Invasions.

"The three short pieces of verse ascribed to Amergin are certainly very ancient

 and very strange. But as the whole story of the Milesian Invasion

 is wrapped in mystery and is quite possibly a rationalized account

 of early Irish mythology no faith can be placed in the alleged date

 or genuineness of Amergin's verses. They are of interest, because

 as Irish tradition has them as being the first verses made in Ireland, 

so it may very well be they actually do present the oldest surviving

 lines of any vernacular tongue in Europe except Greece."

 by Douglas Hyde, The Story of Early Gaelic Literature

 © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

the joy in which we come to rest.

Learn by little the desire for all things
which perhaps is not desire at all
but undying love which perhaps
is not love at all but gratitude
for the being of all things which
perhaps is not gratitude at all
but the maker's joy in what is made,
the joy in which we come to rest.



~ Wendell Berry

now

 

 

Young

We had not enough respect for the changing moon.

Then the days seemed to pass only to return again.

 

 

 

Now

Having learned by loss that men’s days part from them forever,

We eat and drink together beneath the full moon

Acknowledging and celebrating the power that bereft us

And yet sheds over the earth a light that is beautiful.

 

 

 

 

~ Wendell Berry

after the Painting and Poem by Shen Chou

about the relationship of consciousness to the mind

 

Consciousness is aware of the mind: 

The activities of the mind are always known by consciousness.

That mind is the object of knowledge and perception by the pure consciousness. 

Mind appears to have its own life solely because 

of the pure consciousnes which permeates it. 

The activities of the mind are always known by the pure consciousness,

 because that consciousness is superior to, 

support of, and master over the mind.

Mind is not self illuming because it is made of stuff

 (thoughts, emotions, memories etc.)

just like the photos are made of ink.

Mind is not, in itself, consciousness.

Rather, consciousness operates through the mind.

When the consciousness operates through the mind, 

it is also witness of the mind.

When consciousness is witnessing the mind, 

the mind is the object being witnessed. 

This is a key point here, so that this is not mere philosophy, 

but a practical part of the subtlest meditation processes. 

At some point, the mind itself is seen as an object of observation

 to be set aside with non-attachment, 

just like the many surface level thought patterns

 of daily life are set aside in other stages of meditation.

 Now, the instrument of thinking itself 

is being seen and transcended.

~ summerized from the

  Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 

as presented by

Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati

art genereated by AI

elders are bridges

 

In the old wisdom traditions, elders act as a living bridge between the visible, 

measurable world and the mostly unseen realms of spirit and soul. 

Although more in touch with timeless things, elders would not be out of touch

 with the conflicts and troubles of daily life. In times of great trouble,

 the elders could be seen to have one foot firmly on the ground of survival,

 and the other in the realm of great imagination.

As the modern world grows increasingly divided, the archetype 

of the elder becomes important as a source for imagining ways to bridge

 between unlike energies as well as opposing forces. No matter a person’s

 literal age, each soul is truly ancient; thus each person has the potential

 of awakening to the presence of the “inner elder” 

or the sage within the heart.

In a time when it has become common for the callings of youth

 to go unheard, the idea of trying to awaken the inner elder might seem,

 not just odd, but truly weird. Then again, the calling that comes to elders 

has always involved the strange adventure of finding a greater sense of life 

while facing the nearness of death. The word weird was originally spelled

 “wyrd” and had a primary sense of having a foot in each world

 and having a greater capacity to hold the tension

 of all the opposites together.

As used to be well known, old age alone cannot make the elder. 

For growing older can lead to a return to infantile attitudes 

and exaggerated feelings of neediness and fear. 

When it comes to waking the elder the qualities most needed involve 

more than physical change. There is something metaphysical involved, 

something transcendent and spiritual that is required. Collectively,

 we fail to perceive aging's meaning as well as its hidden beauty 

if we look only through the lens of physiology.

Sadly, modern societies seem to produce people who grow older

 and older, but do not become wiser with age. There seems to be

 a collective vacating of the later stages of life when it comes to living

 with meaning and purpose and serving something beyond oneself.

 Due to improved diets, medical and technological advances, many people

 live to a ripe old age. Yet, few seem to ripen into elders, or blossom into wisdom

 and most seem unable to harvest knowledge from life experience

 in order to pass it on to those coming along.

Typically, we put more effort into helping people reach old age 

than helping them learn what to do with it. As an old saying warns, 

“we grow gray in our spirit long before we grow gray in our hair.”

 The problem is not simply aging, but more the abandonment 

of a person's unique character and core calling that dooms the later years

 to a growing sense of loss, a fall into pools of nostalgia

 or a narrow attempt to hold onto material things.

Playing the role of elder and seer, William Blake advised that: 

"Wisdom combines insight with experience, and vision with maturity.

 If maturity expands vision, it will lead to wisdom. If not, maturity 

becomes degeneration." Either a person wises up to who they are 

at the core of their life or else they tend to slip into increasingly narrow

 ways of thinking and evermore egocentric patterns as they age.

Those who do not become as elders simply become the “olders” 

who tend to contribute to the divisions in society, whereas the elders

 would foster unity above self-interest and harmony over conflicts. 

As long as aging is considered a disease waiting for a cure, as many

 people also consider adolescence, the true value and purpose 

of growing older will become more lost.

The elders are those who have found ways to accept the hand

 that fate has dealt to them. By virtue of that, they also find the paths

 of genuine meaning and purpose that make life truly rich 

and make death the middle of a long life. It is the elder within us

 that understands that we must 

“die before we die” in order to truly live.

It is our mutual fate to live in a time of great uncertainty 

and worldwide upheaval. Increasingly, it seems that we are

 in the exact danger of not having enough wisdom to find our way

 through all the great crises that trouble both nature and human cultures.

 Yet, during times of chaos and change there can be

 an acceleration of calling and 

an awakening of the human spirit.

On one hand, young people are called to seek paths of meaning 

and purpose over more common career paths. On the other hand,

 the advent of people living longer and longer can be seen 

as nature itself trying to create an awakening of elders that can help

 us all respond more meaningfully to the many crises

 that now plague the entire planet.

Being connected to the sage in the heart, elders become instinctive

 humanitarians who can embody wisdom and 

serve the highest ideals of humanity.

“In mythic tales, the elders act as bridges 

that help young people find their way in the world. 

They also serve to bridge meaningful traditions of the past 

with viable visions of the future

 trying to become conscious.”

Because of their willingness to face death and be truly wyrd, 

the elders become the advocates of life and thus the natural allies 

of the young as well as the supporters of meaningful changes 

that can help realign culture with nature. Whether we are talking 

about older people becoming elders, or referring to the inner sage

 in each person’s heart, it is important to know that

 genuine elders are not easily daunted.

Having survived their own troubles, elders are not shocked 

or overwhelmed by the crises and conflicts that exist in the world.

 Having repeatedly seen how things fall apart, elders have also witnessed

 the uncanny ways in which both nature and culture can find roots of renewal. 

In the darkest times, the archetypal energy of the elders tries to awaken

 and help us find both ways to survive and ways to truly transform our lives.

~ Michael Meade

with thanks to Mystic Meandering

between seeing and speaking

Somewhere between seeing and speaking, somewhere

Between our soiled and greasy currency of words

And the first star, the great moths fluttering

About the ghosts of flowers,

Lies the clear place where I, no longer I,

Nevertheless remember

Love’s nightlong wisdom of the other shore…

 I no longer I,

In this clear place between my thought and silence

See all I had and lost, anguish and joys,

Glowing like gentians in the Alpine grass,

Blue, unpossessed and open.

~ Aldous Huxley
from Island

Matins

1

Somewhere, out at the edges, the night

Is turning and the waves of darkness

Begin to brighten on the shore of dawn

The heavy dark falls back to earth

And the freed air goes wild with light,

The heart fills with fresh, bright breath

And thoughts stir to give birth to color.

2

I arise today

In the name of Silence

Womb of the Word,

In the name of Stillness

Home of Belonging,

In the name of the Solitude

Of the Soul and the Earth.

I arise today

Blessed by all things,

Wings of breath,

Delight of eyes,

Wonder of whisper,

Intimacy of touch,

Eternity of soul,

Urgency of thought,

Miracle of health,

Embrace of God.

May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,

Clear of word,

Gracious in awareness,

Courageous in thought,

Generous in love.

~ John O'Donohue

from To Bless the Space Between Us

a passage

 

Investigating the awareness and acknowledgement of

the partiality of the lens we were given by family and culture,

and through which we have made our choices

and suffered their consequences,

the following thoughts appear:

If we had been born of another time and place, to different parents

who held different values, we would have had an entirely different lens.

The lens we received generated a conditional life, which represents

not who we are but how we were conditioned to see life and make choices…

We succumb to the belief that the way we have grown to see the world

is the only way to see it, the right way to see it,

and we seldom suspect the conditioned nature

of our perception.

We all live out, unconsciously,

reflexes assembled from the past.

The disparity between the inner sense of self and the acquired personality

can become so great that the suffering can no longer be suppressed or compensated…

As the person continues to operate out of the old attitudes and strategies,

a grounded self underneath the acquired personality becomes a powerful

imperative for renewal…

The first, (the acquired sense of self) must die… Such death

and rebirth is not an end in itself; it is a passage...

a second shot at what was left behind

in the pristine moments of childhood.

~ James Hollis

edited and summerized from The Middle Passage:

A Jungian Field Guide to Finding Meaning

and Transformation in Midlife

with thanks to The Marginalian

by Maria Popova

with that moon language

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them, 

“Love me.”

Of course you do not do this out loud, 

Otherwise,

Someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this, 

This great pull in us 

To connect.

Why not become the one 

Who lives with a full moon in each eye

 That is always saying,

With that sweet moon 

Language,

What every other eye in this world

 Is dying to

Hear?

~ Hafiz

from The Gift

Poems by Hafiz, 

the Great Sufi Master

translations by Daniel Ladinsky