Walking Lines

Unnamed and unnameable...boo!
I apprehended myself being unaware.
With the roar of a lion, I stormed out of my body,
and whimpered as duckweed welcomed.
Twas radiation from beyond the stars and reflection from my eyes
which twice tatooed my soul,

whose mistress is the mother of all womb-anity.
Time to delete slippery slogans and witless witicisms.
Meet me at the merry-go-round in Dreampark for a moondance...

and imitate the tall slender shafts of prairie grass heavy with seed--

a ballet to the beat of the breeze.

COMMENTARY

I will now write the commentary here instead of posting in comments like I've been doing. I had started to write about today's line process in comments but one day in my walk I flashed on the idea to just do commentary here in the blog and not have to fit it in to multiple comments.

First of all, I didn't do yesterday commentary, except to say I was rushed and to describe the weather before my walk, so I'll add a little here about that first. Both yesterday's and today's lines from Ancestor Lu (actually day before yesterday and yesterday) were one thought:

in responding to people, it is essential not to get confused.

When you don't get confused, your nature is naturally stable;

You know the weird thing about those ancient Taoist texts is how the authors were wanting to use a little magic. The words don't mean exactly what they say, or what they say isn't understood by a casual reading. So I'm now just letting the lines be an appetizer before Emerson. Then I'm letting the meal sort of sit there and digest before my walk. Whatever comes as a line to me from the walk, I just come back and write it. The process is slow but the line is put down within minutes of me walking back in the house. It is complete and finished by the time I'm at my driveway, usually before I leave the countryside to return home.

Yesterday's reading of Emerson was in the last aspect of Beauty. It was about the intellect. I think there can be some confusion of terminology. You know, we throw words around pretty recklessly. Spirit, mind, intellect, thinking, meditation, reflection, consciousness. How do these things differ? Are there 7 distinct concepts there? I think there are, but they are very subtle. I'm not sure if Emerson and I mean exactly these same things when we use all those words. You know the old mind puzzle, how do you know his yellow is the same as your yellow? What words can you use to describe yellow except things which are yellow? We can agree about sunshine and bananas, but if he saw them as green and I saw them as red, but that red to me is what I call yellow and that green to him is what he calls yellow, we just bounce along always assuming we see the same thing, but we'll never know, will we?

Anyway, this aspect of beauty and intellect is difficult. I think what he's getting at is that in reflection, we interpret the outward beauty of Nature to fully understand all of truth. He had lead up to it with the first element being the scene itself in simple observation. Then the second aspect being the divine and then the third aspect is the digestion of the divine or integration of the divine into the individual. Something like that.

He says, "It is the herald of inward and eternal beauty, and is not alone a solid and satisfactory good. He whets our appetite with that because he is leading in to the next chapter, which is Language, which is what I spent my time on yesterday. And man, he spoke to me...

Really what he was talking about in this first section on Language is that there are words and there are concepts and images. The point of language is not to make sounds, but to impart feelings, at least when used as art.

At first he speaks about the symbolism of Nature in language. For instance this, "Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of the flux of all things?"

Here is a part which begs the question about Eme and me being on the exact same page with the use of certain words. "That which, intellectually considered, we call Reason, considered in relation to nature, we call Spirit. Spirit is the Creator. Spirit hath life in itself. And man in all ages and countries, embodies it in his language, as the FATHER. Whew.

I think he has a little Bible baggage going on. You have to remember that he was brought up to be a minister and went to seminary. He was a preacher for awhile and though he comes awful close to Taoism in my opinion, he still has some mixed stuff going on. I get where he's coming from about Spirit having life and that life being embodied in language. To me that is the main and important point. But about creator and language as father--I want to reserve opinion.

Here is something which I absolutely agree with:

"Hundreds of writers may be found in every long civilized nation, who for a short time believe, and make others believe, that they see and utter truths, who do not of themselves clothe one thought in its natural garment, but who feed unconsciously on the language created by the primary writers of the country, those, namely, who hold primarily on nature."

and like I posted yesterday on Facebook, this line is so powerful--"The moment our discourse rises above the ground line of familiar facts, and is inflamed with passion or exaled by thought, it clothes itself in images." There, that says what I mean about poetry as an art form. It isn't the words as much as the feeling which is created. Same for painting, and music and architecture.

Yesterday's Tao te Ching chapter was perfect to me for what lead up to it and for the poem. It is the one about Heaven and Earth lasting forever and that man attains fulfillment by being selfless.

I didn't pick just one trigram yesterday but am letting them be organic. I did spend quite a bit of time in the I Ching and what I've come to is that there is openness in the top trigrams (both days) and Yang in the bottom trigram. So there is a flow. I think it is like this. Yesterdays would be two Yin on top and then four Yang which is 34 and todays is three Yin on top and Yang below which is 11.

I'm tired now and will wrap this up. Maybe on today's line I can give you more. Later.