silent thunder

I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I'm beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves. Hermann Hesse

*channeling @Marblehead Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Friedrich Nietzsche

bones stacked in alignment support the body effortlessly soft tissue expansive, unfoldingly... moves the bones fluidly mind engaging, tuning never grasping no forcing allowing interweaving awareness and presence... harmony

It's been June Gloom in October here in South Bay, Southern California. June Gloom is the marine effect that makes for grey slate overcast mornings near the beaches, that last burns off by mid-day, but sometimes as lately... can last all day or deep into afternoon. Usually happens in May and June, hence the name. What a rare gift this last couple weeks has been. The weather from now until the end of June is a thing to marvel at... it's shear consistency of temperatures and breezes. Still alien to my Northern Forest sensibilities of quick change and rapid shifts. They are among my most treasured of days in this desert. To be on the beach, or on the trail on mornings such as this... pure treasure to this old forest boy, temporarily assigned to the desert.

tingsung never separate. co-arising... this with that conjoined unfolding... awareness atuned. breath permeating presence. expansive release. fluid dancing 'tuned in' while releasing freely being... this!

all along the lake the songs of water and birds heart soaring with clouds

Aw Yes!!! Thank you!

I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. Rainer Maria Rilke

Viking was a verb in its home tongue... it means Exploring... or Adventuring, or as I experience it... 'i wonder what's around that bend, peak, forest, river, ocean...' I've always been fascinated by other cultures, foods, languages, customs... Been exploring my entire life... but only touched a smidgeon of this tiny planet. And then I turned within and... found infinity...

Very true. George Carlin equated bombs and bullets (which are dick shaped) to being created because of pants and men with small cocks. If we suspect someone else, might have a bigger cock... we might just have to bomb them, with bombs, shaped like dicks... fired by guns, shaped like dicks, by men with small cocks, wearing pants...

Animals outline their territories with their excretions. Humans outline their territories by ink excretions on paper. ~ Robert Anton Wilson Every political border represents the point where two rival gangs eventually grew tired of killing each other and agreed to stop. (paraphrased)

How utterly alien... the 'whole notion of 'ownership' of 'any thing' is absurd in the extreme to me. and 'ownership of land?!' its presence as a concept in our cultural mind is to me a symptomatic expression of a deep, horrifying species wide mental delusion. In my experience of life, if i own one thing, it's my presence. And even my presence, of which this body is the main evidence thereof... i suffer no illusion that 'i' own this body. Not if ownership implies meaningful control. But the awareness of my presence... this is always with 'me'. Everything, anthing else? Preposterous. My birth, my growth to manhood, my daily body sensations, digestive processes, hearing, eyesight, hormone production, neurochemical interactions... pfft... i own this? My emotions, the majority of my thoughts? Even my awareness may be coopted and coerced, or sublimated at times. Anyone who can stand on the land and say 'I own this because i paid paper money to get this paper deed that says I own it.' *head shakingly lost* When in reality the paper money paid by 'the owner', created influence among the people who wrote the paper deed. These people are connected to and have access to the 'State Sanctioned Gang' (military/police) who can use violence legally so long as they 'uphold the law'. And thus, in order to initiate any level of atrocity for whatever means one may desire... one merely needs to 'make it legal' and then it will not only be carried out, but if opposed by anyone, that one may be declared 'unpatriotic' and persecuted by same process... Deeply sick is the human notion of ownership to me. One of our most disturbing traits. I contend two of the most remarkably and horrifically impacting events of human history to our overall arching storyline... were the conceptualization of land ownership and (taxes required to be paid in order to live on said land) and the concept of paper money. Nauseous stuff. Deeply unsettling in its inherently and seemingly unquestioningly unconscious loyal adoption of it in all 'civilized' cultures. Funny how deeply uncivilized civilization seems to me.

I recall for decades being obsessed with the concept of balance. Live a balanced Life. To become awakened balance was the key. In all activities, habits, passtimes, spiritual pursuits, hobbies, emotional states, thinking process, job sites... strive for balance I would tell myself. It's a noble idea, one my logical thinking mind devoted itself wholly to for years and years. It could be seemingly applied to all aspects of life, even philosophy and politics... but one that was based on illusory, human-centric assumptions and eventually was revealed as such. I recall one day, the revelation arising seemingly spontaneously one moment (after years of work, prep and re-conditioning) that never in nature has there ever been actual balance. That in all my time hiking and living I had never once perceived anything in complete balance. Nature was always in a state of moving toward balance, without ever being truly balanced. Nature, while always balancing, it had never come to rest in true balance, for that would be static and Nature is flow and motion. What happens when I balance a pencil on my finger? It comes to rest and stops. Relative to itself it's balanced at that moment, yet is it truly balanced? Nature never stops. So where was this balance in Nature I kept trying to emulate in my inner life? As without, so within? In that moment I realized that wei wu wei had another level for me to work with... and it related to relative balance and the act of ever balancing without coming to stagnancy. A state of perpetual motion in the direction of balance, without ever being it. Sure to my human eye and my human sensibilities, things around me, (trees, stones) may seem to be stagnant, unmoving, even balanced "for a time", but all of Nature follows Dao and Dao moves like a bellows. There is always motion in Nature, only my level of perception is prone to the illusion that some things are unchanging and sedentary. If nature was ever truly balanced, and utterly equal, motion would cease, growth would cease, decay could not happen. For there to ever be manifest balance life would need to cease, the push and pull of all unified polarities, gravity would need to cease and this would be wholly and utterly unnatural. So then, I moved toward a notion of 'relative balance'. A modification of wei wu wei came to mind. A life that was always balancing, while never in full, actual static balance. Like the way walking is the process of a controlled fall forward. Or more akin to a dance. Where intention and response to partner and conditions results in motion and controlled falling that is always motion toward balancing, while never quite resting in perfected balance. Equality and Inequality arise as concepts in human mind. Dependent on the forces of assumptions planted there by family and social influences. To live long and thrive, emulate nature, which emulates dao. I no longer strive for balance. It's more akin to a dance where "i" respond to the conditions of life and while ever in the process of balancing, am never actually balanced. Lately, it's not even relative balance I seek, but an openness. A subtle responsiveness and awareness of flowing conditions that when "i" am tuned to, can dance with in a manner that almost feels effortless. Action without Forcing is my preferred translation of wei wu wei. It's not balance "i" seek any longer. But a responsiveness to the conditions of dao expressed through nature. All motion arises from, pivots about and returns to a point of stillness. Yet never am I truly still... always my body, my planet, my solar system, galaxy... motion response and flow. Now if I 'strive' for anything... it's to be a subtle responsive dance partner to the conditions of life, of which I am seemingly an intrinsic co-expression of...

I'm just gonna echo this... cuz... um... wow does this ring the bowl! yup...

Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison When the door is so wide open? ― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

These days... "i" seem to oscillate between emptiness/contentment/bliss and horrific outrage.

The entire post was erudite and resonant. But this in particular resonated as the functional answer to Mig's question as to why imposition of external pressures on society is doomed to failure in eliciting natural dao and why I would agree that it is as you say, a Confucian notion and not Daoist in its likely source. Whom would be capable of perceiving and then deciding and then implementing what external structure would benefit and be best for all? Benefit to some species is detriment to others. The war and chaos in my digestive system, fuels my vitality and health on another level. The degree of our myopia in perception of 'social woes' and 'justice' seems the major determining factor in what our emotions then dictate to us as 'proper conduct'. All are prone to our own storyteller and social programming/conditioning. Confucian methods have always been antithetical to my awareness. Rigid, externally imposed, unnatural and doomed to fall apart the moment their impetus among human-centric support structures stops being fed continuously.

These two, concurrently and looped.

on second thought...

Geometry, Sound is Form... Cymatics. "Sound will embrace the forms." (it will also manifest them in my experience... as does 'the great silence' both manifest and dissolve it.) Dwai, were their internal manifestations of sound or silence that you recall?

Cuz it draws some of the boyz to the yard... That may also draw some of the boyz to the yard...

Wow! *deep bow of respect* Timing... synchronicity... gratitude.