path in the woods

Thing not shown
dew creep mound reap,

skyward under

mines above

Once there was birth unlived, the slow of stone. The yoke of binding. Coil of orange glow branching against the black. From the cold met heat and there could be life.

Once there was rot begun, then the flourishing, followed by the movement, then edges collect fires, then collect soils.

Purify essence. Fixing the smaller movements into big. The unshaped is still becoming.

As it does, the shapes too unshape. More shapes can be made. The flow of one into many, of smooth over hard, and back.

I cannot say why it started, but here it is, unresting. It gives to all, the all give back. The drawing is circular. The discard reshuffled. Things don’t stay things for long.

How can it not be beautiful? Because the shapes can unshape, we are given life. If they could not, we could not. That they do, so do we.

To hold on is foolish. Grasp the flame, what now? Hold your breath, how long? Take up spade and pick, dynamite and lantern, discover toil.

What of air? It moves but is unseen. It gives vital breath, but is not reduced. If we are cut off from it we return to soil. The air feeds fire. Trapped in water, it feeds life. Trapped in soil it feeds life. Trapped in fire, there life becomes. Inside the fast transition there is movement. Fiery particles slow and form together. In time energy collects until it must be released. Forests burn, ice caps melt, animals perish, stars wink out.

From that energy released, new compounds form. Mass pulls together, gathers density, elements swirl and recombine, something else is made.

What is upward comes downward.

To stay downward is to conserve energy. Things in movement must expend energy. Sometimes movement must be made, but perpetual movement cannot be sustained. On flat ground a hiker can move about 3 miles per hour. Perhaps she covers 24 miles in a day. The next day she covers 20 miles. The next day she covers 18 miles. What is happening?
The gut contains colonies of microorganisms. For optimal health beneficial bacteria and harmful bacteria form an alliance, each feeding energy into the other cyclically. Nature naturally pulls towards balance, but if that balance tips the scales begin to move. Alliances can’t exist forever, things degrade.

One becoming is another’s unbecoming. There isn’t movement without shift, there isn’t energy without displacement. One thing gives for another to pass through. Yielding force allows things to be. If it could not yield, then it could not move.

The origination of movement and being is flexibility.

Raiders crash against the gate. The gate does not give. They are repelled. Which is the yielding force? Without the additional land and resources from this raid their population cannot continue to grow at the present time. Will the become open to attack from an outside force? Which is the yielding force?
The monsoons come. As the rain churns the land into mud, who is yielding now? As the minerals replenish the soil for next season, who will control the canals?

I cannot speak much of yielding. What I know of is solidity. The things I know gather together and form tight cement. Soon the breath around us becomes a prison. Psychically we scream to one another through the brick, but the words are dim and muddled. I shine my light into the blackness, is my flicker seen? I can see the edges of black water, but can make out no further shapes.

To be cut off. Can we re-emerge?

The energy gathers until it feels like bursting. Where can it go, when the walls are brick? I must find or I must die.

This moment is a trap, and we suffer as we relive it instead of release. Breathing can help. Movement can help. Yielding creates an opening. Opening creates space. Inside space there can be movement. Air fills open spaces. The valley collect the rain and thus the minerals. In the low lands there is richness and fertility. Much grows. The rains churn. The river washes away. All draws back into the Ocean.

Let me try again.

I am bound up, tied up, made up. Lost up.

Too high and there isn’t any air.
Too low and there isn’t any either.

Just right and we’re drawn along the edges, two forces which meet and repel each other. Their movement generates friction, and this friction generates energy. The mega-dynamo. The experience and the experiencer.

Hang on I have to shit.

I didn’t shit. Who yielded?

The Categorizor meets and contrasts elements into a formation which generates a world. This world is constructed of associations forming a web. Yet it is only one voice.
Instead there is a multiplicity. The things between. That which unseem. The breaker. The lord. Timely essence.

Which of these voices is the listener? With concentration one can move between different levels, but we shoot in the dark, archers firing arrows into a forest, candled by candlelight. If we continue to persist in one direction we uncover new land and out insight and associations grow. Yet things continue to move. Even when we aren’t focused on them. Perhaps we spot a deer, or avoid a trap. Others move in the woods too.

Which sense do we use? The form? The mind? Light? Smell? All at once. What else could there be? There is only all at once. What is, simply is. You can’t make it not be. Things can happen even when you don’t experience them, because their movement allow yours.

To grasp and try to hold is impossible. Nothing can stay still for long, and the more energy put into a system, the more is begins to move. Thus do we guide ourselves by light. The fire catches at the edges, and all is burning. Hearing, sight, taste, touch, thought. It moves, do we move with it? We have no choice. The slope is steep and we move. To resist is an illusion. What we might be able to do instead is observe its movement, know it, and so by guide ourselves along with it.

That which goes low gathers speed, then rests. In its rest it is restored, then it can move again. Where am I now? Am I resting or moving? When does one become the other.

It is late. I sleep.

The sun arrives, and I rise.

I am fueled by porridge and perform my work. My work is my energy, my reward is my fuel.

The stars descend and so do I.

The fire consumes fuel. Without fuel there is no fire. Where along this path am I? Ascending or descending? How do my daily actions promote this cycle? Am I flowing with or against this movement?

Escape is not found. Movement is into fertile areas and out of dead ones. Osmosis collects energy, and eventually that energy seeks a path into a lower system. Moving downwards is the natural way, into the lower curve, the valley. The opening which gives birth to all.

Even steam rising into the air is moving downwards, high energy into lower state. Rain returns, and along the way brings something with it. The minerals return to the primordial ocean, the greatest valley of them all.

Dark night. The sea lapped against the jutting rises. Skittering movers scooped foetids into grasping maws, released gaseous dark.

Cold sun eye is solemn, too slow to cast. Too close to blink.

Cold and moist they prowl and slither. Hot and dry they raise stone tablets to it’s name.

Hot and moist there’s growing. Cold and dry for moonrocks.

The intelligent commander guides without haste, but without hesitation. He is not brash, and calculates each move. I know that if danger is near and time is rushed mistakes will be made. He knows to act only when the odds are in his favor. If they are not he must silently withdraw and reposition himself at a better vantage point. Intelligence is lost of one is not aware. To be aware is to be wise. The wise see much, but know little.

To know is to set in stone, to be inflexible. To know is to be sure, to be active and dominant. Knowing cannot adapt. If it could change it would not be knowing. The only truth is that Truth is changing. Nothing stays still forever. If it didn’t change, it couldn’t be Truth. If it didn’t change it would be permanent. No cycle is without end, thus nothing is permanent.

If one thing was permanent it would collect all and not relinquish. It would be a vacuuming void of oblivion. Since all does move, there must be no permanent.

The commander does not know he knows this, yet he acts on the principal. No position is perfectly safe, no tactic guaranteed to win. The variables and the possibilities require consideration. To ignore them is to be overwhelmed by them. Yet the commander can guess which possibility to acknowledge and which to discard. This he does with his wisdom. Knowing the cycle of things he can extrapolate.

Yet things still move outside of view. The commander only rolls the dice when he feels that he is certain. To know this he must wait as long as is useful, to gather and sort information.

Not all things need to be acted upon. We can discern important matters from unimportant matters. To make best use of this ability we must be mindful of ourselves. It is easy to get lost in delusion, in things which appear in the mind as expectations, but which are not likely. Desires are often this. It is something one wants, yet doesn’t have. This could be food or sex, it could be greed and revenge.

Things move without us needing to do anything at all. When do we know to insert our hand and guide it? We can never be completely certain all the time. It is impossible to know all outcomes.

Becoming involved with an energy system is to change the flow of that system. It is unwise to get involved with every system, chaos and unrest result. The more the systems move, the more they continue to move, producing extra variables, until the cycle begins to require more energy than there is fuel.

High intensity systems burn out. Low intensity systems gather energy. With energy there can be movement. If this movement is used skillfully a flow can be caught and the system can be surfed to the next crest. This requires concentration and humility. If we are quiet and look from below we may observe the passage of other systems, then choose the time to act. Low energy sees more. Gripping hard puts more energy into that system. With distractions come mistakes, come wasted effort, come unforeseen effects.

Being caught off guard is dangerous. Defense keeps its energy prepared for an opening, then launches into action.

Knowing when to act on a system involves having a basis for expectation. The ending of an energetic system is as good a place to start as any, because it is inevitable. Nothing is permanent. Generosity defeats greed because it is prepared to lose. If one is prepared to lose one is prepared to act and can choose for themselves the path.

The sage is stationary but aware. She lets things slip through her fingers. Their passage propels her forward. Minding her own passage she accepts what is and discards what is not. She experiences without clinging. She savors, and its cessation is part of the flavor. Music is created by highs and lows, starts and stops. Air moves mind.

Seasons change at the cycle begins again. A favorite pot breaks. We are but temporary caretakers. Sweetness is known by what is sour, but the sweetest of flavors dull the tongue. The highest notes deafen the ear. The greatest sensations stun the body. With our eyes constantly moving we see even less.

What is can be known, what isn’t gives rise to possibility.

It feels good to release, to unclench. It is possible to release at any time. Watching the mind with skill one becomes aware of its movements, can foresee its needs. The mind is not separate, yet it is an interrelated force. Things feed back into one another.

When thirsty, drink.

When hungry, eat.

When tired, sleep.

At the root, there are needs. What else is adornment. Beware of adornments which parade as needs. Greed and envy breed theft and loss.

Great treasures are difficult to protect.

One who seeks fame fears obscurity.

One who is content with obscurity doesn’t mind.

To give is virtue. To yield is to evade.

An overpowering force is useless if it does not connect.

Sinking to the lowest creates the least.

If less is held, less can be lost.

With less weight the traveler may move more quickly and expend less energy. He brings just what he needs: a blanket, a hat, a knife, a flame. He has no spare room for frivolous trinkets, but does not let the existence of frivolous trinkets ensnare his mind. He simply leaves them behind.

He must traverse unknown territory and prepares properly. Most importantly he brings his wit and focus. Without these no tool can save him.

Along the way he may improvise, he may take chances, but he does so knowingly. He bides is time and acts upon what seems natural, leaving escape routes and detours open. If he finds himself trapped he can blame none but himself for his folly.

The more mental formations one holds the less flexible ones reality become. The more knowing, the less is known. Exceedingly hard things are often brittle. The more things are possessed the more they struggle to be free. To allow them to fall away if they want is to release. Gravity pulls it away on its own. Without binding there is union, and life flourishes. Things held against their will are miserable. Nothing is permanent.

All things result from other things, there is no other possibility. There is no nothing, there is only existence. Whatever must be simply is. Whatever cannot be, simply isn’t. What arises must arises along with other things. There is a path which one can trace back from every sense-experience of possibilities which arrives, a series of things which do exist transpiring into further things.

That movement becoming is the valley which gives birth to all things. Seemingly without end things continue to arise from other occurrences, never staying still for long. Events transpire, form, and fade, only to spawn new life from their existence. Though they are gone, they ripple outward.

How satisfying and beautiful it is to watch the parade of forms as it moves! The kaleidoscope of their birth and death knows to bounds, and shares with us the most beautiful views. I am grateful to see it for what it is, and I am excited to see where it goes.

The painful and ugly give us texture.

Even vinegar has a sweet flavor when one knows how to experience it.

To know this is to know sourness well enough to not flinch, but not to cling to the concept that sourness. To know the flavor one must turn their attention to it.