"... As a river that flows -- Know the Way ..."

“Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.” – Lao Tzu

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I'm taking the following words out of context, but they are the words that come to mind when I look at this water flowing to sea level:

Honest and clear -- Feel the change

As a river that flows -- Know the Way

(lyrics by Larry Beckett and Tim Buckley, from "Goodbye and Hello" -- 1967)

The day the Buddha sat down

Maybe some of you have seen this already.  It just came to my attention yesterday.

Today while beginning my December tradition of reading a chapter a day of A Winter Walk, I saw that some December since 2006 (when the book was published), I had made a note about Bodhi Day, which comes on December 8.

I had written:

The day the Buddha sat down.  He was 29.

On first watching the video and not paying close attention, I didn't realize immediately that the walking person was a young woman.  I was struck by what I thought was the vulnerability of a very delicate young white man whose physical presence seemed to have little to do with the voice of an edgy elderly Jewish/Buddhist man as his death approached.  Now that I know that the walking person is a young woman, everything shifts.

This November was the month when I finally cried long and hard and felt relief.

Here is what November looked like in Bellingham, Washington, this year:

Another yearly tradition is purchasing a Nikki McClure calendar.  I bought my 2020 calendar as soon as it was available.  The November page for 2019 celebrates a quiet family moment, and it gave me a sense of peace each time I looked at it.  Maybe I will give it a permanent place on the wall next to my drawing table when January 2020 arrives.

It was only on a second viewing of "Happens To The Heart" that I saw that the sitting figure rose into the air.  Too much like Mary's Assumption.  Oh well.  I experienced that rising with a sinking feeling. I wonder what Leonard Cohen would have thought of that image accompanying the end of his haunting song.

Then I remembered William Blake's words:

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

And this:

If you don't realize the source, 
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from, 
you naturally become tolerant, 
disinterested, amused, 
kindhearted as a grandmother, 
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao, 
you can deal with whatever life brings you, 
and when death comes, you are ready.” 

― Tao Te-Ching

Hupomone (Endurance) / An Open Space

If you go searching for the Great Creator, you will
come back empty-handed.
The source of the universe is ultimately unknowable,
a great invisible river flowing forever
through a vast and fertile valley.
Silent and uncreated, it creates all things. (Lao Tzu, Hua Hu Ching, 39)

In the open space, in the process of looking at a blank page, while waiting for a idea for my next mandala, I came across this, which sounded oddly similar to another song I had heard:



It prompted me to look for this photo of Bob Dylan:

Suddenly I realized that the sound of the Junior Birdmen song reminded of Bob Dylan in more ways than one.  I persevered in searching my musical memory and came up with this:



Can you heard the similarity?

up in the air
upside down (Up in the Air, Junior Birdmen)

and to sing and
dance and run (Tattle O'Day)

I know the joy of fishes
in the river through my
own joy, as I go walking
along the same river.
(Chuang Tzu)

he ping / 和平

 Listen:  和平

For some time now, I've been slowly reading Red Pine's translation of Lao-Tzu's Taoteching, which has the Chinese characters next to the translation. Gradually I am learning to recognize some Chinese characters. In particular, I've been looking for 和 because I have a small framed calligraphy of the characters 和平, with the word "peace" below it. I had noticed 知 (knowledge) because it looks similar to 和.  Finally, in the 55th verse, I saw 和 in a line translated as "knowing how to be balanced we endure." Just now I was able to figure out, via the internet, that the framed calligraphy is made up of the characters he 和  and ping 平.

Yesterday we had snow mixed with rain in the morning and exquisite sunshine illuminating the clouds to the east in the late afternoon.

John and Yoko and Lao Tzu

Looking for something else, I found this.

Aleph Series: Bhagavad Gita / Psalm 104 / Lao Tzu (2003)

My father died at age 89 on St. Patrick's Day in 2003, just before the Iraq War began. During the last years of his life he wrote his autobiography and chose this photo of himself at 30 years old for the cover:






















My father didn't consider himself an artist, but he was.

The Aleph Series is the only art work I did in 2003.

Today the swallows arrived at the cattail pond I look out on from my computer desk. Today to the east are the kind of clouds my father said were one of the many things he liked about Northwest Washington.