Always Under Construction
15 The ancient Masters were profound and subtle. Their wisdom was unfathomable. There is no way to describe it; all we can describe is their appearance. …
Being It
14 Look, and it can’t be seen.Listen, and it can’t be heard.Reach, and it can’t be grasped.Above, it isn’t bright.Below, it isn’t dark. Seamless, unnamable,it returns to the realm of nothing. Form that includes all forms,image without an image,subtle, beyond all conception.Approach it and there is no beginning;follow it and there is no end….
What We Use
11 We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work…
Show Me The Way
5 The Tao doesn’t take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil. The Master doesn’t take sides; she welcomes both saints and sinners. The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces; the more you talk of it, the less…
Used, Never Used Up
4 The Tao is like a well: used but never used up. It is like the eternal void: filled with infinite possibilities. It is hidden but always present. I don’t know who gave birth to it. It is older than God. Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, trans. by Stephen Mitchell Plans for the…
Not Enough Of A Poet
About Chaos
38 The Master doesn’t try to be powerful; thus he is truly powerful. The ordinary man keeps reaching for power; thus he never has enough. The Master does nothing, yet he leaves nothing undone. The ordinary man is always doing things, yet many more are left to be done. The kind man does something,…
Like Water
No. 8 The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It is content with the low places that people disdain. Thus it is like the Tao. In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try…
Asphalt Poetics
My love affair with drag racing reaches back in time to my sixteen year old self. A visit to Great Lakes Drag-a-way in Union Grove Wisconsin comes with sensation of connection. Just inside the gate in the distance is the shutdown area for the quarter mile race track. Before my vehicle is parked I…
Paris
This is to be our second day in Paris. I have a strange sensation of being in a country, and a city that in my fathers time suffered four long years of German occupation. I cannot exactly describe the feeling of walking along the Seine yesterday afternoon, the air filled with the sounds of…
