“Spontaneously so”
means literally “self-soing” or “self-deriving.”

We might play with this rather literal meaning…
by substituting “sow” and “sew” for “so,”
thereby evoking the protean images of
“husbanding and cultivating” a world,
and “tailoring” of it
to suit both one’s own proclivities
and those of one’s context.

Dao De Ching, A Philosophical Translation by Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall

In Chinese: ziran. The concept has to do with self-creation, a spontaneous poeticizing of  the self. In English I’d be tempted to write “autopoiesis”. That is discovering/fashioning your sense of self, the layered and changing identity in relation to one’s surrounding of nature and of society…

The self that I find within, that is becoming, is a reciprocal relationship, a ricochet of/with nature and of/with my social situation in the America’s Midwest (Batavia-Geneva-St Charles).

The concept of ziran sets my hair on fire! Among the most fascinating ideas I’ve encountered as an adult. Self-creation in concert with fashioning of an immediate environment of nature and of associates.

Self-creativity and co-creativity… To return to the text of the Tao Te Ching.

Vs. 25

There is something
that contains everything.
Before heaven and earth
it is.
Oh, it is still, unbodied,
all on its own, unchanging,

all-pervading,
ever-moving,
So it can act as the mother
of all things.
Not knowing its real name,
we only call it the Way.

If it must be named,
let its name be Great.
Greatness means going on,
going on means going far,
and going far means turning back.

So they say: “The way is great,
heaven is great,
earth is great,
and humankind is great;
four greatnesses in the world,
and humanity is one of them.”

People follow earth,
earth follows heaven,
heaven follows the Way,
the way follows what is.

Tao Te Ching trans. by Ursula K. Le Guin