{"id":1693,"date":"2014-11-03T17:54:19","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T22:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=1693"},"modified":"2014-11-03T18:03:05","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T23:03:05","slug":"poem-taoist-dowager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/poem-taoist-dowager\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: The Taoist Dowager"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Taoist dowager<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Bends gently to that before her<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Inclined to bless<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Those below<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Indivisible<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>To the high and mighty<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Wholly touched<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Braille beyond the see<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Maid of tender harmonies<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Composed<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Of one, a chord<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>The maladies of life joyfully singing<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Farming the music of our years<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Covered by perfect lines<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Of what may be<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Momentarily forgotten<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Only later recalled<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>By progeny<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>And prodigy<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>And even those<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Occupying there posterity<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Like some kind of bum<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Or a baggy lady<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Udderly fool of it<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>From cradle to grave<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Fully pampered<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Content<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>To cede generations<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>For a moment<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>For hour<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>A muse meant<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>This consummate ode lady<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Siren from beyond hear<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>A thirst only quenched<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>By water on the rocks<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Having strung out<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Countless improbable moments<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>A mist<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>An impossible life<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Beyond contemplation<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Not getting bent<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>On 100% proof<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>With a taste that smacks of grace<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>A singular savor<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Unpalletable to sum<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Treated like a fragrant<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Bye others<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Having<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Perfected that groovy hide<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>From a rash<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Of uncommon sense<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Fore hers<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Such an inconceivable vehicle<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>As chary it<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Like the wind borne<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>In quiet the mine<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>A sentience unabridged<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Having awe ready arrived<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>A slow motion ninja<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Only to be<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>In what will be<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Carried away<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>In eternity<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This poem emanated from the title phrase, Taoist dowager, that emerged from one of my many ruminations.\u00a0 As is often the case, a phrase that is too good to pass up grows into a complete poem.\u00a0 I am drawn to Taoist philosophy and Eastern thought in that it seems to quite reliably offer balance to Western modes of thought and being.\u00a0 The dowager metaphor is apropos in that it is typically a feminine sensibility that is the antidote to afford balance to dominant and domineering Western male culture.\u00a0 Plus, wisdom is often rightly associated with increasing age and experience, not the least of which is experiencing and reflecting on the vulnerability inherent in senescence.\u00a0 Buddhists make a practice of meditating on their own inevitable death, not as popular a practice among the young and seemingly invulnerable.\u00a0 Nonetheless, Taoism claims the ever-present and eternal as accessible in the now, a certain holy equality, a pathless path, perpetually wooing us with enlightenment experiences that cannot be grasped but hold the key to living in harmony with reality and all living beings.\u00a0 The folly of every age is to try to reduce such knowledge and wisdom to some type of elixir that can be bought, or more to the point, sold.\u00a0 Even after being taken countless times, the allure of the latest snake oil quite reliably rouses our more base instincts.\u00a0 The basest instinct blocking our experience of the Tao, the Way, is to take, for our self to acquire something from an other.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, in the Way of things, things come our way.\u00a0 However, being given, to receive something, and taking, claiming something as one&#8217;s own private possession, are opposite perspectives.\u00a0 Being given, receiving, is an attitude of gratitude and selflessness.\u00a0 Taking is an attitude of greed and selfishness.\u00a0 Now, Taoism is lauded for its mastery of complimentariness, the understanding that opposites interpenetrate each other and are only conceivable in contrast to one another; e.g., you can&#8217;t conceive of light without dark, or tall without short.\u00a0 There is little doubt that a deep appreciation for the complimentary nature of reality is a powerful tool to keep us honest and on track in perceiving and aligning our life with reality.\u00a0 Still, there are clues within each opposite to their relationship to the Whole, the Tao.\u00a0 Its conceivable to me that people could live in perfect harmony, without contradiction, with an attitude of gratitude. It is inconceivable to me that people can live as greedy takers without contradictory and irreconcilable selves.\u00a0 In the mysterious light of the Whole, gratitude is more consonant with reality.\u00a0 Further, taking, claiming something as one&#8217;s own private possession, without any claim upon it from elsewhere is simply self-assertion.<\/p>\n<p>There seems to be a consensus among philosophers and theologians of all stripes and perspectives that human beings cannot be the ground of their own being.\u00a0 On one end of the spectrum this was most famously articulated by John Paul Sartre in his book, nay tome, <em>Being and Nothingness<\/em>, which built the intellectual foundation of modern existentialism.\u00a0 On the other end of the spectrum, most human beings throughout human history have claimed life to be a gift from God (or gods).\u00a0 Sartre and some others are content to contend that human freedom is condemned to naked self-assertions, however well-clothed in rationalizations.\u00a0 God-seeking humans have sought a source of life, a ground for their being, a giver who is also a subject, not a happenstance collection of stardust within a serendipitously profoundly ordered universe.\u00a0 The harshest and most minimalist existentialists settle for an existence where subjects cannot truly meet, or, if taken most strictly, cannot even be confident that other subjects even exist.\u00a0 Such a bizarre assertion is welcomed by God skeptics who cannot fathom a Subject, but the corollary laughable denial of other human subjects&#8217; existence is kept conveniently and shamefully out of public consciousness.\u00a0 Taoists and many philosophers of consciousness posit something akin to a Consciousness that all consciousnesses partake in, a whole in which each part is inescapably in relationship with, even if well-clothed in ignorance and plausible deniability.\u00a0 Christians speak of being made in the image of God.\u00a0 Taoists, perhaps the least literal in their claims, allude to a dynamic Whole that informs our being of the Way.<\/p>\n<p>A beloved metaphor often employed by Taoists is water, with all of its life-giving and unusual properties yet part of daily, seemingly-mundane experience.\u00a0 The one who lives fluidly like water moves easily around that which is hardened.\u00a0 Yet water, given time (an equally mysterious aspect of life), wears down mountains [see patience as the mother of all virtues!].\u00a0 This poem gives a tip of the hat to this water metaphor with the lines: <em>A thirst only quenched\/By water on the rocks<\/em>.\u00a0 Thirst cannot even be conceived without quenching &#8212; unless perhaps you have the brutally masochistic tendencies of an orthodox atheist existentialist who braves permanent and absolute alienation (from even one&#8217;s self).\u00a0 The line, <em>Siren from beyond hear<\/em>, intimates the dangerous half of thirst.\u00a0 The <em>water on the rocks<\/em> alludes to the sober attention needed to recognize that water and ice (<em>on the rocks) <\/em>are fundamentally the same stuff, just in a different form.\u00a0 <em>Having strung out<\/em>\/<em>Countless improbable moments<\/em>\/<em>A mist<\/em>\/<em>An impossible life<\/em>\/<em>Beyond contemplation<\/em>.\u00a0 When faced with conundrums and uncertainties, there is a common tendency to hear beguiling Sirens and throw ourselves against the rocks.\u00a0 Sober minds recognize this as <em>A mist<\/em>\/<em>An impossible life<\/em>\/<em>Beyond contemplation<\/em>\/<em>Not getting bent\/<\/em><em>On 100% proof.\u00a0 <\/em>In embodying an attitude of gratitude and selflessness connected to the One, one can <em>quiet the mine<\/em>\/<em>A sentience unabridged<\/em>\/<em>Having awe ready arrived<\/em>\/<em>A slow motion ninja<\/em>\/<em>Only to be<\/em>\/<em>In what will be<\/em>\/<em>Carried away<\/em><br \/>\n<em>In eternity.\u00a0 <\/em>May it be so.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Taoist dowager Bends gently to that before her Inclined to bless Those below Indivisible To the high and mighty Wholly touched Braille beyond the see Maid of tender harmonies Composed Of one, a chord The maladies of life joyfully &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/poem-taoist-dowager\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[775,355,353,294,400,554,25,167,335,516,385,363,555,401,411,428,115,608,65,263,255,117,446,559,202,579,359,86,438,548,552,379,448,323,387,354,477,658,94,491,316,601,224,517,648,320,529,487,429,514,389],"class_list":["post-1693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-alienation","tag-atheist","tag-attitude","tag-awe","tag-balance","tag-buddhist","tag-christian","tag-consciousness","tag-conundrum","tag-culture","tag-death","tag-denial","tag-enlightenment","tag-equality","tag-existential","tag-experience","tag-freedom","tag-gift","tag-god","tag-grace","tag-gratitude","tag-greed","tag-harmony","tag-history","tag-holy","tag-image","tag-life","tag-metaphors","tag-mind","tag-modern","tag-muse","tag-nature","tag-ode","tag-opposites","tag-patience","tag-perspective","tag-philosophy","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-present","tag-rationalization","tag-reality","tag-sartre","tag-selfish","tag-selfless","tag-tao","tag-time","tag-universe","tag-virtue","tag-vulnerability","tag-wisdom"],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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