Of many questions never
answered      I return
to give the questions up and
she may take them
if she will   or laugh
that I am bothered
by them.      Love if anything
is practical.
Her wildest ecstasy is
common sense.

Theodore Enslin

Hips, sacrum, pelvis, the whole complex, must relax before any real energetic connexion can be made with the Earth. Any attempt to use force (muscle) to tuck the bum in will result in disconnexion. Everything must relax into place. Once the root is established energy is mobilized by sinking the root. The waist then follows this movement by turning. The body follows the energy – feels as though it is playing catch-up. It also feels taut and infused, despite the relaxation.

Enlightenment

What we need most, we learn from the menial tasks:
the novice raking sand in Buddhist texts,
or sweeping leaves, his hands chilled to the bone,
while understanding hovers out of reach;
the changeling in a folk tale, chopping logs,
poised at the dizzy edge of transformation;

and everything they do is gravity:
swaying above the darkness of the well
to haul the bucket in; guiding the broom;
finding the body’s kinship with the earth
beneath their feet, the lattice of a world
where nothing turns or stands outside the whole;

and when the insight comes, they carry on
with what’s at hand: the gravel path; the fire;
knowing the soul is no more difficult
than water, or the fig tree by the well
that stood for decades, barren and inert,
till every branch was answered in the stars.



John Burnside

Venus

harboring tons with little to say stretched
on wooden models and tapiocas of time
till soon I shut my door and start to grind

Clark Coolidge, from Counting On Planet Zero

Wonderful book this and well worth purchasing. Poetry as rich as Nature intended.

Freedom

At Tel Aviv airport yesterday afternoon, awaiting my flight to London, I noticed an Israeli gentleman with a large expensive looking video camera, filming various scenes. Roneet and I were ordering ourselves a couple of fruit smoothies when he came over, heard my accent and asked if I was English. I replied that I was, at which he immediately held up his camera, pointed it at me, started rolling and said – Say something about William Blake. Not one to miss the chance of appearing on camera I supressed my initial irritation and warbled on for a few minutes about the great man, ending by saying that what made Blake the first Romantic was that he saw the damage the Industrial Revolution was doing to England and the English (workers), and realized that the grime of industrialization was really just symbolic of the grime of self and conditioning – i.e. his vision & poetry has spiritual depth. The man with the camera thanked me, but then held up the camera again and said – Now say something about the Industrial Revolution. When that was over I was ordered to comment also on the Arts & Crafts movement. When he finally stopped rolling he introduced himself, apologized for his abruptness and told us that he was making a film about the British Mandate in Jerusalem, and asked us if we would like to hear about his own spiritual vision. I said Yes, because I like mad people. He told us that the soul is part of the Earth's energy, which we borrow whilst in corporeal form. It goes back to the Earth when we die (as does the body). Whereas the spirit comes from the stars, and wants desperately to return. The soul feels the spirit's unease (homesickness) and offers it various activities through the life to distract and occupy it. I thought this quite beautiful, even though it may be half-baked Kabbalah, for all I know.

In Tai Chi of course we relax to allow our energy into the Earth. In time this relaxation and bonding with the Earth, if it is done properly (for which one requires correct instruction from a qualified master), releases the spirit and allows it to fly to wherever it wants. We are essentially two creatures: an Earthbound one and a heavenly one. Contentment and happiness are achieved when we learn to release each completely from the other so that they can return home, whilst still residing within us.

This is what we call Freedom.

Visit to UK

I shall be flying to London on 27 July. Back here on 13 August.

Relaxation

Relaxation is the process by which we enter the world. That's how active it must be. It is an energizing process. It must operate from within and from without. We are familiar with the within – with releasing muscle tension to allow the body down and out, and with relaxing the mind so that it settles and finds peace, however transitory. But we must find the without, which requires making connexion – opening up so that the forces and presences around us are allowed to pull our structures: physical, emotional and energetic, whichever way they will. Tension happens when we resist these pulls, either out of ignorance (insensitivity) or because we are conditioned to make life more of a problem than it really is. In reality none of us can be mountains – completely and independently stable – and it is foolish to attempt to be. Rather the image of the sapling, rooted yet bending to even the gentlest breeze. The sapling doesn't pull away from the wind – it's nature means that it springs into the wind with a force equal to the one the wind gives it – the wind energizes it. What we must do is find a natural behaviour – one that doesn't rely on ideas or images – that allows us to be energized by the forces around us. What this requires first and foremost is integrity. Physical integrity: rooted with no breaks – no weaknesses where we might snap. Emotional integrity: an internal clarity and honesty that allows us to freely feel what we feel with no attempts to block or overide these feelings with either the body or the mind. Spiritual integrity: never losing sight of the main force in our life – the one thrusting or pulling us into an energetic and connected future.

Hardness is what comes between us.

walking thru woods
coming upon lilies
the past life
a lake
         haunting

Frank Samperi

Yielding

One thing we must all ask ourselves is “Has our yielding – our response to the other's energy and presence – become stylized, affected or habituated?” The usual image of the yielding individual, especially in the softer Tai Chi classes, is that of the shrinking violet: a sensitive soul meekly retreating, by moving back or aside and by collapsing the chest cavity, from energy devoid of spirit or power that probably wouldn't hurt a fly anyway. It is difficult to imagine a situation in which such softness/weakness would be in any way effective or useful, other than the artificial one created for the Tai Chi class. Such a practice is simply going to over-sensitize (weaken) an already over-sensitive individual, although it will probably also give them a feeling of self-worth within the school, especially if they are conforming to a standard set by bad practice within that school. If the energy coming towards you is of no threat then there is no need to yield – just take it in and enjoy it, and/or give the “attacker” a good slap to wake them up.

Another thing we must all ask ourselves is “Are we teaching our students anything that will be useful to them in situations other than the contrived ones we present them with in class?” Ultimately it is not how strong, or rooted, or soft you are that counts, it is how able and willing you are to engage with life. When the unknown beckons do you whole-heartedly throw yourself into it with no thought of self-preservation, or do you flinch, or worse still are you still asleep. Ultimately it is what we lose that counts, not what we gain. Naked before God and Creation.

The real plot was invisible
    everything possible

Susan Howe

Standing firm

The problem with labels like “sticking” and “yielding” is that they give the impression of actually doing something. “Sticking” really is just relaxing into the touch and into the connexion. Neither pulling away from the contact nor listening nervously with an artificially light touch. When you relax into the connexion then your energy streams into its core and root, and you become the connexion in the sense that the connexion becomes your frame of reference and everything else is experienced from its vantage point. The reason a quiet mind is necessary is because a noisy mind is constantly pulling us out of this energetic reality and into its own fearful and disconnected reality. Neither does “yielding” mean withdrawing the point of contact, either by turning or by going back. Withdrawal is retreat. Instead yielding simply means receiving energy without having one's balance or equilibrium compromised. To maintain balance one must effectively give as good as one gets, at each instant. It is not enough to be able to receive and then to give; they must go together. We must practice in such a way that the energy and pressure from the other person drives us into our place of power – coils our spring, so to speak – so that as they apply their energy/pressure they instantly feel it biting back into themselves. This instantaneousness is generated with a clear spirit and has nothing to do with aggression or applying your own energy – it is a fact of the clarity of the connexion, a clarity you can carry with you at all times if you so wish.

No cry is exultant enough
for my thanks, for my heart that flings open its hinges
and slants my ribs with light

Derek Walcott, from The Bounty


Thanks to Elberry for sending me this. For someone with a poetic sensibility, an image like this can change their life, or at least their day: an internal instruction.

Tel Aviv

Click image to enlarge, or here to really enlarge.

Poetry

Nice article on Shelley (the poet) in Saturday's Guardian, by Ann Wroe

But for him love was a revolution-weapon: the active principle, as strong as electro-magnetism and, he surmised, the same force, by which the universe worked and by which men would be perfected. The germ of that force - like the tiny, compacted light of the sun and the stars - lay deep in the heart of man.

When men and women faced their oppressors armed with light and love, rather than revenge, they would be unconquerable. And, however crushed by outward chains, they would be free.

Shelley's importance for us, now, is not merely that he is a political poet. It is that he is a transcendent spiritual poet. If our age does not want such a voice, if it prefers to bring him down to a more secular, acceptable and ordinary level, that is a reflection on us, not him. Despite all the advances of his own industrial age, as he wrote in 1821, "we want the creative faculty to imagine that which we know; we want the generous impulse to act that which we imagine; we want the poetry of life."

The complete article is in the Comments.