Public View

I was yet again struck recently by how the device of rhyming your words and following various complexes of intertwined meter, enables the preclusion of all longwinded explanation or justification of the notions you’re wanting to convey – you just say what you feel, because you know it’s real and the rhyming somehow seals the deal.

And the reason I stumble through this preamble, is because I’ve written a wee rhyme for you, which I wanted to keep from public view. It came on the tai chi deck, whence the vista above, as if from the inner master who was guiding my moves as I was dropping a chop and I just didn’t want to start it from the top, because I’m funny like that, so here it is.

Many ways to skin a cat,

Many angles you can set your hat,

All sorts of approaches to this or that,

You can make it dynamic or keep it flat,

But there’s just one thing you can’t deny:

When your head flies up high in the sky,

You may get something in your eye,

Which will make you stop and wonder why,

You didn’t stay grounded upon the earth,

That’s supported you since before your birth,

With the equator around its spinning girth,

Because the earth gives life its sense of worth.

It may seem too simple, Like squeezing a pimple,

Or being beguiled by a dimple,

But when you stay grounded,

It keeps life well-rounded.

These words are well-founded.

So cut yourself slack, Stop and relax.

Feel the next breath Shield you from death.

And be grateful and glad, Not shameful or sad.

This is your day come what may, To let go and play.

Whatever you say. It’s only you who stands in your way. OK?

I mean I’m not for a moment suggesting blowing off work – I’m just saying hold a bit back in reserve within, by drawing the mind back into centre brain and loosening up in your body (feel your hips) and let go and play with it all – have fun with it, no matter how irksome on the surface the task at hand – beneath all surfaces is the Tao, the invisible divine realm supporting all of this and by drawing your mind back into the central region of your brain, just on top of your upper brainstem and by desisting immediately from holding or inhibiting your breath, you give yourself access to the ‘angelic eye’, as Henry Miller called it and are able to play in the current (of the Great Movement). Sound sound? Sound and profound?

OK, stand easy. Have a magnificent day and night and may it see you recipient to an unprecedented influx of gifts from the universe.

With love, Doc