Wonderworks

Tao One, as translated by John Bright-Fey, refers to word without word as "Wonderworks" and this caused me to think of WordLayers and how it began and why. It came out of a dream to change my life from uncomfortable to joyous. I wrote words of the dream. I actualized Tao One by changing word to non-word and the result was exactly what I wanted as I watched it happen. I participated in the happening but it happened first -- this writing into non-word, this obtaining dream out of the colors of words. Imagine that. It happened and I lived it. I walked the path of the dreamer and lived exactly there, in back-word writing, until it was time to move on and I finally absorbed Wonderworks. Just absorbed it -- and all of me was me. I now write WordLayers as an art and take the prints to have them  beautifully matted and framed and each piece becomes its own within itself and all now hang on the walls of my home. And, in every room I walk through magic. This is what the Wordlayers.com site is all about and this just dawned on me today. I think there is really no time, we just live in this life and all is all at the same time. As Tao One reminds me, "one miracle talks to another in a language that you can feel but not understand."

What is possible

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness (George Santayana). And I think, "Oh here I am! Here I am again!" I can hold no more. As Jane Hirschfield's, This Was Once a Love Poem, shines up from an email newsletter I am reminded of an extraordinary poet who always catches my heart. Recently, I stumbled onto the work of Danny Gregory's illustrated journals which I immediately ordered in print so I could touch the lovely detailed  drawings. Here as I write are handouts and books from the class on Buddhism I am immersed in. A brochure from ARTS peeks out from under my Google tablet (a device which, btw, delivers too much of the good ---one book order at a time).  I'm exploring a new project which will become a companion piece to The Tao of WordLayers which I've been sharing with others the past several days. I feel that I cannot stop and want to do more play with colors and things of color but there is also laundry to do. I'll turn, for just two seconds, to the geraniums blooming in the south window as the sky prepares to open and rain down on the soot covered piles of February's snows. I am fully grateful for these moments.

Chapter 81

It is Tao 81 on my Tao blog! For years I have been studying the chapters of the Tao through various translations. Whenever, and this is the absolute truth, I was in crisis or trouble, the very chapter I was studying at the time gave me substance to dwell on in relation to my life happenings. The writings of the Tao are my stability. The many translations made this a fact a fulfillment of expectation. In 2001, I bought my first Tao translation, Stephen Mitchell, and began taking classes. Today, I have done two complete studies of the Tao. I think I'll take a break or try to read something else now that I have a pretty good foundation. I'm going to take classes in Buddhism at Unity Temple on the Plaza---this is where I first studied the Tao. Amazing.

Tao 77

Emerson: "I am born into the great universal mind.
I the imperfect, adore my own Perfect
I am somehow receptive of the great soul ---"

Tao of WordLayers

Today I hung the panel. The photo is cropped and the subject hard to capture with my smart phone. As I stand in front of it, it is quite luminous as the sun pushes shadows and light through the texture of muslin  and the colors of ink. Hundreds of words and layers of text blend outward in a tone that reminds me of stained glass.

Today it hangs on the right of two French doors and I'm trying to decide what next. . .to leave it as a hanging shade or to make a couple more and frame them into a 3-panel screen? I tripped across the perfect summary of what this process and project mean to me:

The image of finely spun filaments describes the quality of spiritual energy that pervades the bodymind of a resolute follower of the Tao. Chapter 31 commentary (Bright-Fey)

Hemming

During the stitching, pressing and pinning of the hem the song "Don't fence me in" kept singing in my head. It seemed clear that art on fabric requires no restrictions, no boundaries. Perhaps word on word and layer on layer presents a dance of sorts which calls for lose running stitches put in by hand rather then machine--a quieting of the progress of the process. The long running stitches, the handwork, the dance and the fresh summer breeze folded within the turns of the hem. It is playful to approach something that is logically unknowable.  (The photo to the right is the backside of the panel ready for hemming.)

Wonderwork

Isn't it odd that I thought I was finished with the design?  One thing I know for sure is that I don't control the process of creativity. This is tricky because the application of one more piece is permanent and if it isn't true to the design. . .blah. The art of WordLayers is always perfect because it is without expectation or definition. But design is completely different. Design can be ruined with one false step and usually the elegant solution is a clean slate. So I thought I was done but I was not and I added two more rectangles to the muslin panel that will become a hanging of some sort. The text of the last block was Chapter One of Bright-Fey's Tao:

the tao source of life that we often talk about is beyond the power of words and labels to define or enclose / while it is true that we employ words and labels to outline our experience they are not absolute and cannot define the absolute / when it all began there were no words or labels / these things were created out of the union of perception and perception / whether a person who is awake in play sees the heart of life or its surface manifestations is hardly important because they are exactly the same point in space and time . . . . if you feel as though you really need a name / then call it wonderwork / and watch one miracle talk to another / in a language that you can feel but not understand / it is playful to approach something that is logically unknowable

I play with these words over and over and over. Truly a wonderful experience. So now, the design is finished. Right?

Management of spirit

from Bright-Fey's translation of the Tao, Chapter 64:  "1. that which is  2. balanced     poised     equal  3. will be peaceful and at rest amidst the flow  4. the key is your spirit and its management"     How important are balance, poise and equality to my life, art and writing? In this chapter of the Tao the lesson is that I can manage these qualities by infusing "ever-increasing levels into life events as an exercise in shengong, or spirit building." Poise and balance and equal-ness are under my control. Nothing, no one person or thing can do it for me. No more excuses.

The Tao is the center of my life (chapter 62). Recently, I found myself on an examination table in the emergency room of our local hospital. It was like finding myself because I was acutely aware of the present moment and of answering "no" to a question about my religion. I don't go to a church nor do I belong to a religious organization. The nurse asked me twice with an "are you sure?" In that present moment while looking up into the fluorescent lighting I was aware that I had been badly injured and that I was awake. I was mindful of the Tao. . .having a mind full of Tao. Where would the years of study take me? The answer seemed to be to relax, watch and let the action move forward. There was nothing to cling to as they moved me to a rolling cart except to listen: "One, Two, Three, Move." And I was on a roll without doing a thing!

First Color

Like a stream I fell into a low place

FIRST COLOR I fell down a flight of stairs and knocked myself pretty crazy. I lost both words and art. This is the first of the art combined with a few words that seem to go with the chapter of the Tao I am studying while I wait for what I call sanity to return.

When a country obtains great
power,it becomes like the sea:

all streams run downward onto it.
http://taoway.blogspot.com

And prose depends on verse

(TaoBlog)A translation of the Tao that I like very much is by the Scottish poet, Charles A. Mackintosh (originally published in 1926 by the Theosophical Society in America). Here, Mackintosh presents the Tao as one unbroken whole—a poetic version that reads beginning to end in numbered verse. Verses 204 and 205 contain one of the sweetest grouping of words I have read in any Tao translation.

204
Thus everything in life depends
Upon its own reverse;
As enemies depend on friends,
And prose depends on verse.

205
And good on bad, as bad on good;
As courage rests on fear;
Only the rash and reckless could
Presume to interfere.

The day I read the above was a day I awoke in nightmare. An undefined fear stuck to my heart even as I poured a second cup of morning coffee. Truth sometimes appears smack in the middle of insignificant thought as "courage rests on fear" did for me. I had fear and I lived the day, anyway. I do not think this an unusual human phenomenon. It seems that life is a series of jumbled incidents that may make sense at the end of day as "prose depends on verse."

Wordless Things

While listening to Ludovico Einaudi at Midnight

There are no words for the Tao

No name, just Tao.

It is too expansive, too minute

to carry the cloak of identification.

For what do you have no words?

Write them down, these wordless things

these letters, colors, symbols and psalms.

You are the only one you know

the only you who can think

or dream for you or write for you

and define your word for you.