Best Taoism Poems
We each and all have, I suspect,
a felt awareness
that patriotism
risks degenerating into fascism,
as loyalty
risks bullying.
Isolating nationalism
self-righteously defending weaponized caste supremacy
and patriarchal privilege of one's State
moving toward fear-mongered isolationism
supporting competitive polarization
predative politicization
of "self-made" capitalism
Rather than appreciating our solidarity
as anthropocentric nations resting and wrestling
and co-investing
on interdependent continents
articulating green/blue loyalty
to the Gaia Hypothesis of Win+Win integrity
of self+other governance
And no less self-identified sacred State
of Father Sun
or organic Tribe
of Mother Earth,
avoiding dissociative incontinence
whenever possible.
I was reading Lakoff's story
of what he learned at Berkeley
about international relations,
when I found my RightBrain offering further nuance;
not to deny what is here,
but to add what is also here,
but not explicitly stated,
about regenerative political health
and economic safety.
"The 'rational' approach to foreign policy was governed by a set of conceptual metaphors,
taken as simple common sense,
as [Both-And, not Either-Or] metaphors often are.
As a special case of An Institution
is a Person, [personification]
there was A Nation is a [monotheistic, monopolistic, monocultural] Person."
"In addition,
a common metaphor for [EitherPositive-OrNegative, 0-sum] rationality is used,
namely,
Rationality is the Maximization of Self [v Other]-Interest (or 'utility' [and 'integrity']),
which entails that it is 'irrational' [and unhealthy and unsafe] to act against one's self-interest[s].
These two metaphors are then combined to yield:
A [Healthy, Happy, Secure] Nation is a Rational [Either-Or, not Both-And] Actor."
"...we get as an entailment
the central thesis of the rational actor model
in international [interfamilial, intertribal, interspecies, inter-religious] relations:
Every [healthy] nation
acts rationally
to maximize its military [Yang] strength,
economic health,
and [Self v Other] political influence."
"Rationality,
on this conception,
is taken as
[Self v Other, 0-sum competitively] universal
and occurring at the level
of the [monotheistic-monocultural, monopolistic] state."
I feel so eviscerated.
Get over it.
Both-And co-empathic;
not either-or pathological.
You've still got all your caste-preserving potential
just more Both +1Self And -(-0)Other co-aligned.
Yes ma'am!
Who got out of bed on the wrong side today?
Don't even try it.
I'm going back to my "Political Mind" without you.
Doubtful.
And, if possible, dangerous.
You really aren't going to let me have the last word today are you?
I thought I was your last wordless wonder,
your wandering everything.
Angry words have fear-mongering consequences,
said rhetorical behaviorist Hillary,
then Kamala, to Donald,
we would no more peacefully
and compassionately select a Donald Trump as President
than we would bipartisan co-invest to win Donald Duck for Empire Builder.
Words mean things,
said linguistic behaviorist Anat
to her fellow Economist Collective,
and the absence of kind words means something too.
We're not sure what
but I place my bet
on more discommunicating eco-political
ego-apartisanship.
FatherSun enlightenment led toward EarthMother liquidity.
We know this from our indigenous history
of Yang/Yin Win/Win
environmental science books
but this is difficult to see
how exactly this could be
without sufficient silence to recall
what dipolar co-arising energies lie in wait
within this shared bilateral brilliance.
Fire and water,
progenitors of stardust
eco-empowering,
sacred ecologizing
fertile organic planets
birthing health moisturized wealthy regenerations.
To paraphrase bodhisattva Joanna Macy,
Co-invested communing economics
is not more wishful monopolistic thinking
(or messianic ideation).
Active political gathering verbs
enlightening sacred habitats
do not wait for renowned
divisive
drowned-out
dis-organic trauma issues
to be reverently resurrected
and religiously re-membered
by monoculturing Donald Ducks
or by some Anti-Other quacking
self-serving colonization
of patriarchal monotheistic
discommunicating misbehavior.
Active Hope wakes up in love-life's ecological
EarthMother baptismal beauty
wonder
fertile light and flowing power sabbath
on who's silently communing behalf
we can act in sacred light
for animated
organic
polyamorous co-empowerment.
To the responsible Hillaries, and Kamalas:
Follow positively cooperative light,
not so much darkly threatening
reactively monolithic
swampy miscommunication.
To the authoritarian Donalds:
Follow your competitively brilliant
SunFather responsive truth
with EarthMother beauty
loves polyculturing liquidity,
not so much your prized
monopolistic
and monotheistic
anthro-patriarchal
discommunicating fear and anger
military-industrialized pathologies.
All breathing
hearted
living sacred creations
are born of white light
and red power,
Of empowering transparent ecstasy
and vulnerably impassioned fire,
Of triumphant wind
radiantly communing spring tease
and slow burning
Earth-rooted
desire
To restore life-giving powers
of just-right lust for co-passions,
and to illuminate life/death
impassioned powers,
healthy white light polypathic
wealthy red powers co-empathic,
Born of illuminating sacred light
reborn of Taoist
NonZero Sum soul
empowering transparent ecstasy
and co-passioned fire
Yang white light
and Yintegral non-violent red fertile powers
ecofeminist conductive
inductive
seductive fired passions.
My stone home
is unchanged by rains.
My stone home
does not
rustle and ruffle in every breeze.
My stone home
won't ever fall to flame.
This is a saddening
for me.
For I won't see it change.
The valley is built with bamboo homes.
And thatchings.
And each will come to pass,
as things do.
But my stone home
won't see such change
in a span of time that
I will live to learn from.
My stone home
teaches too slowly
for this dim student.
And so, a cup of tea...
Flitting's like floating
only with
the least amount
and most
ineffectual
intention.
Intention
without
clarity
without
conviction
without
direction
without
without.
Each waft
a contravention.
Somersault of
summer
butterflies,
but better:
butterflits...
Plummer salts
of Winter,
snowfalls
but better:
snowflits...
Though flitting's
altogether fitting
if near-enough
to Surrender
is your kind of
Splendor.
I wonder
about wandering into sacred history
Back
remotely far
in collective memory
before humanity,
When EarthTribe regenerativity
was all compassionately gifted
divinity,
Panentheistically expressed
in ecofeminist panting Earth's
great rapturously gifted
economic ecology
of volcanic overflowing
and infilling relationships.
I wonder,
back before male religious cultures
and anthrosexual contagious climates,
were our elders' sensory
linguistically
meaningfully sacred prime ego-relationships
then LeftBrain purposely
separated from RightBrain deep meaning
In a precisely either/or
dissociative producer/consumer way
away from divine/humane companionship
as were sensuality
of morally healthy polycultures
democratically balancing
nonviolent co-governing
communication,
Long
long
before Earth's great wondrous turning,
before verbal dominance
when religious dogma
overcame spirited natural experience
felt like communioned
EarthTribe therapeutic reconnection
With all creatures here below
awake outside
riding on sacred Earth,
a land
and sea
of rich communications
enveloped in resonant
musical companionship.
I wonder
if all mammaling muses asked
invited
absorbed animally within
among each creaturely Other
inviting nonviolent hospitality
in healthy democratic return
of wealthy multiculturally reconnecting
sensual co-empathic
politically empowering communications
Of economically enlightened
panentheistic companions
celebrating co-empathic
real time polypathic gifts
Wondering
as we wander
into sacred polycultural
history
of healthy ecosystems
producing whole-sum gifts.
How might capitalism
and egocentric competitive allies
of patriarchalism
racism
sexism
monoculturalism
totalitarianism
binary double-standardism
anthropocentrism
remind us of which competitive communication weapons
develop further violently aggressive apartheid?
And which regenerate gratitude
for cooperative
co-passionate communication tools,
both verbal and non-verbal,
for growing multiculturally resilient social capital?
contextual rightbrain intuitively felt
both/and nuanced
dipolar co-arising left/right
bicameral intelligence.
Which of your green ecofeminist allies
share your active curiosity
and passion for issues
of healthy democratic empowering Trust?
universal,
so not divided or divisive,
unitarian
unable to passively accept
aborting tolerance,
or to explicitly intend
to collaborate with evil,
instead to comply
with win/win cooperative living systems
resiliently accommodating long-term health concerns
anticipated for our next seven regenerations
of social capital wealth.
Too often we become fascinated
with persuading our non-allies
how not only different
but more right we have become
in our old established
entrenched rightwing
v leftwing ways
perhaps because we cannot remember,
when ego's healthy survival
feels at heartless stake,
multiculturally depolarizing conversations
invite both/and responsiveness
more than either/or debate.
Critically nuanced thinking/feeling dialogue,
essential to non-violent communication resonance,
speaks of chosen people
only after deeply listening
for muted voices of non-privileged
disenfranchised species
without competitive capitalist privilege
derived from patriarchally historical
leftbrain dominant verbal minds
still actively curious
about rightbrain's integral tolerance
for being of underestimated value
becoming non-violent communicators
shunning retributive, punishing judgments
preferring to celebrate
with joyous win/win resistance
embracing compassion's great
healthy nonscorched Earth resilience
restoring green empowered peace
serenely blue surfing
seasoned light
of EarthMatriotic
revolutionary
revolving
evolving healthy resilient justice.
What could I say
to change this kindness
you may have warmly heard
but only coldly felt?
How might my peaked
and valleyed,
top and bottom,
out and in
prelude and postlude
father spawned and mother sacred
before and after
stories
speak to your ambivalent ear?
Without hearing too much impatience
and continuing to feel
nothing
Nothing urgent
passionate
empowering
to survive dark days
of quiet lonely severance?
Where EarthMother's womb
had promised dawning reverence.
Could I sing with sufficiently enlightened passion?
Should we dance to light's bilateral integrity
flowing out communion?
Curiously nurtured Tribal fashions
if Earth would repair Her dignity
through sacred kindness
we may have lightly touched
but never deeply felt
Integrity
resurrecting powers
of ego trauma
in dialogue with eco-therapy
Where Yang meets Yin,
Truth greets Beauty
Resonance
of healthy minds
trusts wealth of resilience
co-empathic
co-invested
co-operative
organic
peaked and valleyed
opportunistic spiritual minds
inside risky natural bodies.
Said flowing River
to glowing Mountain
What warms deepest
Thou cannot see
from sacred heights
of eternity
Robustly responds
growing Mountain Here
to deeply embedded River Now
What spills widest
shared compassion
Thou must deeply feel
to reconsider Integrity's warm
boundlessly reflective faces,
Earth bound graces
Said Father Sun's light
radiantly bright
when not in Mother Earth's
dualdark shadow night
Empowering shivered
quivered sacred passions.
My sacred ecologist within
re-cognizes Bucky Fuller's pre-millennial insight
What appears,
from a transcendent distance,
to be a static
entirely monocultural
universal Vertex,
A Black circular Whole
at New Moon midnight,
while circling outside
physical Earth nature
May also feel
like an ecstatic unitarian Vortex
from a co-empathic inside
panentheistic spirit
of complexly synergetic compassion
Especially when experiencing
a peak polycultural
mountain/crown-1.00% SunLight
valley/root-0.00% EarthPower
1 Prickly Here
enters co-invested Gooey 0 Now,
inserts the ghost of Alan Watts
conserving Red
nutritional economic AnthroPrivileged
LeftBrain precessive Vertex
reconnecting with Green
nurturing eco-polycultural EarthTribe
RightHemisphere recessive Vortex
BiCamerally polypathic,
binomially polymathic
throughout Full Moon
peak and valley surfing
in and out-side
In bodied HereSpace
and back out expiring NowTime
vortex/vertex
mind/body
metaphysical/physical
spirit/nature
immanent/transcendent
valley/peak
womanist/patristic
womb/phallic
0/1 iconic Peace Warriors,
ironic MusEcologists,
ionic Vertex/Vortex
Crown/Root Sage MetaPhysicists
in hypostatic triune reunion
Right-felt/Left-thought communion
EarthTribe reconnecting
under a Full Moon,
peak and valley
vertex and vortex
crown and root chakra
mind/body
compassion surfing
in solidarity
with the indigenous wisdom
of prickly Crown MotherTrees
nurturing gooey RootSystemic
co-infested peak communion experience
Empowering further orthopraxis
with BlackWhole root systemic compassion
EarthTribal
universal/unitarian
vertex-from above
and vortex-from within
panentheistic Integrity.
If to be
is to communicate
Perhaps
to be healthy
is to communicate
with deep listening
and nonviolent speaking
regenerative integrity
Both secular and sacred
natural and spiritual
multi-paradigmatically scientific
and inter-religiously philosophical
universal truths and unitarian trust
in bicamerally balanced sacred beauty
Faithful to mind and loving with body
ego and ecosystemic
rational-compassionate
Either/Or-Both/And
bipartisan
Taoist
NonDualist
Not-Not Zeroist
strength/flow
liberally loving/conserving caution
full/empty
space/time
bilateral-fractal
Bicameral-dialectic
mind/body redevelopment
within nutritional incoming
and fertile outgoing
organically active balance.
My favored Muse
mysteriously asks
muted
kinda sexist
win/lose
either/or
complex bilateral questions.
Oppositional
defiant
nearly despairing quests
exploring why I have yet to find
Faith
Hope
or delightful Joy
as names for a boy
Who might be named
willful Father William
or Pastor warlike Warren
or Patriarchal terrifying Terrence
or even red Deacon Fred's
bruising win/lose plots
against Reverend Bruce.
Vengeance is mine
says retributive justice
Preacher Justin
proclaiming blame
and shame
on monotheistic Religious Teacher
Shane.
Meanwhile
wise elderly EcoFeminists,
warming the pews
and cooperatively co-invested offering plates,
continue singing Joyful journey praises
Of Faith's passionate commitment
inside EarthMother's cathedral Grace
And Hope's sometimes unsisterly
yet sincere advocacy
for paper straws
to win EarthTribe's straining race
against ecocidal ocean polluting
patriarchal time
and desecrating capitalistic
commodifying space
Wherein my favored Muse
mysteriously asks
muted
musical
win/lose
either/or
complex bipartisan questions
of secular health care
and sacred safety shares,
music's dissonant glare,
bemusing bewares.
Spiritual springtime
invites Aunt April
Matriarchal May
Joyful June
While natural full-summered lust
and bustling Buster
fluster hot
sweaty
sometimes angry
idolatrously crusty August
oppression
suppression
repression
Negative impressions
of Winny's winter
wounded
advent womb
Emerging Tiffany's
annual Epiphany,
favoring ecofeminist Muse
mysteriously musing
kinda amusing
win/lose
either/or
complex bipartisan questions.
What is the main difference
and primary points of comparison
between being inductively seductive
and becoming deductively submissive?
Between being illusive
and becoming illusioned?
Between being deluded
and becoming delusional?
Between being precluded
and becoming included?
Between being illusory
and becoming luminated?
Between being enlightened
and becoming relit?
Between being permissive
and becoming remissive?
Between being empowered
and becoming more cooperatively repowered?
Between being in survival operation mode
and becoming out thrival co-operative means?
Seductively sexual,
like inductively sensory-neural,
is in the co-empathic eyes and ears,
nose and throat,
touch and feelings
of The Bolder Win/Win v Win/Lose Beholder.
Submissive,
like ecopolitically permissive,
co-operates short- through long-term
DominantYang/SubmissiveYintegrity
polypathic/polyphonic
verbally/non-verbally
win/win co-empathic communications.
Can a profoundly autonomous individual organism
be yintegrally submissive
without short- and long-term investments
in becoming eco-politically subservient?
Marginalized?
Enslaved?
Raped?
Imprisoned?
Punished?
Mere subjects of lose-economic benefits
and lose-ecological health Revenge?
EcoFeminist Dialogue,
more multiculturally astute
than AnthroPatriarchal Debate,
is also somehow more positively
permissively
democratically
trustingly
cooperatively deviant,
yintegrally recessive noticing
with active win/win curiosity
and hope
and passion
Recessed
yet reconnecting flow
between reductive and seductive
in-between active ecofeminist WorldView submissions
Top bicamerally polypathic/polyphonic
win/win dipolar co-arising
seductive dialogue,
more than bottomed out
reductive dismissive debate.
I sit
reading poems of Chinese sages
with their paintings of mountains and mist
from a thousand years ago.
Outside, snow falls like it did then,
and inside, I muse on it and the ways of the world
as they did too.
In between, the sights and sounds of today wash over me
like in a dream
in a place and as a person I am always
only just getting to know
never quite sure I can accept
or trust what they have to offer;
security and comfort,
while snow continues to fall
amid mountains cloaked in mist.
(1/4/2021, first published in my 5th book of poems and stories, EXTRACTING THE ESSENCE, 2021)