Catching Up....

[young_aragorn]

Much has happened since I last surfaced in the "cyber world." I became a Chief Instructor at Wilderness Quest when I went back this last November. I worked there for about four months, and learned a lot about leadership and finding my voice as one while being challenged at leading the group while I was in the field

Comments

my favorite writings, Tao te Ching

[cadencencascade]

(1)The spirit one can talk about is not the eternal spirit, and what you can name is not the eternal name. Nameless-Tao is the beginning of the heavens and the Earth. If you name it-it is no more than Matter.
Therefore: he who conceives of nature freely grasps this Spirit and he who strives for material things is left with only the shell. Spirit and matter are both one in their origin, yet different in appearance. This unity is a mystery-truly the mystery of all mysteries, the gate to all spirituality.

(20) Give up the Booklearning and you may win serenity. The difference between yes and certainty, how meaningless -but that between good and evil, how immeasurably great. The world venerates Booklearning, I can not participate. Perhaps this is limitless delusion. The people glory in their festivals, as if on top of a great tower. I alone am silent, as no message had reached me of there events, like a child that yet can not smile, deserted, homeless. They all overflow, I alone seem empty. O my foolish heart: I am confused. They appear unperturbed, I alone step in the dark. They appear exuberant, I alone am sad, sad as the sea. Torn apart like a vagrant. They are imbued with usefulness, Only I am clumsy like a peasant, I am different from them, Yet I am on my knees before Creative Nature.

(41) Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao,
earnestly carry it into practice. Scholars of the middle class, when
they have heard about it, seem now to keep it and now to lose it.
Scholars of the lowest class, when they have heard about it, laugh
greatly at it. If it were not (thus) laughed at, it would not be fit
to be the Tao.

Therefore the sentence-makers have thus expressed themselves:--

'The Tao, when brightest seen, seems light to lack;
Who progress in it makes, seems drawing back;
Its even way is like a rugged track.
Its highest virtue from the vale doth rise;
Its greatest beauty seems to offend the eyes;
And he has most whose lot the least supplies.
Its firmest virtue seems but poor and low;
Its solid truth seems change to undergo;
Its largest square doth yet no corner show
A vessel great, it is the slowest made;
Loud is its sound, but never word it said;
A semblance great, the shadow of a shade.'

The Tao is hidden, and has no name; but it is the Tao which is
skilful at imparting (to all things what they need) and making them
complete.