You Are The Fool

~ Tao Writer

B4C0A454-579E-47EC-B306-E76CD25BDF24I stumbled up three flights of narrow, wooden stairs before arriving at her door. It had at least six locks that I could see from the hallway but when I knocked, the door opened freely. Inside the tiny living room sat three elderly women each comfortable within her own world and my friend Jan. Each was waiting her turn and no one was speaking.

After swishing a couple of roaches (six legged) from the chair, I sat down next to Jan. She had convinced me earlier to come to Harlem for my birthday. She wanted to buy me a breakfast of waffles and fried chicken and receive a tarot reading from Ms. Milner for my present. I was 21. It was April 17, 1969.

“There are too many things going on in that head of yours,” Jan told me. “You need someone to help you sort it all out.”

Ms. Milner was an old Jamaican woman. She sat in a wooden chair behind a standard sized card table set up at the foot of her bed. Her dark leathered skin from years in the sun contained her aged face. Her fingers were long, narrow, and curved like the stairway. They perched upon the table’s edge with a deck of cards.

She slowly raised her head and stared toward me standing in the doorway. She wore a grand motherly stare but her youthful eyes, like those of a wondering child, lit her face fully. She invited me in and I sat down to what became the first unfolding of my life.

She must have sensed I was a nonbeliever. After all, I was a philosophy major. This mind was honed on questions and logic. Nothing about tarot was logical. I was only here to please my friend, Jan.

Then with a few simple turns of the cards laid out before me, she mapped my pain in life. She answered questions which have haunted me for years. Questions no one but me knew I thought. So I believed. She read my life like a storybook.

Over time she taught me the symbolism of the tarot. She cautioned me not to interpret anything from a place of fear when reading the cards. That the inverse of a card is not necessarily its opposite. To trust my heart over my mind. “The cards are simply a tool for connection,” she said.

I felt comfortable under her tutelage. My understanding of this life grew. My consciousness of the world expanded beyond the nutshell to which I had it restricted. Many times over her words echoed in my life.

During one of our last visits, I asked her, “Who am I?”

Without hesitation she answered. “You have the gift, my friend,” as she pulled a card from her deck and placed it into my hands. “You are ‘The Fool’ a soul in search of experience.”

That was the greatest compliment I have ever received. Those of you who know tarot will understand.

Go Wild And Bloom!

~ Tao Writer

B4C0A454-579E-47EC-B306-E76CD25BDF24The only thing I know for sure, absolutely without question, is that one day my physical body will cease to exist. I will die. It is a fate that awaits all living organisms at some point no matter how long science may extend our life span. It is one of only two traits common to all living organisms. The other is birth. Every living organism is borne into life, whether by cell division, duplication, or cell fertilization it does not matter. We come into life and we leave life. This is the process of existence.

Is there something between “the leaving and the coming?” An afterlife of some kind? Or is the process instantaneous? Our last breath in one life becomes the first of another. Or is this life now really all there is? I shared with you one after-life experience in Life’s Greatest Transition. Are there others?

From the view point of logic it would seem since the life experience of each organism is different, that the experience of death also might also be different for each organism. After the cessation of life from the physical entity do we continue to experience existence? I know the energy which is the core of this body continues based upon the laws of physics but does it experience its existence as me ever again?

As a philosopher, I have pondered the reason and my purpose for being here on this planet at this time ad infinitum. I don’t have an answer but I understand so much more. I believe my life is a gift but the magnitude of this gift is just beginning to be understood, appreciated, and accepted. We are each uniquely made. If we put our common features aside, there is no exact duplication of any life form as we know it—including clones. The chance that my exact combination of atoms will be duplicated again is unfathomable if not impossible. But in an infinite universe, is anything ever finite?

For the “Big Bang” to have occurred energy had to be created from nothingness or it had to have always existed. Take either side, it doesn’t matter. An implosions of energy or “black hole” is energy turning in on itself, returning to the nothingness from which it came. Similar to the process we call life and death. All that we physically experience in any way is merely energy expressing itself as a manifestation. I am a finite physical expression of an infinite energy.

“I am a finite physical expression of an infinite energy.” This at a root level is truly who I am. Who you are. We will only be expressed in this form once. It is an invitation to grow in wisdom, to go wild, and bloom! I could hold out for some afterlife but without consciousness it would just be eternal existence without form. Energy. Think of it as the space between everything else. The darkness of outer space. It’s there but you can’t define it except in terms of its physical manifestations — stars, planets, etc. This is the nature of what we call death. Energy existing without consciousness of itself and without manifestation. Upon death the body which is the physical manifestation of your energy ceases to exist.

So this life is your chance to experience the full rich consciousness of your manifestation in a physical body. Let your senses run wild. Smell, taste, touch. Be a witness to as much of life as you can absorb. Learn to listen to the quiet and to see life’s energy in everything. Love with a full and open heart.

Do these things before you die. Before you are six feet under… before your manifestation is reduced to ashes in a burial urn… before your physical body can no longer support the energy that is your life. Although some do, most of us will not receive a second chance.

So, Go Wild and Bloom!
Press Start Now

Does Life Get Better With Age?

~ Tao Writer

B4C0A454-579E-47EC-B306-E76CD25BDF24This is not something anyone can tell you or if they do, you probably won’t believe them, but I am going to atempt to tell you just the same. I am stubborn that way. In my 20’s, I thought I knew everything, and I did from my perspective as a twenty year old. I was the first in my family to graduate from college. I lived abroad, and I held a management position in Corporate America. Then in my 30’s I started climbing the corporate ladder at a fast track pace. My primary focus and measurement of success was how often I received a promotion. I lacked any true personal identity. My nickname in the neighborhood was Mr. IBM.

During my 40’s I started to ask the important questions concerning the quality of my life. What is important to me? Am I doing the work I want to do? Am I happy? I did not view this self examination as a “crisis.” No, it was an opportunity to switch gears in midstream if I so desired. I left the corporate world and stripped myself naked of the material abundance to which I had become accustomed. I sold the car, gave away the television, suits, skis, tennis rackets, and everything else which had become a symbol of the person who no longer existed. I decided to add back only those things which were necessary for my existence in the world. I traveled lightly without all the encumbrances which at one time seemed important and/or necessary. I sought a different way of being in the world.

As a result of the lessons learned during my 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s, I was now free to live my life any way I chose. Each segment of my life when examined individually has merit, but when explored in the totality of seventy years, it has purpose. I am supposed to be here. There is no doubt in my mind. I only know this due to having lived the life I have lived. I understand the value of life and I am grateful for the time I am allotted. I listen to the echoes of my own life and I am comfortable with my body. It is this body that endured the most changes over the years and I am grateful for its endurance, strength and good health. It, my body, survived a heart attack two years back giving additional years to love and reflect upon this life.

There was a time during my youth when the future was all I thought about. Today, in truth, I give it very little thought. For me, life gets better as I grow older because the innocent wonder of the child returns with age and blends with the wisdom gained through the experience of being alive. In the words of Ursula K Le Guin:

I’d like a poster showing two old people with stooped backs and arthritic hands and time-worn faces sitting talking, deep, deep in conversation. And the slogan would be “Old Age Is Not for the Young.”

It is true that youth is wasted on the young but we do not realize that truth until we get old enough to reflect back into our own life.

Race And Political Posturing

~ Tao Writer

B4C0A454-579E-47EC-B306-E76CD25BDF24Everybody’s scared for their ass. There aren’t too many people ready to die for racism. They’ll kill for racism but they won’t die for racism. — Florynce R. Kennedy

To write about the world, it is sometimes necessary for me to retreat from it, to place myself outside the daily conflicts of living on this planet. I view the world from a small dwelling three hundred yards from the South Pacific, from a room of my own, from the window in front of my writing table, I look out. Except for the occasional trip into town, if life doesn’t walk, fly, crawl or drive within this one hundred eighty degree perspective, for me, it does not happen. A narrow view of the world? Perhaps, but a focused view of the world in front of me. The only world that is important. A world where my life is in harmony, where all facets of my being work together in the creation of this existence I live. Unless, of course I happen to read the newspaper on line and learn of something outside of my world which causes my blood to boil to the point where I must confront it even if it lies outside the realm of my front window view.

The article responsible was an editorial in the New York Times by Charles M. Blow, The G.O.P.’s ‘Black People’ Platform. I found the serenity of my world blown apart once again by the ignorance of politicians on the subject of Black citizens of America.  The last time I took pen in hand around such atrocities was six years ago. A few of the quotations from Mr. Blow’s article are repeated below. Thank you Charles.

Rick Santorum, campaigning in Iowa, said,

I don’t want to make Black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.

Newton Leroy Gingrich in New Hampshire said, 

I’m prepared, if the N.A.A.C.P. invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.

An Open Letter To Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich

I doubt either of the you has even spoken to a Black person within the last sixty days let alone the last six years. And how is it possible for you to fix your mouths in such a way to say the stupid things you do and hope not to get caught? How quickly you back peddle on your own statements but it has all been recorded, dummies. The world knows exactly what you said. Politicians count on people not being tuned in or caring what they say and the truth is we don’t care what you say for the most part, you are politicians afterall, but that you are ignorant enough to tell lies is an outrage against our humanity and our intelligence. Not only as Black Americans but as Americans, period.

The G.O.P. before Trump and now under his shadow seems to have adopted the words of Joseph Goebbels,* a German Nazi politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 and one of Adolf Hitler‘s close associates and most devoted followers. He was known for his skills in public speaking and his deep, virulent antisemitism, who proclaimed:

Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it.

You rely on all Americans to have a short attention span because of the amount of information we are bombarded with on a daily basis but what about your attention spans. The economic, industrial and agriculture position of America was established on the backs of black slaves. Did you forget that Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich? Then expanded upon by cheap immigration labor. When labor fought back for suitable wages and working hours, America, land of the wealthy, sent jobs overseas where cheap labor was still possible. Each time that cheap labor force rebels, the jobs are moved to another country where cheap labor is readily available because of government restrictions against workers organizing, as in Indonesia.

But before either of you dare say another thing about Black people living on “somebody else’s money” or “satisfied with food stamps,” things neither of you know anything about. Before you spread more outrageous lies to the people of America, look at the facts available from your own government statistics office. The breakdown of welfare by race is:

Breakdown of AFDC, Aide to Families with Dependent Children, in US. White 38.8 percent, Black 39.8 percent, Hispanic 15.7 percent, Asian 2.4 percent, other 3.3 percent.

This information is from your own government accounting office but you still rather spread lies over truth and focus on a particular group for political clout. No wonder the American public has loss faith in Congress, the government, and the politicians who were elected to represent us. You don’t even take responsibility for the lies you spread and the biggest liar is Donald Trump. Racism is still alive and rampant in America today. Why don’t you talk about that? Start with yourselves and your president.

*Source Information Wikipedia.

O’ To Be Human

~ Tao Writer

B4C0A454-579E-47EC-B306-E76CD25BDF24I am not sure if my being human was a choice, an accident, or predetermined by fate but I am grateful in either case for the gift of life in this human form. I needed these years and experiences to understand why I am here. As much as I identify with aspects of the spiritual, being here now, is in fact all about the body. I was given this body so I might experience the sensations, the senses absent in the spiritual. In pure spirit no separation exists, so senses are unnecessary.

With this body, I can touch. I can share its healing power when needed, its softness when desired. I can feel the wind, the warmth of the sun. I can outline my lover’s body, touch and be touched.

With this body, I can smell. The red flowers of the pepper tree, made more fragrant by the rain, its scent of concentrated pepper filling my nostrils. The rich steamy clouds of spice tea floating around my room.

With this body, I can taste life in every morsel of food. Its sweetness, its saltiness, its bitterness. Every bud is capable of a thousand different sensations. I sample as many as I can.

With this body, I can hear the cries of “justice for all.” I can hear the voice on the radio singing of a “brighter day.” My lover’s deep tones when the sex is “moan out loud good.”

With this body, I can see the colors of a rainbow, the “bone white full moon.” The faces of other life. I can witness the emotions of being human, the expressions of pain, sorrow, and joy.

Beyond this body exists the unifying gel of all life, energy. No senses exist and the only sensation, although the term is inadequate, is that of essence, although there is no consciousness of this sensation. There is no other to be sensed. There is no memory, or recanting of lifetimes. No knowledge of experience. No memory of having lived.

There are those who will be remembered because of their impact upon humankind. They will be read about in history books as leaders, tyrants, explorers, humanitarians, but gone are those who remember them as son, daughter, father, mother, or friend.

All sensation, all senses are lost in the body’s death. The energy of the body continues to exist, but without form, without an individual identity. Life is a celebration of having lived in this human form and mourned as an ending of that existence. Only those who remember me will know that I had ever lived. Only they can bare witness to whether or not I changed the world or had any impact at all.

“So tell me, what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver

Moments

~ Tao Writer

FCF38573-2929-4C13-B491-12CD9E788FD0If I could master just one art,
it would be the art of letting go:
of people I have known and loved,
of places I’ve traveled to and lived
of sunsets and full moons I’ve witnessed.
I would let go of this moment
as quickly as it appears,
faster if I could.
I would let go of things I wished for and
especially those wishes which came true.
I’d carry nothing from this moment
into the next.
For each moment
would have but one life,
never preceded by a memory
never, ever, followed by a wish.

Loneliness And The Solitude Of Aging

~ Tao Writer

B4C0A454-579E-47EC-B306-E76CD25BDF24Solitude is a choice, but loneliness creeps into your life like a dark storm cloud releasing its thunder and lightening into the essence of one’s being. It feels like bombs exploding overhead while depression and self pity sprinkle down in an endless shower of gloomy days and nights without any relief. I can have many friends and still experience solitude but loneliness is the absence of friends and family with whom one can communicate. Loneliness makes everything and everyone invisible. Nothing else exists outside its self contained bubble.

I have often written about solitude in these pages and how it fulfills my need for creative and private time, but I have only experienced loneliness three times in my life. First when I lost Kathleen. That was the most miserable time of my existence. I did not want to cope with life, nor did I know how to cope with a condition I had never experienced before. I spent many days without ever getting out of bed. All the plans and dreams we created died with her in the river that afternoon. For the eighteen months of our relationship we were inseparable. After her death, I was lost.

Many individuals came to my support, even people I did not know but I was still alone. They offered condolences, support groups, and the names of grief counselors. Grief and loneliness, I learned are often companions. My mother asked me to turn to god but god had already forsaken me. These recommendations were all possible methods for getting out of the deep well of funk I found myself in, but the loneliness was too demanding. It had taken over my life like a disease. No helping hands or rope were long enough to reach me. This feeling of being totally alone in the world lasted for almost a year before I was able to surface and breathe again.

The second time I experienced loneliness was when both my parents died within a few months of one another. Although the loss was devastating, the loneliness was not as deep nor as severe as before. We know our parents will one day die, but there is no way to prepare. The loneliness this time was different. It was centered on the realization that the number of people who have known me all my life was dwindling. The only living person remaining who had known me all my life was a brother with whom I have no connection other than blood.

The loneliness was short lived, maybe one or two months following my mother’s death. She had always been the rock of the family. She was the one I knew I could always turn to to sort out my confusion. I now had no one I could call at anytime of the day or night. There was no longer her voice of comfort, but she had prepared me for life as best she could. The lessons she taught me and my previous experience were what got me through this second period of loneliness.

And my third encounter with loneliness is right now. This current period of loneliness is different from the previous two in as much as there is no grief involved except for perhaps the grief over my own impending death if one can grieve for oneself. This loneliness is the loneliness of growing old and the ending of a blood line. The ending of the bloodline of my great grandfather’s name.

From a strictly biological perspective, our only true purpose in life is to reproduce our kind. Every life form on the planet does this during its allotted time between life and death. (Three days for the fruit fly, and some seventy odd years for humans) My brother and I both fulfilled that purpose. We both brought daughters into this world. The family name however will cease to exist when we are gone.

Until now I had never thought about this situation, but it does carry with it a certain weight of loneliness, although not the deep well of loss experienced after Kathleen’s death, nor the type of loneliness following the death of my parents. It is, however loneliness. It is the ending of my family’s history under my great-grandfather’s name.

My dear friend Karen recently shared her joy when the family welcomed their first male grandchild after five female grandchildren. As I read her announcement, the empty, hollow feeling of loneliness creeped into my being again. I realized the feeling almost immediately having experienced it twice before. Loneliness takes on many forms and appears on many different levels. I did not expect nor anticipate it would enter me in this manner.

For most of my life I have chosen solitude over the companionship of family and friends. I am, and have always been a loner. I have no regrets regarding this choice in my life.

The words of Albert Einstein perhaps describe my situation best.

I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or teamwork. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years. Such isolation is bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions and prejudices of others, and I am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shifting foundations.

A rather harsh reality but true of my life. As I age and approach my own death, I find more easily the solitude I fought to have in my youth. This is perhaps because I have fewer friends and family members left on this floating sphere to influence my life in any way. I am not sure why, but solitude has always been my choice. I find with aging it becomes almost a natural element of my life on its own. At the same time that solitude has become my norm, I find myself consciously working to keep loneliness at bay.