Here we are today, with the sun and chill, hanging out in all the finery of life.
Sometimes when beauty hits the eye it’s too difficult to list the trials of dealing. Just emerse. Just breathe.
From thoughts within a life where unlikely connections and rumminations occur, and odd readings mark sleepless nights. Why not thoughts of war? Why not Sun Tzu?
With my reread of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, I was struck by the connection to the war in Viet Nam, and of how it was likely we lost because of it. In the book, Sun Tzu instructs the army which is forced to defend—as the other, more powerful army, is stronger. And that instruction is clear: go deep underground. And that’s what the Viet Cong did. American soldiers complained loudly about the tunnels the Cong built, hiding, running, attacking, all of it a surprise for which there was no possible preparation. Our enemy was too deeply entrenched in an underground network.
Also, we did not stand much of a chance as we were the enemy who “did not know the Tao.” I say this as a translation, considering the references to the Tao as more symbolic than literal today. We can know the Tao if we live our lives as a moral beings, following Truth. Certainly our path of destruction with the murder of whole villages, women and children, bloodied the earth and our hands in the destruction of the Tao, hence we did not “know the Tao.” We were doomed, on this plane and on the other.
Perhaps then, the enemy read the Art of War, while the U.S. Generals, thinking themselves far superior, read the journals of modern warfare. Again, in a warning from Sun Tzu, we did not know our enemy. If we had, might it have come to a different end? Of course we cannot know. We can only speculate.
But I do know that—if I were the leader of an army—I would read the Art of War attributed to Sun Tzu.
When wars are a matter of survival, who will win?
With what’s happening these days it’s difficult to encircle or plot a steady course ahead. Sometimes it’s just plain too much to read the same things, to hear the same things, the news, the critiques, the comedy, the very essence of our world. Sometimes it’s just too much to bear when football and reading and films only allow momentary escapes. Sometimes reality pushes us in other directions, other retreats, other vistas for hope, and the desire for the Spirit.
So. I used to have and now just bought some Runes and a set of Tarot Cards and book. I found the same book and set for the runes, but couldn’t find the right book for the tarot. I did get the Rider Waite set, but the book is a revision. As with all revisions, it’s not quite the same. Of course I went about trying to find my originals, to no avail. I doubt that I would have thrown them out but you never know. I do have my other persona who is quite unforgiving and strict, who tosses to cleanse as well as remove the unnecessary. *Humph* And then there are those pesky unpacked boxes yet remaining in the garage. Anyway, I—the more nostalgic or wanting-to-believe me, am left with what remains. Or doesn’t remain. Hence the new purchases.
And then, the synchronicity whispers itself in as I am in a more amenable place. This today:
Ah yes, the yearning for secret knowledge, the sacred connection. Not Religion, not a faith born of dogma or those lost Saints, but something else. Something from the past that knew without question, that took breath from the wind and made a euphony through the trees. Something unnamed and unnameable.
At my son’s funeral I left the velvet bag of his runes in his hands, and spilled out from that, the Odin Rune. That rune symbolizes The Unknowable, The Divine, the All-Father.
Blank is the end, blank the beginning.
I’ve just newly discovered Joy Harjo. This is about her and worth the read, even if just a skim through to the heart that will grab you.
Mi madre and Fritz were born on the same date, October 15. Though not the same year—Nietzsche sprang onto this earth in 1844.
And so, just a very small sampling from the most quotable of philosophers:
“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”
“The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.”
“A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
“We have art in order not to die of the truth.”
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”
And then, from me very own mum, Frances Varney Hansen:
“At this stage of the game…”
“Ach mit you!”
“Two heads are better than one, even if one is a cabbage head.”
“He’s wearing the high hat…”
“The problem with letting go and letting God is that, I always want to help.”
Writers Ink—Writing and Stuff 