DoaD #17 - The Rhythm of Self-Conversation
I guess this is the perfect time for Episode 17 of Diary of a Daoist.
I'm currently in my favourite little hidden forest spot. It’s on the way from Richmond to Kingston in between a fork in the main roads. It’s this serene hidden forest. First found out about it when I was learning about Shinto, the way of kami, and I really really felt that here. I felt very connected to this place.
I was in no rush to get home so I hopped off the lime bike, and walked down the path. Doing some moving breathwork in a quiet spot with the last bits of the Sun poking through the trees. So serene. You can hear the cars in the background now but where I was before it was…..
poof….
… pure silence.
I don’t know what today's been about particularly. It’s almost a full moon, which is glorious, I feel like I wasn't as connected to the last full moon. I haven't seen the moon in a while and I've been missing Luna.
So much has changed, the more I’ve started to see this picture of how these different rhythms and energies that come from the luminaries work. The simple thing of; Okay, it’s a New Moon, our ancient ancestors used the moon to plant their plants and it worked out that on a new moon, you're planting your new seedlings. Then on a full moon, you'll begin to see those seedlings start to grow and sprout and flourish, and that should be the time that you're reflecting on those new creations. That's what I've been trying to do with this…..
[ambulance siren interlude]
That’s the beauty of living in not-a-mountain.
I have become a very distant person to the people who are close to me.
I've gone very, very far in terms of being a student in the rhythms of nature.
Even though I may call myself a Daoist it has nothing to it, it's not a religion (in the modern sense), it's simply about being sensitive to the energies and the rhythms of nature. The nature outside, like these lovely trees and the planets and the stars. But also, my nature within me. Those energies that exist outside (the planets) exist within (the chakras), I don't know enough about that to speak on any of it, but it works both ways.
As above
So below
There are energies within and without.
Truly, I just regurgitated that from something I've read before but I have started to feel it myself. The more I've gone down this path, the further away I feel from the people that I felt very close to not that long ago. It's a scary distance sometimes. But it’s also a relieving one that puts me in this space that I have no control over but complete control at the same time. It's not a control that I had before, that was a desperate need for control, it's an effortless holding and releasing of these different changes.
I tried for so long to ingest these things that I knew and find a way to enforce them on other people when they weren't ready. I'm now starting to see the repercussions and the flowers from these different seeds that I planted in myself and those around me. From simply being myself. Some are starting to understand their own way.
Because of what I absorbed a lot when I was younger I was made to believe that
Your Way is The Way
Our Way is THE WAY
you must listen to This Way,
it is Your Way as well.
So that is why I fell in love with these people who spoke of this thing called the Dao. There is this Great Way that is beyond any of our comprehension. It keeps nature in order in this perfectly imperfect balance. But there are also our own individual ways. Our own Dao’s, that we must walk ourselves and only I can know what my way is and only you can know yours.
For me, becoming more in tune with the larger heartbeat of the Earth, I've become more of a close friend to my own heartbeat and understanding where my rhythms are taking me. When I've been taken out of my heart for too long….
which is a weird thing to talk about because it's not a mental convincing of “Yeah, this is the right thing” Because you're hearing other people's past thoughts and words in your head going “yeah, you're doing the right thing.”….
It’s very subtle.
When these philosophers, I listened to before, would say it’s a wordless non-verbal communication I never quite got it. Because their words couldn't describe it. You can't. It’s something that cannot be taught or passed down. Whilst you can speak around it and guide people to find their own way. It really is down to how I can get closer to myself.
Become more sure of myself, and where I'm going, even when it feels like I have no clue. Some days I have complete certainty about my Dao. The purpose of my life. My mission. Why I was put here? Other days…. fucking …..my mind gets in there a bit too much and I forget about my breath and I'm lost in…. the rhythms of the city of…
tck tck tck tck tck tck
tck tck tck tck tck tck
tck tck tck tck tck tck
tck tck tck tck tck tck
tck tck tck tck tck tck
…. keep going
no rest
no trees
no breeze
keep going with those knees
and go go go
but no
Coz I know where that's got me before and it's not where I intend to keep going.
[breathing interlude]
Wow, I was completely lost in that conversation with myself. This is a weird, magical way of expressing. Every part of my being is regurgitating images from my childhood of films or the news of people who talk to themself …
INSANE
INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE
But now I'm seeing this is where the fucking power lies. If you can have the courage to talk to yourself and have a conversation with yourself ….who….the…. fuck….can…. stop you.
Like actually.
It’s hard. But even if everything fucks you, you always have yourself.
That's where the breath for me and the meditation, all these different things it doesn't matter what they are, it’s about getting to know my mind and becoming a better friend to my thoughts and vice versa. Helping my thoughts to be kinder to myself….. slowing down.
Becoming that mirror.
This is the power, the power to be, the power to create from nothing by simply having complete and utter belief in this lonely conversation. As I walk closer to the noise and back to the city, imma let you get back to yours. See you in the next one.
Peace
