DoaD #30 - Would you rather be a fish?
I almost forgot about you.
This is where my love goes, right now, into the 30th entry of Diary of a Daoist. Wow, number three zero. Almost ending exactly how I started, and beginning how it ended.
Today was a day.
The sun rose and the sunset.
Wow, so much happened and nothing at all.
Started the day nice and slow. Woke up without an alarm, what a blessing. Woke up to the freedom to do what I love, to manifest Venus properly, that came through making the first little zine of the first Diary of a Daoist Episode, penetrating wind. It looks gorgeous in my hand, it’s perfect.
It’s not finished. It’s not exactly how I know it will end up, but it’s a point in the process, and this physical thing is not what this is all about. It’s all about the process this continual change, this commitment to transformation and growth that I hold myself to. Pushing myself towards complete self expression in whatever form that may be.
Wow, here alone right in front of me, I have a beautifully painful poem that I wrote, and a little book that I made. What a magical, magical mind I have. I am so inspired, so fascinated and curious by what’s come before me and what is to come and who I am now.
Wow.
I’ve had the blessing of never being bored in my life.
Actually that’s a complete lie. Fuck ahaah. I definitely have, but not really, not to the extent that I’ve seen most people.
This wandering part of a Daoist that has settled so perfectly within me came through today. Walking to town to get some printer ink for this lovely printer I found for free. Whilst waiting for Harj, I sit myself down on a bench in the middle of Kingston, where the Deliveroo drivers normally sit. I have walked past, listening their Portuguese conversations and watching their Brazilian flags and desperately wanting to jump in, and join the conversation and feel accepted…
… but I can’t,
because that is not I.
But I am so desperately in need of eyes on I. That’s my Venus, my love nature. It comes through ideas, people, seeing my intellect and my worth and the value that I have through my mind. It was also made manifest today on that bench in the middle of town in my old ways of nothingness. Watching the chaos unfold, recognizing the hypersensitive kid that I still am, and not letting go of that and allowing it to be.
I see a curious looking man sat one bench across. So when the family in front moved away, I changed my seats and looked the other way down the streets. I just wait for the moment to spark up a conversation.
Hello, Mr. Man, what are your necklaces about?
What is that on your necklace?
Mr. Sir, Mr. Sea
I struggled to hear anything he said because of the distance between the benches and the noise of the town and the wind, but I nod along sincerely..
..and wait for the noise to settle, and the conversation continues. Before I know it I’m there for an hour, two hours talking about chaos magic, the 80s and artisanal zines, ephemera, Tibet, the Bardo journey. All these things that only a man who’s been through 60 or 70 trips around the Sun is able to have a conversation with me about his whole life and his learnings on this mystical journey, and I’m completely there with it. I am in the conversation, both of us see there’s nothing to force, there’s nothing to prove with each other. We both know exactly what this whole game is. We just smile and share our part. The magnet brought us there, within and without.
To then turn my neck to reveal the number eight. That sends him laughing as we talk more about numerology, and I turn back around and see Eva hit the window and I realize that that’s the Starbucks she works in. She’s on her break. Leaves me a nice little smile, and then gets back to it, and off I go back into that conversation with the Sea. When enough time passes, I go inside and say hello to these lovely new travelers I’ve come to see.
I give a bow to Sea, say goodbye and know that we’ll see each other again. There’s no need to connect because we already have, and if it’s meant to be we’ll be led back to each other. Then, going into Starbucks and having those conversations, was so nice, could never have been planned. This is exactly how I’ve always wanted it. None of this could have ever been planned. Me, writing, me, making books, me, writing poetry, me, meeting the love my life. Me, letting go, me, going to Brazil. Me, building a beautiful nomadic publishing house where artists alike can gather and share.
I could never have planned any of this. It’s the unseen thread, that little thread I’ve tugged at ever so decadently, ever so delicately and just followed the flow. That’s all its been. I’ve trusted this unseen path that I’ve stuck to. Having such clarity on my principles that I’ve never had to define, they’re just within me in my DNA, that’s kept me straight. Now, when I stray from that, I’m numbed and suppressed to such a high degree that when I’m out of that, that hypersensitivity that has been suppressed, goes into hyperdrive. Energy and vibrations are crazy. I cannot anymore, for my spiritual growth and development, put myself in situations that jar me, that go against the way of my heart, the way of my mind. I’m completely open to having any conversation with anyone that wanders along my path or I along theirs.
The ending of this uni story nears.
It’s nothing but sweet.
I’ll start how I wish to end and end how I wish to start with this poem that’s come straight from a bleeding heart. It comes after watching Patterson, a gorgeous film that unlocked a magical cry. I don’t cry a lot, but when I do, it’s a whole experience. Music or a film, to such a subtle degree seems to unlock something that isn’t always there. I have full body goosebumps and let go of all this stuff that I hold so tight. That’s what that film just did in that moment where Patterson meets the guy from Osaka, and they’re talking in Their poetic ways and all the unspoken words that I understand as a poet and from conversations I’ve had like that with these magical people we meet by accident. That moment where he walks off, and simply goes
ah
and then leaves
Ah, everything in this web threads beautifully together. Let’s read this before I get a little bit toooooo serious. Also, I need to sleep because I have a bookbinding workshop tomorrow, which I weirdly can’t sleep for. Don’t normally title My poems,
but Patterson did.
So here I go.
[kafufle interlude]
That was the poem. Nope that was me struggling to get past an anxious breath and trying to distract the mic and distract myself from reading this. But here goes. It’s called,
hands held:
Where does it all go?
The sweat from two palms once held so tight
now the wind blows between them
do fingertips miss the taste
Would your palm recognize mine
if we closed our eyes
again
and again
and again,
hands let go
for once,
it took a bus ride
the Pole was the clasp
its orange paint chips
left on my sleeve
I brush them off
without a second thought
The feeding hand
of the now feeding man
is left alone.
Once a clap
now, just a wave.
What’s the use
for all this noise
with
just
one
held
hand
…
Yeah,
would you rather be a fish?
haha hah ah
Peace
