It was the end of December 1994 when I wrote the below entry Lessons to be learned along the Way. I had been looking for a new job for several months and still lived in Fall River. I felt I was not only in transition job wise, but my writing was taking me to someplace as yet undefined with no outcome in sight. Not simply a transition but a transformation. I was about to leave the place I thought I was destined for in southern Massachusetts. Taking a journey of the spirit that had destinations unknown to me at the time, although that didn’t seem to matter. As though all the elements coming forward now as rain conveying that the telling of the story is long overdue.
Following dragons. My writing not something abstract outside myself, but what was coming through me from sources identifying themselves as sages, the dragons of ancient China who wanted to speak through me to convey their story. Something I had begun at the end of the I Ching earlier in the year. The book that was later published in China in 2004. That the story I was to tell was to be life-changing and confirm that who I thought I was was not who I am at all. That all this was not simply having a vivid imagination. That I was here to speak for and to something that would take a lifetime to fully understand that was to never be harmful to myself or others. As a never-ending story meant to ring through eternity along with others…
Why updating in this commentary becomes so important. To tell and revive the story you must become and relive the story. For more than thirty years now I have with memories to be updated along with new stories to tell. That it is not where you are but who you are that matters. With circumstances at times out of our control taking us to places where only our virtue can lead us to safety. With our endeavors and destiny seemingly an allusion to be tied to history, the times and our talents. Forgetting ourselves as we become perfect for the moment.
A commentary that inspires us and others to see and act beyond what we think we already know as we continually move beyond the present to who we have always been and are yet to become. To what becomes a paradox for so many. Another Introduction comes to mind from “Dancing with Chi” in the I Ching that we have already covered. Chi is to be seen as our breath and connection to eternal spirit… written back in February earlier in 1994:
Dancing with Chi
Everything that ever was everything now and that ever will be is within you now to find. All that there ever was to know or that there will be to know is within you to find.
You have been everywhere there has been to see, have seen all that there is to see and, in the future, will see all that there ever will be to see.
You are not a know-it-all. But you know all that there is to know. Simply come to know yourself and remember what you have forgotten. Simply to find again, again and again. 2/6/94
My Travels with Lieh Tzu / Interpolations along the Way
Introduction – Your Writing becomes You
6. Lessons to be learned along the Way
There is no reason to leave, just as there is no reason to stay. Only your own footsteps to be found along the Way. Finding yourself is like keeping time to the ever-changing music of life that only you can hear.
Forever losing attachments.
Forever creating tests only for yourself that must be followed to the end. To remain simply as one with the universe. Following the way of dragons and the cosmos, the only thing forever present. Taking the path that leads the way. All outcomes and things possible. With nothing ever really lost or gained, everything in the end was the same.
The journey never‑ending with change the only order of the day. As situations come to the forefront, they arrive only to teach today’s lesson. The wheel of life is constantly turning. Its only purpose is to bring us closer to true understanding.
Coming in together going out together. Keeping only to your eternal rhythm and the oneness found in finding your inner chi.
Remaining simply as a clear pool and seeing the reflection as yourself. In the end, whether you go, or stay is not as important as the lessons you have learned along the way.
Keep your head in the clouds as Cloud Dancing and your feet firmly on the ground as one tending to nature and your garden.
Stay only on the road to greater understanding and the decisions to come will follow as only they can. Remaining unattached as you begin again by finding your own footsteps along the Way. 12/30/94
Number six of one hundred fifty-eight entries.
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