dao de jing 15

of old she who is well versed in the way

is minutely subtle, mysteriously comprehending

and too profound to be known

it's because she can't be known 

that she can only be given a makeshift description

tentative, as if fording a river in winter

hesitant, as if in fear of her neighbours

formal like a guest

falling apart like thawing ice

thick like the uncarved block

vacant like a valley

murky like muddy water

who can be muddy and yet, settling, slowly become limpid?

who can be at rest and yet, stirring, slowly come to life?

she who holds fast to this way desires not to be full

it's because she's not full that she can be worn and yet newly made

dear fifteens,

the one of the way is many, shapeshifters and polynumbers and drainings, remotely solid

in an age of the shiny and new the ones of the way are old and worn, babies of knowing

in the ascendancy of the regulated and defined and the balancing ascendancy of their transgressions morphing far from dictionaries and violation and law

they're like neglected nature, guardians of some vital unacceptability, otiose spirits of fens and ferns, barristers of water and disasters of human recognition, naïve and ironic forms of incomprehension, wandering in the eternal discards and at home in the anarchic orbits of unsigned voids

in relation to society they're unfamiliar formal hesitant weird. almost exiled (except there's no place left to be cast out)

humanity lives far from the river and the valley, often seeking expensive counsel and humiliating chutes to try to escape to the concrete steppes from those nameless darknesses, entering the neon culture of our collective and planet-wrapping desiccated dreams. for the river's stagnant and manic and the valley depressed, and the wayversed ones breaking down and fragments are their name. but one doesn't escape. for we're made of valleys and rivers, regardless of how much we've polluted them, and who can escape oneself?

holding tightly to air and water, desiring eclipsing and outcasting - unclear ragged used partial misunderstood unknown : no adjective one's taught to admire

what does it mean to be well versed in the way? where do i go to school for this? who are the mentors and what the urls that can sell me makeshift descriptions? which books can instruct me and who are the names that can guide the seeking in minute subtlety? what are the techniques for learning to simulate fear of my neighbours and how can i get a masters in the desire to fall apart? when's the optimum time to settle or stir and what the indicators and algorithms to encourage maximum efficient and timely movement between the two? why must i muddy and clarify slowly and cant i go faster and how do i distinguish among murkiness and limpidity? i must download the dao app to make me verse well in the wu wei way and to get sage points for achieving milestones in my mission. to enrol then in an ivy workshop that'll help me understand the matrices and trends and apply them to my life goals and specialties

where's nature in all the fences? where's the way in all the protocol and rites? are the ones hiding, like the animals and god? do they tend a fading distant fire like a character not written into a littered book?

my life hasn't been full, hasn't been empty. i don't know what to write in my biography - what's happened is more of an avoiding, a detouring around, a doubt and dullness, an accumulating silent striving to escape the nightmare of biography and the gaol of genealogy. any résumé i can conjure qualifies me for nothing but an awareness of trees and trees as we know are mean old things  laughing at our callow ways  just sitting back as they are  doing nothing  watching us destroy our home like drugged lunatics