1. The universe is full of movement.
Even the stars are made of boiling, agitated atoms.
And the space between stars
Is full of moving particles,
Outpouring and shooting every which way.

2. The man alone, who sits in his cave,
Is filled with a vision of light and emptiness.
But he�s cut himself off
From being aware
Of the trillions of blood cells
Racing to and fro like cars on freeways
Inside the megalopolis of his body
As it remains as
Still as Rodin�s �Thinker�.

3. There is movement inside of you
Even if you try not to move your body.
As you stand still
For the painter to represent
As a static form
Your blood circulates,
Your lungs expand and contract,
Your heart beats
And quarts of food are moved
Through your digestive tract.

4. Even so, your
Society values stability.
The strong man
Is rooted like a tree.
People see him as a pillar.
His mind never wavers.
His word is his bond,
And we all know
He stands for
What is
Rock solid.

5. In reality
Fire becomes the forest.
The singing bird
Becomes the archer�s target.
The great president becomes
The one assassinated.
The unquestioned idea becomes the one
Which is never proved wrong.
And we live in illusion,
Not trusting
The wisdom in our bodies.

6. There once came a prophet of social change.
He made people uneasy.
His body was always in motion.
His attention was like a yellow butterfly
Moving erratically above wide fields of
Green alfalfa under summer�s blaze of heat
Only occasionally settling down
Without fluttering its wings.

7. �The dominant social paradigm
Is antipathetic to nature,�
He said.
�We force young philosophers
To render their bodies
Stiff as statues.
Then we expect the schools to graduate
Fine creative minds in adults
Who are functioning at full potential.�
Then the prophet assumed the form of
The laughing Buddha
And his whole belly shook
Like a bowlfull of jelly
And he sounded even happier
Than Santa Claus.

8. Oh yes. And then
The truth hit him
And
He wept
Uncontrollably.

9. Ancient traditions persist
Century after century.
The prophet comes and
All the cultured people
Turn away from him.

10. The body�s truth,
Which is the
Universal truth of nature,
Isn�t what makes
The pillar stand.
And so every civilization
Has crumbled.
As every great mountain
Has been laid low
By the inexorable processes
Of natural law.

11. The destruction of culture isn�t inevitable.
The old cultures
Have only to dismantle
That wall of indifference to reality
Which elevates
The unquestionable ideas
So far above
The facts of life.

12. So go in search
Of what is in motion.
Watch the colored banner
Rippling and flapping
In the breeze.
Listen to poplars
Babbling in the warm wind.
Sit on a bank and sense the river flow.
See roses opening to the sun.
Listen to bees
Humming in the blossoming tree.
Feel the rhythm
In every dancing heart
And embrace the wisdom
Of the yellow butterfly.
Let every bit of nature
Register in your awareness.

13. When you have opened your eyes,
The error in society will be plain to see.
You will see children forced to be still
And learn to never move and never question.
You will see dynamic nature
Made over to fit the false idea
Of stasis.
Artificial decor, you will see,
Has replaced
Wild trees, wild flowers, and natural forms.

14. Even special breeds of plants and animals,
You will see,
Have become valuable
And over the centuries
The wild forms have been
Beaten back, burned, hacked to death,
Uprooted, and thrown
Into pits of oblivion.

15. Even so there have been prophets.
There have been wild men of change.
But culture goes on and on and on
Without realizing these were men of the universe.
These were men through whom all of nature
Spoke openly and freely.

16. Nature just is
Everything working together.
Work involves movement.
Movement involves change.
But written words,
Like bricks in place
Make a rigid structure,
A lifeless tower.
Like the Tower of Pisa,
It is destined to fall.
Men can shore it up,
And create the illusion
Of permanence.
But the glory is in
Truth,
The truth as prophesied.

17. Today
Billions of young people
Learn to sit still,
And forget their bodies�
Wisdom.
Each year trillions of dollars
Are being spent
On educating the young
The same old false idea.

18. The delusion
Is in rejecting
The body�s wisdom.
All the school lessons
Aren�t wasted.
But the error
Is in rejecting
Nature�s way,
And honoring some printed book
Full of unrealistic ideals
More than the yellow butterfly,
And erecting temples
To some human being
Whose lesson wasn�t
The Essential
Movement
Of bodies
Being in tune
With the universe.

19. The mind fosters imagination.
The human lets imagination produce images.
Once fixed in sound
Or in sight,
Or once fixed in art,
The human foible is to
Retain the remembered image.
But in nature each form
Is in flux.

20. So when a person is in tune with nature,
He embraces change,
And no idea is his pet
Or his ideal,
Except what is real and true.
His memory of fixed forms
Dissolves.

21. I have composed
Thousands of songs, poems, and
Other works
Just by being in tune
With my healthy, natural self.
But without a memory
I�m not a pillar of society.
Nor have I become
Converted to
Any organized faith.

22. I�m not even really an
Environmentalist or a
Deep ecologist.
I stay away from
Dogmatic statements
Or any eight-fold path
Which has to be
Memorized.
The best I can do is pursue
The paradigm of science
Which is test and change,
Change and test,
And observe, observe more,
Sense, feel, gauge, engage
And enrage others more
And more..

23. As a thinker and teacher,
I use my body to help others
Set themselves free to move and feel.
Movement helps you feel in tune
With the yellow butterfly.
Your attention shifts
And you begin to observe
From
New points of view.

24. You learn to flit
About in the library and explore
Many writers.
To express your thoughts and feelings
You flit around in art,
In music, and in writing.
You don�t become chained
To one post.
Like Walt Whitman
You become a rover.
You become a more
Empathetic soul.
The truth sets you free.

25. Every prophet has felt
Something was wrong in his culture.
To correct the error,
The prophet-to-be has had to wander.
Eventually the prophet has found a comfortable seat
Where people come and sit before him.
So you see how every prophet
Has failed to teach the core truth.
And the civilizations keep
On crumbling as they labor
To artificialize the
Natural world,
And turn all the natural children
To stone.
So more people are suffering today than ever.
And the same old effort
Produces more sorrow, sickness, and death.

26. These words are smoke
From a body that�s on fire.
You were conceived in
The same incendiary passion.
It�s just that the prophet has become
A thousand times
More creative than procreative.
What the prophets have created
Is all of culture.

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Articles

Song Cycles and Poems

Seminar Notes

� 1999

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