"The Tao that can be talked about is not the true Tao. That name that can be named is not the eternal Name. Everything in the universe comes out of Nothing. Nothing - the nameless is the beginning; while Heaven, the mother, is the creatrix of all things.

Follow the nothingness of the Tao and you can be like it, not needing anything, seeing the wonder and the root of everything. Even if you cannot grasp this nothingness you can still see something of the Tao in everything. These two are the same only called by different names and both are mysterious and wonderful.

All mysteries are Tao and Heaven is their mother: She is the gateway and the womb-door."

Chapter One
Tao Te Ching

 

Entry: February 1999

Whilst asleep I dreamed the eternal river of Tao washed me ashore. I lay stranded on a desolate and rocky beach between the silent sea and the stillness of black cliffs. Above me the sky was pale and deathly still. Not a gull in site. No wind nor wave. I stood up and began walking in what I judged to be an easterly direction. Just around the bend of a cliff I caught site of a feint lightening on the horizon across the deep grey ocean and I felt a powerful presence approaching me from across infinite space. I immediately sat on a flat rock nearby and watched as the horizon began to turn pink, then fade into pale blue in an arched crescent. As the fiery red glow of the sun broke free from the sea, waves began crashing on the rocks around me. The air errupted in the sound of wind and wave and far above me I saw gulls wing their way across the shoreline and dive into the water for fish. I awoke with a deep sense of peace and joy that morning, for I had experienced the majesty of nature - the magic that is Dao.

How simple and uncomplicated. We have walked so many paths in the hope of finding enlightenment and in the course of centuries we humans have devised so many complicated techniques for gaining realisations. Almost always our contrived methods have been designed to lead us further and further away from nature toward a dimly conceived non-material realm of divine bliss. Is it any wonder then that our religious institutions have and do encourage division and seperatism? Jew against Moslem, Moslem against Christian and Christian against Christian and non-Christian alike?! Even man against nature and Witch against Witch!!!

This belief in the divisive duality of spirit and matter is a subtle but powerful illusion. In human understanding, it has become the greatest lie, for experience will show that everything is part of Tao.

"...All mysteries are Tao and Heaven is their mother: She is the gateway and the womb-door."

On a metaphysical level, matter is imbued with spirit, for it is through the action of matter that spirit may express itself in the physical realm we call planet Earth. In practice, a Witch may precipitate the physical manifestation of a visualised desire through the action of their Will, yet practically, everything - matter, action, manifestation, desire, Will, thought and identity may scientifically be reduced to the movement of random atomic particles, the cauldron's brew of 'energy'. Whilst the first brewer Herself remains Pure and Unveiled, the substance of Her cauldron we know was birthed from errupting stellar gas.

"Everything is part of the great and eternally moving Tao."

We are indeed part of a way constantly dawning. Witches place their trust in Nature, the supreme gateway to Heaven, but it is not a heaven of seperation and isolation, but rather one of harmonious communion and constant renewal of Her own Being. We embrace Her wisdom and learn to live in harmony with Her ever-shifting, constantly renewing mortal form.

And so the ancients likened Tao to a river which is always true to its own nature, which will plunge without fear as a waterfall, will cleanse and revive all it touches, and which always seeks the humble lower ground.

Footnote

Lao Tzu, meaning the Old Master, is reputed to have lived in the fifth century B.C.E. and much like the Tao he demonstrated, he has come to assume an almost mythic status. Of all the religious texts of ancient China, the Tao Te Ching was never as popular amongst ordinary believers. Unlike the earlier Taoist classics Chuang Tzu and Lieh Tzu, the Tao Te Ching lacks both humour and the story-telling element of the former two. It is doubted whether Lao Tzu ever wrote the text of the Tao Te himself, though he is reputed to have been its original author in legend. ' Lao Tzu practised the Way (Dao) and the Virtue (De) and his teachings sought to dispel the self. He lived in Chou for a long time, but seeing its corruption, he departed. Upon reaching the Pass, the Keeper who lived there was delighted to see him and asked him, "As you are just about to leave this world behind you, would you, for my sake, write a book of your thoughts?" In response to this, Lao Tzu wrote a book of two sections, laying out the Way and the Virtue in some five thousand characters, and then departed. He was never seen again and no-one knew where he went.'

The Tao Te Ching encompasses texts which were collected over hundreds of years and in essence depicts a cosmological view of the universe in which Tao is represented as the originator of the Origin, as the Path, and as the person running on the Path. Ching (Jing) is a title given to any book considered a classic.

 

RETURN TO PENTON'S ARCHIVE INDEX • BROWSE TO THE NEXT PAGE

PENTON
Exploring Pagan Paths