A Taoist reading list

 For anyone who is interested, I came across a good Taoist reading list today, so here it is:

https://daoists.co.uk/reading-list/

Books for an introduction to Taosim

A Short Form student asked a great question last month as to whether I could recommend any books or other resources that I felt were a good introduction to Taoism. At first I thought, 'that's easy'. But the more I look through what I have, the harder it is. By definition, 'The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao'. My feeling after over twenty years on this path is that only by doing and non-doing do we 'know' Tao, and that the Taoist arts are the main practices in which to know Tao, (for instance T'ai Chi, certain forms of poetry, calligraphy, ikebana, butoh, some kinds of improvisational music, etc). Anyone with 10 years sincere practice yielding to real pushes in pushing hands will know more in their bones of Tao than someone who has spent 10 years studying books. That said, here's a few books I like, I will add more this week as some are hidden in the shed and must be re-found. Most Taoist writings I love are very old, or by Liu-I-Ming from 17C, translated into English from the original Chinese by Thomas Cleary and only 'make any sense' after you already know in your body what they mean! If you have books or online resources you would like to recommend, please leave a comment or get in touch. 

All the Thomas Cleary translations of Taoist Classics texts for Shambala Editions: especially the Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu and as a great general intro to Taoism, the introduction the 'The Taoist I Ching' is perfect. 

Lieh Tzu translated by Wong, Shambala Editions.

I seem to remember Al Chung-Liang Huang's book 'Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain' on Tao and T'ai Chi being very approachable and good. It was the first book on T'ai Chi I read, given to me by my second T'ai Chi teacher in 1988. It left an impression, though I have not had a copy for over 25 yrs.

Penguin edition of Chuang Tzu is very good.

'Daoism Explained' by Hans Georg Moeller is great, just in no way a beginner's book, but it is full of insights and avoids the usual inappropriate western theocentric definitions of 'Heaven' amongst other important concepts. It also shears the superimposition of early 20th century Euro-centric psychoanalytic terminology onto the famous Chuang Tzu butterfly tale, and the chapter about this is worth the entry price alone.  

The books of Ursula K LeGuin contain superb rethinkings of worlds with Tao as a living major component of her imagined civilisations, especially: 'Always Coming Home', 'The Word for World is Forest', and 'The Telling', most of all. Sadly, LeGuin's own version of the Tao Te Ching is best avoided. Her deep understanding of Tao is best found in her fiction.

For a real beginner's beginners guide then the famous 'Tao of Pooh' and 'Te of Piglet' by Benjamin Hoff are actually really lovely. Funny, surprisingly deep, and nicely concise, these are worth a read, and fun to pass on to others who are wondering what you have been up to for two decades...

Happy New year to the T'ai Chi family

The bones of winter trees

A two cormorant day, always a good sign.

Happy New Year to all The T'ai Chi Centre and Great River students and friends. I hope 2019 is peaceful and creative for you. I look forward to being totally fit and well again, and seeing folks old an new at classes and workshops in 2019, we have lots of good things planned...

Here's a few more great books to recommend, not new to some of you, but all kept me amused, intrigued or afloat in 2018.

Women Who Run With The Wolves - Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony - Roberto Calasso

What It Is - Lynda Barry

Picture This - Lynda Barry

The Power - Naomi Alderman

Collected Poems - Jack Gilbert

The New Menopausal Years - Susun Weed (buy this for all your female friends and relatives over the age of 35, it should be issued automatically)

A Branch From The Lighting Tree - Martin Shaw

China's Green Religion - James Miller

Dark Mountain 13

Music: having returned to music in October 2017, I have been listening to great things, old and new, here's a few to check out if you don't know them. in no particular order, these have been tickling my ears all year...

Portico Quartet, First Aid Kit, Lisa Germano, Bill Callahan (Smog), Wild Oldham (in all his many guises), Arve Henriksen, The Album Leaf, Atoms For Peace, Bon Iver, Sufijan Stevens, Gavin Bryars, Dead Can Dance, Ida, Iron And Wine, James Yorkston, The Unthanks, Sigur Ros.

Films... none of note, and I haven't been to the cinema all year, strangely. 

TV: much good SF - Altered Carbon, The OA, Star Trek Discovery (yes, I know, but it's good!), The ABC Murders, Homecoming.

Good things: Guppyfriend bag now means my washing doesn't shed micro plastics into the marine environment. Get one...

Extinction Rebellion.

Greta Thunberg

Swans, more swans, cygnets, mandarin ducks....

Landy goes for a dangerous walk. I had to herd him back to the river, stopping the traffic.

But the main highlights of my year have been days spent in nature, time teaching wild materials, drawing and painting more than ever before, doing T'ai Chi outdoors with all you guys, and quiet peaceful time at home on my own or with friends or family. For all this, I am very grateful. More from me in the new Year. Time to drink coffee now...

We must risk delight. We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.

Jack Gilbert, US poet, d.2012.

Recent discovery for me. I just finished his superb Collected Poems, I recommend them.

Rock art

I have spent the weekend with the Dark Mountain crew in East Anglia, what a great bunch of people and what a meaningful project. I have written once and had visual art in issues three times. This time I was commissioned to make the cover. I got my copies yesterday, and am really happy with how it looks. There'll be a piece on the DM blog about it soon, and on my art website, but here's a sneak preview.

The work was made at a very large scale, on rocks in Portland, with Paleolithic materials, David lent me his camera, and this is a detail from one of three works. I have never drawn anything like it, before two days previously, when I dreamed these characters, and the one on the back cover, which I will show another time. It rained the next days after the work was made, they'll be entirely gone by now. More about all this when their new website launches.

The House of Belonging

Thanks to Anja for lending me 'The House of Belonging', a collection of poems by David Whyte. They are great. His website is also really good and full of his work.

Ursula LeGuin

I've just been told by a friend that Ursula LeGuin has died, aged 88. The closest thing I have to a hero, her writing, and example, have been a huge influence on me all my life, starting in my teens, and continuing to the present moment, (I was only reading one of her essays 'Cosmic Crone' the other day). On my shelf is the second of her Earthsea books, ready for a friend's young son. I have delayed giving it him as I planned to read it first... I even carved a yew-staff when I was 15, so that I could be like Ged, the wizard.

She was a superb mixture of feminist, Taoist and anarchist - ah, I hope I can walk just a few steps in that same oblique omnidirection. She was for me, both the epitome of a great artist and a real human being. It is time to reread the Hainish Cycle again, I think, and to finish the last few books I had not yet read. The BBC produced a great radio version of her award-winning 'The Left Hand of Darkness' a few years ago. Perhaps that will be available online again. Seek it out. A few recommendations for her books will follow from me, when the sad news is a little less new.

The Boy Who Stole Time

Mark Bowsher, who made the great short film for my Unbound page for The Illustrated Wake, has a book out himself and you can read about it here.

Wild Twins

I will be teaching a new course for artists and writers with Paul Kingsnorth next May called Wild Twins. It will take place on the wild Atlantic coast of Ireland at Sherkin Island, North Shore. There are places for 8 writers and 8 artists, and people of any level of practice are welcome to attend. We will be spending much time in wild nature as well as making all the materials we need to draw or write from scratch from natural materials. Get in touch if you are interested, as it will probably sell out quickly.

tiny paintings

I have spent the evening sorting pictures for this blog from the workshops of the last week or so both in Aberdeenshire and in Shetland. But it's very late, and some still need cropping so I will continue in the morning. This afternoon a parcel arrived and I was delighted to receive my copies of Dark Mountain 12 'Sanctum', a wonderful book which I have had the honour of illustrating, along with several others. I have made 10 tiny paintings using only natural materials, on deerskin parchment made by Thomas Keyes from creatures accidentally killed on the roads. More about the book, and the Sanctum project as a whole here.

The books are available here.

The incredible cover by Thomas Keyes

Persephone, one of the 10 windows I painted for the texts.

H is for Hawk

Thanks to Mary for recommending this beautiful programme about a woman training a goshawk. (Although "training" implies something very different from the process that unfolds: practising stillness and gradually developing a connection & communication with a non-human being).

It's available here on iplayer for another few weeks. The original book about training her previous hawk whilst living through a period of grief is well worth a read.

The Secret Books

I am heading out to a bookshop today to buy my classmate Marcel Theroux's new book 'The Secret Books'. Here's a great short interview with him about it, available for the next 6 days.

His last two books 'Strange Bodies' and the superb 'Far North' are two of my favourite novels of the millennium so far. Christmas gifts sorted: buy all three and get them signed at class...

Marcel's most recent 'Unreported World' aired this week on Channel 4 and is available on catch up.

Books

I am just prpearing my last things to take to the car for the workshop. I will bring my essential T'ai Chi and Taoist books for students to peruse at the venue during breaks. Since I sold all my non-essentilas last year, what's left are gems.

There are so many books I would still love to have, but it will have to wait until there is a surplus of both cash and shelf space. See you tonight for stepping partnerwork. 

The Illustrated Wake

It's been 12 years since I used to send emails out telling folks what I was up to. In those days it was gigs and records, and even though I sometimes miss playing live, I am very happy not to be sticking flyers in the post every week. However, since it's been over a decade I thought blog readers would not mind me writing this post about my first book of drawings for a new edition of Paul Kingsnorth's award winning book 'The Wake'.

I discovered 'The Wake' a couple of years ago and it remains one of the best novels I have ever read. Set in what is now East Anglia, in 1066, it follows Buccmaster and his crew of green men in their attempts to resist the Normans. This is woven in amongst a deep flow of ancient myth and old ways, all rendered in Paul's incredible 'shadow tongue', which when read aloud feels so much like 'Old English' but is its own unique creation. Anyone with and interest in history, English, or a fantastic story would love it. Paul is now with Faber, and his last book 'Beast' is also really great. Over the last 2 years I became friends with the author and he commissioned me to illustrate his book. I have used materials found in 1066 and made everything from scratch: the paints, inks, quills and brushes, leading to an entirely new way of working. I hope you will like the results. You can see some of this recent work at my drawing website www.carolineross.co.uk, which I finally got round to uploading after putting it off for 5 years!

Paul and I are crowdfunding the book with the award-winning publisher, Unbound. They are all about putting power back into the hands of readers. And that means it's up to you to decide if 'The Illustrated Wake' gets to be published. By pledging, you pre-order a beautiful, deluxe cloth bound full-colour illustrated 400pp book (much nicer than the version that will be available in the shops), which you'll also receive much sooner than it reaches the stores. You'll get unique rewards and an insight into the writing, drawing and publishing processes as well. Mark Rylance will write the intro, as he has optioned the book for a film with him as Buccmaster, and has read from it at The Edinburgh Festival.

There are two things you can do to be part of it:

1.Visit the book's page https://unbound.com/books/the-illustrated-wake Check out the great video, which shows my shadow-making-basket of materials, as well as me explaining the project on my boat on The Thames, and please do make a pledge if you can. It really doesn't take long to do it. All supporters get their name published in the back of the book, too; a tribute to all the great folks that helped make this book possible. If you use the offer code maywake before the end of May you'll get £10 off the standard hardback edition.

2. As you know, I don't use social media, apart from this blog. But it would be great if you want to share the book link above on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, your own personal networks, and with anyone who you think might be interested in reading such a book – this really helps to spread the word. I'd be so grateful if you gave your support to help make this book a reality.

If it's not your thing, then no worries. Hope you're having a good day...

Full steam ahead

This is the view from my studio...

I am very excited to say that we have just gone live with the bid to fund a new illustrated edition of Paul Kingsnorth's 'The Wake'. More details soon, but if you would like to have a look, go here:

https://unbound.com/books/the-illustrated-wake

Daoism Explained by Hans-Georg Moeller

I have just this minute finished reading this book and would like to recommend it  in this blog's ongoing book thread.

Despite the name, it is definitely not a primer for the beginner, (unless you are new to Taoism but an old hand with either Western or Buddhist philosophy.) However, if you are familiar with the parables and stories from the Chuang-Tzu and the verses of the Tao Te Ching, then you'll find lots of food for thought: reversals, deepenings and wonderful commentaries from later Taoists which I have not found elsewhere. 

I shall reread this in a couple of weeks and make a few more notes, sharing anything that subsequently makes any useful sense... For now post-its will suffice. It was a relief to read Moeller's clear presentation of Taoism's obvious non-humanism, and also the similarities and differences with Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism. His long chapter on the significance of the wheel with its empty hub as a symbol of Tao is excellent. Likewise, the section on the epitome of Taoist behaviour 'you' in Chinese: a sort of spontaneous rambling without a destination in one's natural habitat, was a joy. If you're interested, search online or in The Chuang Tzu for 'the happy fish'.

Wishing you all a peaceful weekend full of 'you-ing'.

Good things

I usually round up lots of the things I have enjoyed each year at Christmas. However, my broadband only just got fixed, and for the last 3 months the connection has been super slow, so I was averse to going online at all. It's now fixed. Here's the first go at a list of things I have enjoyed that I'd like to share. I'll fill it out during the next few days.

Arve Henriksen I have loved his music for years, particularly 'Chiaroscuro'. You can listen on Spotify.
Wendell Berry I am reading Paul Kingsnorth's anthology of his wonderful essays 'The World Ending Fire'. I have to keep stopping to put yet another post-it page marker in the book.
John Berger got me through art college without going mad. A wonderful thinker and writer, I have been delving back into his books since he died. I would recommend 'Ways of Seeing', 'Confabulations' and 'And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos'.
The TV and film work of Brit Marling, particularly 'The OA'.
Some select TV has been good: The Man In The High Castle S2, Falling Water, Mr Robot.
Benjamen Walker's Theory Of Everything. My favourite podcast. If you don't know it yet you have a treat ahead.
Radiolab is still good, but perhaps not quite as good as it once was.
Kate Bush still rules.

another letter

Below is another recent letter, edited for privacy and clarity, with my Zen friend. We, like many other Taoist, Buddhist and T'ai Chi folks, find the constant doing and interfering of ordinary behaviour to be unsatisfactory. In our own ways we seek to find a healthier, less frenetic relationship to the earth, the world and ourselves. Aspects of our continuing conversation are hopefully interesting to you T'ai Chi friends. In explaining many things that are said without words in T'ai Chi, I find I am clarifying for myself some of the subtle ways of our art, and how it relates to inner and outer life. If it's not of interest, don't worry. I hear there are other things to read on the web, and also many nice pictures of cats.

Hi B, I just found my notes from Alan Watts, quoted in a book I read last week from an Aberdeen writer Esther Woolfson: his take on wu wei was 'masterly inactivity' and also 'knowing when not to act'. Both of these are wonderful too and flesh-out the small list we have going here seemingly encompassed by the tiny diad 'wu wei'.

Regarding your recent email, whilst working on drawings the last few days I have also been thinking about the non-doing aspect of doing (if there can be such a thing). Excuse sketchiness of thoughts, as I am sort of working it out whilst writing...

My current feeling is that it is possible to make almost any work in either helpful / skilful or unhelpful / unskilful ways, and yet to the observer, no obvious difference would be visible. Using natural and much less harmful materials to make my drawings is certainly part of why I feel I can even draw just now, rather than filling the world with more stuff, however 'artistic' that stuff. It will be interesting over the next year to see how it seems to be leaving overt traces in the world again, as opposed to the momentary and transient air movements my T'ai Chi creates. Part of me has begun to think that no matter what folks do, it's all too much (too many people, individual actions somehow of no use on a macro level). This is purely on a population size basis, and yet it seems to be the only thing that most people do not wish to address, but truly the most over-arching thing on a planetary level. My 'natural' inclinations seem so much less important than this. So an aspect of me is inclined to stop doing anything, or just camp at some worthy protest against natural places that are being despoiled, for instance to oppose fracking here in the UK, and add my personal life force to the great non-doing - saving wilderness from anything more being done to it at all. I am sure that would be non-action in action... however, many have already been-there-done-that. What has been achieved? I am still under-read and under-informed about this.

On a personal level, even that could become another justification, another cog in the mental machination. This aspect of things is very hard to talk about with anyone who doesn't do some form of internal practice. From the outside, if one devoted one's life to a particular cause, everything could be impeccable, and someone would ask 'where's the problem? You're doing a good thing'. Yet one could know, deeply, that the same grasping tendencies or the same averse behaviour was underneath it all. It is certainly possible to do both meditation and T'ai Chi in unhealthy ways.

The Harari books 'Sapiens' and 'Homo Deus' have short circuited many of my glib words on following inner knowing and feeling, as I now learn that similar justifications are verbally given by the racist or the techno-futurists for why they do what they do. It is necessary to find a more rigorous way to speak of why I do what I do, or rather, why non-doing is so important. I do not yet quite have these words, and I need to work towards them. In T'ai Chi class, it's so clear why one might choose non-resistance: as the nature of the art means we get immediate physical feedback from the person we are working with. In conversation or writing it's so much harder. I can't just hit the reader and say 'see, it would be so much less painful if you'd have turned and yielded!' That would be an interesting book, though. 

Many people only think benefit comes from something having been done, from a medicine having been taken. They find it almost impossible to see if something has gone well because no-one did anything, or that they got better because they just waited a while. They don't have anything to point at, no-one to praise or blame. Most of my job is spending a few years with a person pointing out when they don't interfere with things and it goes really well. I  say 'Yes!' and they invariably say 'but I didn't do anything!'.  It's an art, like stalking some rare shy bird, to learn to recognise the feeling of non-doing. At first it's in retrospect only, by seeing the mess we get into by struggling, and the comparative calm when we don't. Later there is actually a flavour, or subtle feeling to it whilst it's taking place, but I am not yet able to put it into words. Maybe it should not be put into words. Actually, it definitely shouldn't be put into words, as that would make us think we had 'grasped' it...

And further, some people love a struggle, they love a fight, they love tension, they don't feel better when it's all calm. For them, drama is fun for it's own sake. Liu I Ming advises the Taoist to steer clear of folks like this, but what if they run most large countries? What if they're your boss?

For now, I feel we must live the lives we lead, make the art we make, and not dilute or undercut it in fear, that's for sure, as we are in many ways in a battle with an ingenious and ferocious opponent. Our stories will be co-opted, our language and imagery mined for effect or advertising and our very hearts sold back to us by the commercial web whether we had meant to commodify our unconscious or not. My first inkling is that we need to have conversations in groups, in private and not to report any of it online. [the irony of this sentence being included here is not lost on me...] Gatherings of actual people in real life, and conversations on the phone or in letters or by email will also be of use. I don't know where this would lead, but I agree with Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder that real community and in-person trustful relationships are the best way to create lasting beneficial change. 

In the T'ai Chi Classics, (which are basically re-writes of the Tao Te Ching for martial artists) it says a thing that jumps to mind right now: 'Don't enter the competition'.

Also my Grandmaster, when discussing the arguments raging in the T'ai Chi world (it's like every other world - literary, music, art...) said: 'It's just dogs barking'.

Yet if I step back completely, do I leave the world to the dogs? What is it to care and not to care?

People are 'like straw dogs to the sage', according to Lao Tzu. And as I romantically think of my friends on the river today feeding the swans, apparently, I am some way from being like this.

The Wisdom of Insecurity

Written in the 1951 yet sounding utterly contemporary, Alan Watt's classic is as helpful now as it's ever been. Finding it hard to live in anxious unsure times is nothing new. The pdf is widely available online, or you can buy a copy as it's still in print.

Busy with good things

You may be wondering where I have been, as I am rarely online and have missed a few classes...

I have been teaching a lot of 121s this year, which is a great joy. Do get in touch if you'd like one here by the river. Soon we'll be outside in the fresh air without getting chilly. There is always tea and a cosy fire if we do get cold.

Other work has included teaching introductions to T'ai Chi at various events and places of work, which has been interesting and rewarding.

I am in the middle of illustrating a new hardback edition of Paul Kingsnorth's 'The Wake' with the publishers Unbound. It really is a dream commission, as 'The Wake' is one of my all-time favourite novels, and his follow-up 'Beast' is also a must-read, more of which in a later post. I have 6 more drawings to do this week before I feel I have the portfolio pretty much ready. I will tell you more about how you can get involved in the near future. It's going to be a very beautiful colour edition and include a section at the back about how I made the tools, brushes, pens, inks and paints from all natural, pre-Norman conquest available materials. There will also be photos and a bit of text about it in the next edition of Dark Mountain.

I have written the lyrics and melodies, then recorded the parts and harmonies for 4 songs for a Japanese producer called Mojage. There will be an LP coming out this spring. He knew my work with Susumu Yokota and Rothko, and somehow tracked me down - no easy task as I no longer have a music site anywhere on the web, and am erroneously listed as 'a London poet'. 'Yeah, right' is probably the best response to that bit of fake info. I will post a link to the LP details when I get them.

So it's been a busy and creative late winter so far. Looking forward to seeing all the Scots for T'ai Chi this weekend too.