If we want to attract miracles into our life, we must do our part. An ancient saying goes that you/we have no responsibility to save the world or find the solutions to all problems. But to attend to our particular personal corner of the universe. As each person does that, the world saves itself.  

What I have found to be important is that we are all to do all that we can for as long as we can. Having done so, in the end it does not matter. We have done all that we are to do this time.

In some ways, I dislike the term re-incarnation. Because it leads some to discount the growth of our spirit being eternal. What quantum physics has proven is that there is something more our spirit is here to do this time before moving on.

It is that we often fail to take into account our ultimate purpose. What I have always referred to as our endeavor and destiny. Something every entity found in nature possesses. Not just what is found in being human. That when we find ourselves living as the moment, miracles never cease. Sometimes it is our lack of patience in waiting for the dust, or as the Buddhist would say, that we are to wait until our mud settles.  

Something I wrote back in 1995 in an unpublished manuscript, except in my website follows below. In writing and reading this over the years, I have often thought of what it is to follow our ultimate endeavor and destiny.  

I often feel more comfortable as though in meditation, traversing the universe with old friends who lived more than two thousand years ago. This can be found as entry number one hundred twenty-eight in my manuscript entitled “My travels with Lieh Tzu.” 

128. A visit with old friends 

Remaining as one with the universe. One’s instincts in constant tune with your surroundings. The only secrets worth telling remaining those that remain non‑contending. Staying in the background as the ever‑knowing sage. As you have seen it all before, is not your time better spent seeking the wisdom and knowledge you find in conversing with your old friends that you have recently re‑discovered. As you have been away for a millennium but have now come home again. Everyone, Lieh, Chuang, Lao and all the others waiting to hear why you have been away for so long. Or then again, was it only for just an instant? 

You explain that you have been exploring human nature and trying to understand how people through the ages could become so confused and off‑centered. That those you have come across are vain in the prime of their beauty and remain impetuous in their strength. That they are quick to tell others how to live without consideration of how they should do so themselves. That all those you have come across seem lost in their own attachments. They remain inept in their attempts to find the Way, and even more so when they think they have. There remains this constant sense of need to remain proud and impetuous so that it remains difficult to impart and relay the true essence and goodness needed to preserve humanity. Instead of remaining as one with nature, they seem intent on destroying it. Finally, they must constantly be reminded of who they are to become and need someone or something to keep them steady. 

As you finish your account, knowing glances abound as others have come and gone and relayed similar stories. All want to know if you are planning to stay with your old friends or return to your writing in hopes that perhaps one in a thousand may come forward to learn the proper way. You are amused in that it is known that the sage gives his work to others so that his own power does not diminish as he grows old. Otherwise grappling with confusion when his own knowledge runs out. 

Back home after a thousand years and the only question that remains is when you leave again. 8/5/95 

It is that when we acknowledge our ultimate fate, we become the miracle beyond simply choice, but universal….

I am reminded of the passion we have for what we can contribute to nature as though unhinged. With plants we have started just waiting to go outside for their turn to flourish. Growing plants for others as they too look to nature and what they too can contribute.

While our yards literally scream with what we have planted in years past now ready to take center stage.

As though we are emulating the great painter Monet and his gardens of Giverny in France… creating our own lasting impressions. 

Two entries in my book, An American Journey through the I Ching and Beyond, now appearing as The I Ching / Voices of the Dragon, come to mind.

When I wrote this in February 1994 while in Massachusetts, we had had several snowstorms and were confined to the house unable to even get out of the driveway because the snow kept falling. All I could do was plant more seeds indoors and write. I was a master gardener in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island at the time.   

To Be a Master Gardener 

Confined and under the weather, weariness sets in. The dead of winter. Everything is covered. 

Snow several feet deep. Hibernation. Waiting, waiting, waiting with listless passion. All things waiting for Spring. As the spirit is in its deepest despair, yang ebbs into nothingness and yin springs forward. The ice melts and the crocus begin to bloom as the mother robin appears, harbinger of Spring.

Casting away the cobwebs. Shunning aside shackles of mind and body it’s time to find our gardens again. Blinded by the sun in your mind’s eye you begin by sorting through implements reluctantly put away last autumn. Sorting through seeds and preparing small plants the task begins in earnest. 

Arise early, refreshed finding yourself in the garden soon to be basking in the midday sun. Do not delay showing only diligence and respect for nature. 

Plant wisdom and know the freedom to choose. Plant clarity and soon understanding comes to the surface. Plant harmony and be at peace with the fruits of your labor.

Startled from sleep still listless, you are dreaming. A look out the window confirms. The snow is still several feet deep, but your passion is beginning to return. 

An original composition and interpretation of the Chinese Classic the I Ching (16 WEARINESS / Thunder over Earth). 2/12/94 

A few days earlier that year I was busy writing and thinking of my youth and times with my grandma and her farm in Lamar when I was only eight or nine and time spent helping her in her garden… Our place in history and the I Ching. The book of change and how we are here to grow ourselves.

My Grandmother’s Garden 

She comes in peace knowing utmost harmony. Nurturing. 

Receptive and forgiving, restrained yet uncomplicated. The dragons flying through the sky disappear into the clouds retiring, once strong and assertive now retreating and finding a secure place. 

Looking down Mother Earth comes into focus with new growth and new beginnings. Differences occur but a connectedness of all things with the seasons begins. Yang becomes yin. Strong becomes weak, hard becomes soft, male becomes female in the oneness of Tao.  

Leaving the clouds behind and finding the earth beneath my feet, I discover that I am here to find clarity, to focus, to listen and most importantly to learn. To find the ways of my garden. To know the earth as my grandmother taught me. To know beginnings and endings. Simply to know and remember what my grandmother taught me. 

An original composition and interpretation of the Chinese Classic the I Ching (2 EARTH / Earth over Earth). 2/5/94 

I have the gate to what was my grandmother’s garden now in my backyard at the entrance to my chicken coop I pass by regularly. I often think of her, and times spent with her and her garden and the stories she loved to tell all those years ago.

As I remember what my grandmother taught me that comes forth as I nourish and plant my garden anew every Spring. I’ve been a Master Gardener here in Greene County in Springfield, Missouri since 2021.

Four of my friends came by today. 

Did they leave feeling better than they did when they came?

Did I say things to enlighten their spirits?  

Did I acknowledge their pain and frustration?                                                                                                                          Ancient wise men calling out to the universe / Chengdu Wuhan Temple 

Did I impart a sense of well-being, compassion, and true concern? 

Living the Tao leads one to safe refuge in knowing the way and helping others to find theirs.

Four of my friends came by today. 1/28/94 

When conflict arises, compassion prevails. 

There will be no conflict coming from me today.

Ill feelings are but a shadow of the past to be discarded. To find peace one must leave behind anger and conflict. Fear and dislike of another leads back to weakness within oneself. 

Blue Mountains Dujiangyan Waterworks 

Discover your center and find yourself. Learn to face conflict without being judgmental. 

Where there is conflict find peace. Where there is judgment learn not to commit to a false reality.

To find wisdom know the way. In learning detachment lead the way. As with the Tao, when conflict arises compassion always prevails.

There will be no conflict coming from me today. 1/31/94 

Succumbing to hysteria

Speaking softly and smoothly where others must crane their neck to listen is best.

Always speak calmly knowing that that fear and reality are the same to find. Ever conscious that hysteria leads to dread of the unknown.

Hold the attention of all those involved. Varying one’s voice relieves tension that may assist in finding the solution.

Speaking of the Way Huangshen Old City

Be brief, simply uncomplicated. Finding your rhythm brings forth changes overcoming all setbacks. Sincerity must provide the rhyme and reason of any true voice before it is heard. Much is expected of those who know dragons.

Beware of treachery or bringing attention to oneself by shouting, I am here!

The noise overshadowing what is not said so nothing important is heard. Instead of finding your rhythm in the Tao and being heard for miles and miles forever. Continually refining your actions always knowing simply what is needed.

Internal rhythm, the chi, reverberating throughout the elements, the earth and sky, waking dragons to their delight.

Stay calm and listen to the one you can hardly hear. He speaks softly as he knows the way of virtue.

An original composition and interpretation of the Chinese Classic the I Ching (12 OBSTRUCTION / Heaven over Earth). 2/10/94

I wrote the above entries in 1994 more than thirty years ago in a book entitled “An American Journey through the I Ching and Beyond” that was published in China in 2004. The book is here on my website under the title “The I Ching/Voices of the Dragon”. 

With thoughts returning to Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Eric Butterworth’s line – “The universe is calling” asking are we listening?  

Always questioning our inner most thinking of what we take for granted. A starting point I always look to is thinking about what was known and unknown at the time others may have lived.  

As we learn today and can see beyond the living history both past and present, we become a benchmark. Emerson proves to be a reliable source in doing so. As though his greatest attribute was and still is making us think knowing our knowledge creates wisdom that becomes an imprint. As though vibrations corresponding with the needs of nature as our own becomes our foremost attribute. 

Using our fundamental human faculties such as critical thinking, empathy, reason, conscience, and intuition, we can capably lead our life.

We have the choice to cultivate a spirituality that does not require us to be inadequate, powerless, weak, and lacking, but one that empowers us toward empathy, strength, vitality, wholeness, and the fulfilment of our highest potentialities and possibilities.

Or what I like to refer to as our greatest endeavor and destiny. 

Another Emerson quote I like is “An unnavigable sea washes with silent waves between us and the things we aim at and converse with”.

It is like saying that we are in affect transcendent beings traveling the vibrations we create for ourselves. That it is what speaks to us, and we in turn converse with that determines our fate. And yet, in the face of this, Emerson still affirms the beauty and value of human life.

Confronting the mixed bag of human experience – what he calls “the potluck of the day”, he insists that “if we will take the good, we find, asking no questions, we shall have heaping measures”.  

These are not the words of an idealistic dreamer, as Emerson has sometimes been portrayed. They are an expression of his confidence in the ability to meet and master our circumstances; they are a call for a pragmatic engagement of the world in which we find ourselves. That we can become and are the masters of our fate. 

Thoughts of taking a walk at Waldon’s Pond with Walt Whitman. Remembering in silence and meditation that our best travel is that of spirit and going there. 

The sign you read upon entering:

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. To front only the essential facts of life and see if I could learn what it had to teach and not when I came to die. Discover that I had not lived.” Thoreau.

Knowing Walter Whitman Jr. (1819-1892) is to know him as not just a poet; he was a champion of American democracy, and a revolutionary voice in the literary landscape.

His life, marked by self-discovery, personal growth, and unwavering belief in the American spirit, unfolded like a free verse poem, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inspire and resonate. 

His writing became a literary roadmap as the evolution of self with his book “Leaves of Grass”. This book was instrumental in people in the 1840’s and 1850’s and afterwards seeing our connection to nature and the wide-open spaces of America waiting to be found and explored. Combined with Emerson’s thoughts of man’s connection to nature and what was to become known as transcendentalism and westwards expansion paved the way that sowed the seeds of American exceptionalism.

That there was something unique about the American experience. Although, some believe this uniqueness may now be called into question and has run its course. 

Whitman began with journalism and short stories. However, his true calling emerged in the form of poetry. In 1855, he self-published the first edition of “Leaves of Grass”, a collection of poems that defied convention with its free verse style, earthy language, and celebration of the human body and soul. The book, initially met with criticism for its frankness and unconventional form, eventually became a landmark of American literature, hailed for its raw honesty, democratic spirit, and celebration of individual expression. 

One of my own favorite entries from Leaves of Grass, is from the chapter Song of Myself, verse 50. Sometimes I like to just take a verse and think and meditate on it as I tinker in the Spring as I am getting seeds started and young plants ready for others for the day. I have had a copy of the book for over thirty years and try to refer to it regularly. How it can influence my own original thoughts and writing. Or better said… getting my heart and mind straight, or for the better.

Do you see O my brothers and sisters?

His legacy and influence on literature is amazing. He redefined American poetry, championed the use of free verse, and paved the way for future generations of writers to embrace individual expression and explore diverse themes. His poems continue to be read, analyzed, and celebrated for their emotional depth, philosophical musings, and celebration of the human experience. I have always looked to his writings as the ultimate free spirit and spending time with him and his writing worthwhile. You can see why both Emerson and Thoreau became symbols of popular culture in America.   

Just where do our thoughts come from? Even science shows us this now. Every atom of our body is billions of years old, both created and then recycled by the universe. Within those atoms spins energy that was unleashed by the big bang and continually emerging stars. The cosmos always close by, it lives within us. We are the universe, in human form, as returning wisdom without illusions of separateness as a part of the cosmic process.  

Humans alone can unfortunately learn to separate themselves with something that deceives them by producing a false or misleading impression of reality caused by seeing this as misguided self-interest.

While, self-interest reigns in nature, it is usually by finding complementary opposites that builds, finds, and evolves around adapting to common interests. 

The essence of the nature of the universe over time, is that many of us spend our life thinking, teaching, and writing about what lies in what may be considered as common knowledge. Stretching beyond this self-interest reflecting both eternal and universal growth.  

The secret being picking up pen and paper and going there defines our path and fate. Letting our thoughts take us to our highest endeavor and giving freedom to others to do the same. 

It is as though these vibrations and thoughts expressed by the storyteller and writings over eons of time, are just waiting for the proper vehicle to be expressed anew. Knowing this, how can we say what may be real or unreal, or simply fine-tuned to meet the times. Sometimes I recall Eric Butterworth’s line saying,

“The universe is calling”. Our answer should be “are we listening and going there too”. 

Who is it that inspires us to look to our highest endeavor and destiny and what does that even matter or mean? Looking Eastward it may be looking to the virtue of Confucius, Taoism and Lao Tzu.

To the West it becomes Emerson and others, who we look to for guidance. As though they are provoking us or providing a road map, or compass, that tells us the best route or way to follow. With Mahatma Gandhi in turn speaking for all of us.

Why is it we see ourselves just stumbling along looking down the road. Not looking to what lifts us up and to the stars from which we travel. As we come to know life as not only a travelogue, but a pilgrimage. 

Looking to someone who was transformative and transcendent, who made us look both to nature and the universe creating a whole new way of showing connections and self-reliance. To what Emerson called transcendentalism, or one’s inner striving toward spiritual communion with the divine spirit. To what Confucius called benevolence and virtue.

It is with this in mind we continue as an on-going narrative through a never-ending story. That we never know who will be influenced by words we have spoken or written that live for eternity’s sake.

Words to be picked up by others and carried beyond our own imagination when speaking to and for them as well.

When our own inspiration can become the aspiration for others, as we too live by and through what we have learned and have come to know as a living tradition. With our own success determined by what we can remember we apply going forward.

We often find ourselves speaking as though a part of a common thread of history repeating, even fine-tuning, what is meant to be said another way today.

Confucius, Emerson, and Gandhi, spoke to the soul of eternity in their day… as well as to us.

How we know our adherence to nature and our own self-reliance are keys to our own fate. How it is that a good writer does not simply write the words onto his/her heart, he/she becomes them. Why transforming our thoughts and actions become paramount, as we are to transcend into who we have always been. Our eternal selves appearing as if a wisp of a cloud just floating by.

When Emerson writes in Nature that our “relation to the world . . . is not to be learned by any addition or subtraction or other comparison of known quantities but is arrived at by untaught sallies (journeys) of the spirit, by a continual self-recovery, and by entire humility”.  The “self-recovery” he speaks of, is not simply a return to one’s sense of self. But to our role in nature and to our responsibility for finding and doing our part. 

Learning to guide our own spiritual path from the inside out and not needing to be told what to do. That we naturally have the ability, capacity, tools, and skills to guide and direct our life meaningfully, ethically, and effectively. There is a universality to this that serves as a coach or teacher, the ultimate guide to self-improvement. Emerson was a synthesizer of ideas that came before him. And afterward, I am reminded that it was Emerson’s writing that Gandhi found while in jail in South Africa where he learned the value of civil disobedience that served to inspire him to the greatness and immortality he found later in India.  

(The 2019 UN Mahatma Gandhi Stamp issued by the US Postal Service on his 150th birthday)

Gandhi was a “nonconformist” and followed Emerson who writes, “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature” from Self-Reliance. With the next step seeing ourselves as a pathway consigned to living in virtue.

Emerson was also an admirer and a devotee of Bhagavat Gita and Vedanta that he demonstrated through a common synchronicity through his writing reminding us of the Buddha whose name means “to awaken”. Ultimately, I think this was the path he wanted all of us to take. To awaken to our inner most self and to make the best of it.

As though we immerse ourselves in the wisdom of those we follow and that by emulating and reflecting an inner spiritual communion with the divine spirit and them, we take steps that will define our path as well. As we live what we speak and learn to write and act how we are to live. 

Emerson published a magazine in the 1840’s called The Eye, where he spoke of different ideas from around the world.

From Hinduism, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Tolstoy, Indigenous peoples, and of course the Bible and Christianity and gave hundreds of speeches promoting understanding our role in nature and self-reliance.  

It is in a path of self-discovery, and recovery from our failures, and especially from the failure of what we thought we knew, that in the face of experiences we see and indicate otherwise is often the better path.

At times in his essays, Emerson entertained the deepest skepticism. “No picture of life can have any veracity that does not admit the odious facts”, he wrote in “Fate.”  

(Part two of this tribute to Confucius, Emerson, and Gandhi will continue as the next entry here on The Kongdan Foundation)