Men of wisdom

Today I heard a marvellous Taoist poem that I want to share. I find it very applicable to our training.

Men of Wisdom

Men of wisdom are as alert as a man walking on thin ice

As focused as a great warrior who is suddenly attacked

As gratified as a welcome guest

As unattached to their own identity as a block of ice beginning to melt

As peaceful as a tree growing deep in a forest

As receptive and nourishing as a valley

And in the same moment as dangerous and as still as the raging torrents and the serene moonlit pools of a mountain stream.

Author Unknown

A Man is Made

A man is made
Of flesh and blood
Of eyes and bone and water.
The very same things make his son
As those that make
His daughter

A tree is made
Of leaf and sap
Of bark and fruit and berries.
It keeps a bird’s nest
In its broughs
And blackbirds eat the cherries.

A table’s made
Of naked wood
Planed as smooth as milk. I wonder
If tables ever dream of sun
Of wind, and rain and thunder?

And when man takes
His axe and strikes
And sets the sawdust flying -
Is it a table being born?
Or just a tree that’s dying?

Author unknown

The perfect right cross

They say it’s magic. When it lands
you feel the force of your whole body,
even the deeper organs, the dark fluids
that go untapped for decades, the tiny
pale microbes haunting the bone marrow,
the intricate patterns that devised
the bones of the feet, you feel them
finally coming together like so many
atoms of salt and water as they form
an ocean or a tear, for just an instant
before the hand comes back under the chin
in its ordinary defensive posture.

Philip Levine, Perfect in their art: Poems in Boxing from Homer to Ali.

Raise Up Bold Warriors

Raise up, bold warriors,

      take steel in your strong hands,

      the foreman stands below, loudly shouting.

Sound the horn and iron, gather spear and shield;

      the day is bright for battle,

      and glory for the taking.

Mount up, brave Warband, the battlechief is fearless;

      bold leader, keen in victory,

      he will win the hero’s portion,

      and the bards laud his name in song-making.

A battle song taken from Stephen Lawhead’s ‘Merlin’.