Unruly Harmony By John Moore From Green Anarchist #66 1. And the earth was born without form, and void And darkness was upon the face of the deep and moved upon the face of the waters Original condition of each and all Once now always         never And the void gazing upon the face of the deep recognising its reflection upon the face of the waters smiled and gave birth to the word... ...the word born(e) on the breath that breathes life and substance into the world And thus began the beginningless beginning: in the beginning was the word and the word was a seed enfolded in the embrace of the void and the seed took root and grew and blossomed and died and scatered its seed far and wide And in the infinite void there bloomed a land of lush vegetation rich in meaning In eternal delight exultant energy danced scintillant over the surface of the deep And the multiform dancers in all their teeming multiplicity, knowing their true names, wheeled around in the joyful round dance But wisdom, knowing the true names of each and every one, sought to know the unknowable and hence the unnameable, Her curiosity baffled, abandoning the true self, she strove to imitate the inimitable primal creativity, but cloaked in error she birthed an abortion, a monster, a single thought a thought of singularity a meaningless word And from this word there shot forth horns, thorns sharp spines and clawed tentacles which bound with briars all joys and desires                                 trains of thought                                 chains of ideas                                 carried humanity away                                 thrust it forth                                 beyond the void                                 into a land of desolation                                                 division and separation                                                 enslavement and misery                                 a land ruled by power and order                                                 by a blind god                                 whose sightless orbs                                 forever pitlessly gaze                                 at the empty pages                                 of the great book of law and judgement                                 and whose brazen voice                                 bellows commands                                 and whispers words                                 of good and evil,                                 sowing seeds of doubt and confusion                                 that swarm like weeds                                 and choke the mind                                 with thought Lost in thought distracted and deluded divided by discrimination ensnared by attachment the wandering mind of humanity                 unmindful                 abstracted                 oblivious goes astray amid the trackless wastes, condemned to whore after strange gods and bow down before terrible demons in the howling wilderness, the domain of powers and dominions And the blind god         the cosmic tyrant himself but a thought exulted to see humanity in thrall to thought in bondage to power But bloated with pride         mired in error         steeped in pomp the despot of boundless ignorance darkly descried in the mid-forged manacles a means to manufacture a vast empire of materiality Snared in the entanglements of         right and wrong         self and other         grasping and rejecting humanity forgot its original condition         its original face And over this featureless visage the blind god fitted a mask of his own fashioning and recreated humanity in his own image and let them have domain over every living thing and bade them be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth and all its peoples and all it contains, and set all to toiling and let their labours increase         by day and by night Only thus may the mighty engines              (the words of the blind god         of production and destruction         unleash their heavenly powers         and infernal energies Cry havoc! and let loose the forces of darkness upon the world the forces hidden confined within the mystery of mysteries: the living abstraction within whose bowels you shall live and whose deathly empire your labours shall build and whose enemies you shall slay without mercy until the final victory of death over life is won and my dominion will be complete Each word was a hammer blow nailing humanity to the tree of life, but coiled around the tree trunk the wise counsellor - unseen and unknown by the blind god - laughed aloud at such ignorance, and suffused with light spoke words of prophecy from the depths of heart wisdom and foretold the liberation of all by twirling a flower between finger and thumb 2. (A single thought of the wandering mind is the root of birth and death in this world. Just don't have a single thought and you'll get rid of the root of birth and death         (Mazu An expedient, then: a poetic expedient since words are not enough and yet too much                         a poor expedient                         since once                         one starts                         thinking                         about it                         one misses                         it Abandon either/or Realise both/neither (You must know that which has                 no birth or death right in the midst of                 birth and death         (Foyan Me, for instance: both real and unreal yet neither real nor unreal Or power: both omnipotent and impotent yet neither omnipotent nor impotent Or revolution: both everywhere and nowhere yet neither everywhere nor nowhere Realise the unrealisable moment by moment Revolution in practice: (Walk stand sit and recline all day long without ever walking standing sitting or reclining         (Foyan Liberation achieved when hungry eat when tired sleep Either/or subsumed within Both/neither Both/neither                 the revolutionary principle                 the guiding principle of revolution                 realised at every instant                 in the everyday practice                 of daily life a return from a journey never undertaken to the sourceless source yet neither omnipotent nor impotent Or revolutionary.