Winter Sacrifice

The art of war is of vital importance to the state: this I swear by the budding beard of my filial-minded son; may I ask please as regards the Exams if you converge or diverge, are conformist or deviant? may I presume to inquire how you, sir or madam, excel? cracking your oracle bones scapulae and turtle-shells in the fires of askance / I see you/ several of you/ many of you/ tens of thousands of you/ itinterate wanderers gathered against the pall of winter. Ministers minstrels may I gain audience and proceed to the Inner Chamber to be heard? I serve when summoned and withdraw when dismissed humbly I wonder but dare not ask. Am I man woman or eunuch [you dare not ask]. Wonder on profit: benefit: righteousness. Of clear ritual significance; implements used to perform human sacrifices for an episode of timeline and stuff so I fear not to ask if you, sir or madam, are versed in the rituals and fully prepared with props? Isn't it poetic enough that when the turtle-shell cracks in the flame we can interpret the fragments because of the beautiful writing inscribed on it/ but why of all the ten thousand things must we spokenly promote that word PROFIT, when, on the other hand, I come to you in spoken faith with a canvass sack full of verbally conceptualized Humanity and Justice replete with repeated praises of Goodness fit to bloom on the springtime lips of humane eloquence and ripen into the fruit of harmony. How could you turn them away from the roles of your behavioral repertoire in favor of profit and greed, when they greet you so meekly, these benevolent virtues? Is it not a joy to receive friends arriving from afar or a satisfaction to put into practice everything you've learnt so far from the babysteps of a Great Learning?: machinations on the large scale whose projects you could accomplish by the careful implementation of a system of Rewards and Punishments, called the two handles of behavioral dominion, if administrative efficacy is what your after for feeling the formation of a bureaucracy. The two horns of Government: even though we are not a kind of hegemonic literati intent on world domination; we work at the root and always at the root. We are civilized; we are gentlemen and gentlewomen all. There is a love of profit drained of humanity; there is a love of nature beyond any humanity: but don't we prefer to be virtuous illustrious and excellent or at least obscure and empty like the ringing of a big sacrificial bell? whereas in the eastern aphrodisiac sea of paradisiac reservoir where many rivers empty good/evil/and the capacities of Things are neither measured not judged. A bird lives there whose name is Bigness by the brightness of heaven and the darkness of earth materializing a Bird who has lighted on a little branchlet that I beg you not to shoot at; naturally you should fish with a rod and never with a net and in addition never shoot at a bird that has lighted: this is Humane. So you see I don't invent anything I transmit everything worthwhile to be passed down, I come in good faith as a lover of antiquity a glimpse of which can be seen in the Book of Wonders which recounts many marvels of the golden age and its many antiques from the endless march of warlords horse-breakers potters and carpenters deconstructing the whirling Multitude of Things that fathers sons wives children rulers enact in the poems and the histories--it all seems to reveal that simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline/ simulated fear postulates courage/ simulated weakness postulates strength//: interwoven into a masterminded LEGALISM foot-binding humanity to its bedposts: so if the Way is lost for example to despotism where oh where was the unlost Way in all the Pages of the Book of Wonders saying that if it were not for the Tao of the venerable sage-kings, where would we be? like before in those long forgotten days, men would fall to devouring each other like beasts, fathers and sons would share nothing but venom and hatred, and families would be scattered in all directions during the winter of the world. War spurred on by covetousness would flower/ will flower/ is flowering/ like before into a hundred flowers, like again, the venous sprawl and spread by form of disorder in many paths and byways. Always that fear of degradation decadence and devolution (what we call the dread of the three d's). But who are we, after all, to question the divine right of kings? Rice is golden: so call yourself Wang if you want but just you wait you sly devils for the Rectification of Names. I on the other hand will be found without blemish because I am only a scholar and a ritualist who has unfortunately never cultivated the arts of war: if only we realize that we need to be well-rounded and find educational completeness in the force of these righteous sentiments, although they just seem like ghostly beings to you, one day if cultivated, can burst through us like a wildfire first catching--or a spring first bursting from the ground. That is, if we base this on anything other than a sham antiquity, a hopelessly idealized golden-age to give people hope: or couldn't it be possible that the cultivation and amassing of pretended treasures like Humanity, Virtue, Justice, are infernal interference (which is the opposite of divine intervention) in the Tao of the HUMAN? Is morality tantamount to mutilation? making cups and bowls out of willow-wood, is that really the Way of the Willow-Wood? I repeat, many wonders in the Book of Marvels, but none perhaps so marvelous as that useless old tree with so many warped and twisted branches which has subsisted forever there beside the running river telling it wise stories in its uselessness and unwantedness growing into a complete Unprofitability: the Key to Long Life is Uselessness/the Key to a Happy Life is Benefit; these are all the same to the newborn babe and the cold virgin sage. Tread cautiously speechwise when treating of spirits and prodigies, violence and war...the onrush of a conquering force is like the bursting of pent-up waters into a chasm ten-thousand fathoms deep while the Sage is as chilly as autumn and as warm as spring/ happy in winter as in summer/ like the infant not knowing yet the union of male and female but still its virile member stands. You are right, venerable one, in that the greatest Profit is the greatest happiness for the greatest number of humans: Universal Love. But as for me, I prefer my Garden of Pleasure with its geese and its deer running over woods and meadow leaping over streams basking lakeside; I prefer my music and my feasting , as all beings seek to preserve and enjoy themselves; this is what I call the human. Is this not attainable? Which is the right way. Roads of a City. Branches of the Tree. Divergent Ways. To get where. Human nature makes no distinction between good or bad, just as water makes no distinction between east and west/ Bird of Dawn named Vast phoenix of the eastern skies its wingspan is immeasurable, so why must you speak of profit or seek profit past the just measure of pleasure. Oh my son, oh my daughter, you would set a bad example. We want a cultural rejuvenation. We know that where Light meets Sight is an infantile place and also that Parents must provide for their Children so that They in turn when their time comes can provide for their Parents and that this is where Heaven and Earth meet in Humanity always so juvenile and dependent; so How Dare You disdain profit when profit provides for the trickle-down benefit for old and young alike this being the bestowing of boon and benevolence. This cannot be done without Calculation of the Means...cultivation, you call that calculus cultivation? When you make a pot out of earth, you interfere in the way of earth; when you tame a horse, you interfere in the way of horse. But wait--it is indeed true that water does not make a distinction between east and west, but doesn't it make a distinction between up and down? And the onrush of a conquering force?

Yet listen to me now if ever you have: that even in ragged clothes with only some fresh water to sustain you and your own elbow as only pillow still you can go on unceasing with a song in your heart and a jade hidden away in your breast always willing to save a child from falling into a well always ready to feel the heartpangs of humanity upon seeing the Ox led to sacrificial death struggling like the innocent victim of a public execution whose blood was to consecrate the great bronze bell/ may your heart be all of courtly rites and your spirit of courtly cult where the beat of many syllables runs on with the spirit of the valley who is deathless nor can the void of vortex ever expend its use/ although you are only a straw dog you are like a delicate ceremonial vase or like the natural grooves of the Uncarved Block and the unshaped thing who Sees that spring is very fine indeed but come the winter you shall SEE with new sight the verdure of the pine and the cypress: so suffer the pupil to enter, be admitted into the chamber.

Please help yourself to all you rice you wish, meals are sacred, but moderate the meat consumption, mind the proper sauces, and don't abuse your ginger; so with a bow and a libation of liquor we honor in due ritual form our venerable ancestral ghost-lines with this benevolent ink offering for a winter sacrifice.