“Play the game. Don’t make it all about you. Look for challenges. But don’t aim for a specific outcome. Eschew ulterior motives. Hold nothing back. Be gentle and strong. Get involved, and the hell with winning. Don’t over-analyze, don’t calculate, but stay alert, alert for signs. Be vulnerable. Show your eyes, invite others to look deep; make sure there’s enough space, and try to recognize everyone’s own image. Make no decisions you don’t feel excited about. Let yourself fail. Above all, give yourself time and take the long way round. Never ignore what a tree or a body of water has to tell you. Turn in where you drawn to do so, and give yourself permission to bask in the sun. Never mind your relatives, offer support to strangers, bend down to look at trifles, duck into deserted places, don’t fall for the high drama of destiny, laugh conflict to bits. Show your true colors till you prove to be right, and the rustling of leaves turns sweet. Walk about the villages.”
**
“It’s just me, offspring of another village. But this you may all be sure of: through me speaks the spirit of a new age, and that spirit has the following to say. Yes, there is danger, and that alone enables me to speak the way I’m going to speak: in resistance. So listen to my Dramatic Poem. You’re right to stop living in a daze, but don’t go waking each other like a pack of barking dogs. No one among you is to blame, and precisely in your fits of despair you may have realized that you’re not really in despair. If you were in despair, you’d be dead already. So don’t act as if you’re all alone. True, your story offers no comfort you can rely on. But stop brooding over to-be-or-not-to-be: being is, and will continue to be, conceivable, and not-being isn’t conceivable. Recognize how alike you are; recognize that you’re alike. It’s just me saying that. But I’m not merely me. “I” in these two guises can be the most flimsy and ephemeral thing on earth, and at the same time the most all-encompassing—the most disarming. “I!” am the only hero—and you should be the disarming ones. Yes, that “I” is the essence of human nature that keeps us human! War is far from here. Our armies don’t stand gray on gray on gray tarmac but yellow on yellow in flowers’ yellow throats. Bowing to show respect to a flower is possible. A bird on a branch can be spoken to. So in a world wrecked by artificial colors, make room for the colors of nature that can revive it. The blue of mountains is real—the brown of a gun holster isn’t; and the person or thing you think you know from television you don’t really know. Our shoulders exist for the sky, and the path from the earth to the sky has to pass through us. Move slowly, and in that way become the form without which no distance can take shape. Nature’s the only promise you can rely on. Yet nature can be neither refuge nor escape. Nature does provide a gauge, however: it just has to be checked daily. The clouds passing overhead, even when they race by, slow you down. Who says you must crash and burn? Haven’t you put your war behind you? Well, bolster the peaceful present and display the serenity of survivors. What looked from a distance like a menacing death’s head turns out to be child’s play when you come closer. Air out your thousand-year-old bed. Ignore the childhood-distant doubters. Don’t wait for another war: true peace-lovers can be found in the presence of nature. Don’t show your descendants the devil’s profile. The house of strength is in the other’s face. Here and now is the festival of gratitude. So let it not be said of you that you failed to take advantage of peace: let your labor work wonders—pass it on. But only those who love pass it on: love just one—that suffices for all. In loving you, I awake to myself. Even when most can’t be uplifted, be upliftable. Avert your eyes from the bestial two-legged creatures. Be real. Follow the caravan music. Walk until the vanishing lines emerge from the confused tangle, so slowly that the world becomes yours anew, so slowly that it becomes clear how it doesn’t belong to you. Yes, always keep your distance from power that parades itself as power. Don’t complain that you’re alone—be even more alone. Pass along the rustling. Describe the horizon, lest the beautiful dissolve into nothing again. Describe life-images to one another. What was good deserves to exist. Take your time—and be creative: transform your inexplicable sighs into mighty songs. Our art must aim to cry out to the heavens! Let no one talk you out of beauty—the beauty we humans create is what shakes us to the core. Devote yourselves to demystification, which at the same time reveals the One Mystery. Take note: whenever a child coming toward you stares at you aghast, you are the cause. To take on many disguises will be your destiny, and to prefer a jolly swindle to a truth made public. Play the farces of everyday life. Losing oneself is part of the game. (And yet: only the one who wears no mask marches proudly.) Go forth into the unknown regions of the earth and let those without illusions grin maliciously: illusion provides the strength for visions. Yes, let yourselves be pierced by yearning for form and pass along the healed world—the scornful laughter you receive stems from ignorance; it’s the death rattle of soul-cadavers. The dead give you extra light. Don’t worry if you can’t talk to them: one syllable suffices. But keep our unborn in your thoughts. Beget the child of peace! Save your heroes! They should be the ones to proclaim: War, leave us in peace! You people from here: you’re in charge. Don’t let anyone convince you that you’re the sterile ones at the end of days. We’re as close to the original source as ever. Perhaps there are no wildernesses left. But that which is wild, that which is always new continues to be: time. The ticking of clocks means nothing. Time is the vibration that helps us get through this accursed century. Time: I have you! The blessed day is now. Working effectively you can feel it. Perhaps there is no such thing as rational belief, but there’s rational belief in the divine shudder. Behold the miracle and forget it. Take the great leap. Joy is the only right form of power. Not till you feel joy will all be well with the world. – It’s still true that in the story we all share there’s no comfort we can rely on. Who’s measuring? The child-murderers in power vanish, unpunished. Peace and quiet doesn’t last: the trickling fountains collapse into barricades. Hope is the false wingbeat. Killjoys are everywhere. As we walk beneath the sun of joy, we drink deep of bitterness. Dear folks from here: The cries of dread will go on forever. Your pleading for mercy will merely elicit the thumbs-down sign. So pull yourselves together and look at the man in a dark suit and white shirt. Look at the woman across the river who’s standing on the balcony in the sun. Prove, with the means at your disposal, our human defiance! A blessing upon every kiss, however fleeting. And now each of you: back your seat. Fill the space with demonic energy, through repetition. Form is the law, and it lifts you up. Eternal peace is possible. Listen to the caravan music. Calculating and knowing, be heaven-bound. Hold fast to this dramatic poem. Walk ever onward. Walk about the villages.”
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