Too small to be caught in a net of words,
Immeasurable enormity.
If we rule ourselves by it,
Everything flows along,
Rains fall, clouds form.
No need for external laws,
We live well though compassionate understanding.
Once we divorce the body from the soul from the mind,
Rewarding one for treating the other well, punishing if it does not,
All crumbles in senseless, effortful words.
Know when to silence the logic,
And simply watch and listen, observe.
Tao pours down, ignoring wordy philosophy, exposing truth.
Philosopher's Stone. The hypothetical substance which, according to the mediaeval alchemists, would convert all baser metals into gold. Its discovery was the prime object of all the alchemists; and to the wide and unremitting search that went on for it we are indebted for the birth of the science of Chemistry, as well as for many inventions. It was in searching for this treasure that Bötticher stumbled on the manufacture of Dresden porcelain; Roger Bacon on the composition of gunpowder; Geber on the properties of acids; Van Helmont on the nature of gas; and Dr. Glauber on the "salts" which bear his name. ... According to one legend, Noah was commanded to hang up the true and genuine philosophers' stone in the ark, to give light to every living creature therein; while another related the Deucalion (q.v.) had it in a bag over his shoulder, but threw it away and lost it*.
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963, p. 699
*Threw it away AND lost it? Either/or, I would think.
Weather chill and dull, without real cold or storms, just mucky air. Anything could happen, but it won't.
3 comments:
One can throw something away with the intention of retrieving it later on, or even without the intention, finding it later on. To specify that it has become lost after having thrown it away is to qualify the lack of specific location.
too deep for me I'm afraid, I'm off to make mincemeat!
Phil,
Either way, I'd call that an awkward construction. "He thew it away, never to find it again." Would be clearer. If your child had an ugly sweater knitted by granny, and it disappeared, you would ask what happened. If child says "i lost it" you might well ask, "lost it? Or threw it away?" and gather important information from the answer.
Mouse,
Homemade?
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