Tao-Tossed Thoughts: Articles, Speculations, a Talk, and Photo-Essays

By Myra Sampson Reeves and Emily Thomson

In my previous book, Slow-Cooked Thoughts, I related how human life has taken an exacting toll on the planet, that the way to reverse this is to behave unselfishly towards all life forms and to share the earth’s resources fairly with them, rather than taking the largest piece of the cake, leaving them only the crumbs.
Tao-Tossed Thoughts also briefly refers to how an eighteen-acre land I bought thirty-eight years ago, and has been managed by a village society for the last twenty eight, becoming the first community managed conservation project in Sri Lanka.
Since then, there have been a series of devastating natural disasters, such as bush fires, floods, earthquakes etc., as we continue to despoil our naturally self-sustaining wealth.
In this book I delve into origins: of the universe; formation of planets; life on earth and its evolution echoing sometimes what was expounded clearly two thousand five hundred years ago.
Tao-Tossed Thoughts also includes a talk I gave, Lionel Wendt, Nucleus of the `43 Group, the first modern art movement in Sri Lank and a few photo essays, some of which shed light on these topics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Sep 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781543771367

Myra Sampson Reeves

As the current chairman, of the Sapumal Foundation, show casing works especially by the `43 Group, the first modern art movement in Sri Lanka, he has advanced the cause of art by giving presentations, talks and holding exhibitions. He bought a secondary scrub jungle in 1985 and inspired villagers in the area to become environmentally aware and manage it since 1995. It is the first community managed conservation project in Sri Lanka, declared a sanctuary in 2017 by government gazette. He is also the chairman of a charitable trust which has helped a large number of causes and individuals in need.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 Rohan de Soysa. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN

ISBN: 978-1-5437-7135-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5437-7136-7 (e)

09/21/2022

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Also by Rohan de Soysa

Supplement to the Sapumal Foundation Collection (2017)

Slow-Cooked Thoughts (2019)

Photographic contributions to

Sri Lanka: An Island Civilisation (1977)

Masks and Mask Systems of Sri Lanka (1978)

Briefly by Bevis

Sapumal Foundation Collection: A Select Catalogue (2009)

To my parents, Terence and Rukmini

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CONTENTS

Illustrations

Foreword

Preface

Before There Was Anything at all and How Spirits Came to Be

The Great Conference of Spiritualised Energies

The Inaugural Conference of Materialised Spirit Energies

Beginnings

The Spiral of Life

Call of the Serpent Eagle

Nucleus Of The `43 Group

The Virus’s Tale

The Bacteria’s Tale

The Plant’s Tale

The Reptile’s Tale

…..Empty Phenomena Rolling On Depending On Conditions All…….

Trees versus Buildings

Bushfires

Seashore

The Eyes Have It

Homes

Our Home Since Independence

Moods of Madam Town Hall

Origin of the Caste System

Reflections on a Talk by Sadguru

Musings on Healthcare

The I Ching And The Tao Te Ching

Afterword

About The Author

Resources

References

ILLUSTRATIONS

Cover Illustration

Frontispiece

1.  The Creation of Light and Matter

2.  Yin/Yang Symbol

3.  Electromagnetic Sine Wave Diagram

4.  Spider Babies

5.  A Bird at Its Nest

6.  Cheetah and Cub

7.  Grey Langur Monkey Grooming Its Baby

8.  Purple Swamphen and Its Chick

9.  Cow and Calf

10.  Mother and Child

11.  Elephant Showing Its Calf How to Grasp Grass

12.  Serpent Eagle Having Breakfast

13.  Serpent Eagle Soaring

14.  Trees and Buildings Lining Up to Battle for Dominance

15.  Drink Coasters Reflecting the Bushfires in Australia

16.  Seashore

17.  The Eyes Have It

18.  Homes

19.  Angel or Dragon?

20.  Moods of Madam Town Hall

21.  Young Duck in Swirling Water

FOREWORD

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

— T.S.Eliot Little Gidding

This new volume of reflections by Rohan de Soysa, a sequel to his Slow-Cooked Thoughts, is a heart-felt reflection on origins. In a collection diverse in style yet united in purpose, the lasting and intimate impact of origins on destination are explored, with a gentle cautionary style the strength of which is reflective and engaging. Indeed, the manner in which the work opens and gathers momentum may be described in the way the author tells us Lionel Wendt said an exhibition should open, like a flower. The result of this organic integrity in the ordering of the collection is to allow the work to unfold naturally and gracefully, its beauty and impact the greater for the very restraint by which it is characterised.

Rohan’s signature style of highly visual narration owes much, as in his first work, to his considerable experience, expertise and understanding of the fine arts, particularly painting and photography. The increased inclusion in the present work of photographs – even of photo-essays – punctuates this visual quality of the writing, illuminating and enlarging the narrative perspective through the direct evidence of the lens. A very moving effect of the photographic content of this volume is to allow the writer to step back a little and become guide rather than speaker, walking us through images that are then able to speak directly to us, inviting us into our own very personal relationship with each. There is a generosity of spirit in this approach to sharing knowledge that is profoundly moving and reminds us of the work’s role as a legacy to the three saplings for whom the work has principally been conceived.

The poignancy of this volume owes much to the poetic sensibility of its writer as a soul in tune with the natural world. Indeed, there is a freshness in its approach to our winged and four-legged friends that is reminiscent of Emily Dickinson’s articulation of a pastoral for the new world: Several of Nature’s people, I know and they know me/I feel for them a measure of cordiality. The ancient tradition of the pastoral is presented in Tao-Tossed Thoughts in terms perfectly accessible to a contemporary audience.

This poetic quality, – a romantic sense of the fathomlessness of the world, which we apprehend and yet scarcely understand – sings through the photographs, especially those of animals in their natural habitat.

In photograph after photograph, particularly those of animals learning from their mothers, – and even more

profoundly, in those that show what they have learned, – we become aware of so much more than the physical outlines of the image. Who has seen the wind? asked Christina Rossetti, answering her own question,

"Neither you nor I.

But when the trees bow down their leaves.

The wind is passing by".

It is a considerable achievement of Tao-Tossed Thoughts that it makes nature and natural instincts and patterns visible to us in flashes of recognition the more intense and lasting for their very brevity.

Whether in lectures, discussions, tales, personal histories or photographs, Rohan takes us on a voyage of discovery about the world we live in, especially those aspects of it that may not be obvious to the naked eye. To do this he invites us to consider the value of an alteration of perspective, and the reality that we may learn and see things anew when we least expect to, particularly when we engage with others from a new vantage point. Indeed, in the volume’s very first piece, a human overhears an important communication quite by chance, having fallen asleep by the roots of the grandfather