O Hounds! O Life!
O hounds, o life!
Azure circle, catalyst of motion,
Gripped in shared obsession.
Curved planes of polymer and air,
Conduit of raw energy,
Binding in the primal dance.
In this dusty arena of instinct,
What ancient memories stir?
Of hunt and chase and pack,
Distilled to pure sensation.
O hounds, o life!
Teeth meet synthetic skin,
A tug-of-war with gravity and time.
In this fleeting struggle,
What eternal truths emerge?
“When a cat falls out of a tree, it lets go of itself. The cat becomes completely relaxed, and lands lightly on the ground. But if a cat were about to fall out of a tree and suddenly make up its mind that it didn’t want to fall, it would become tense and rigid, and would be just a bag of broken bones upon landing.
In the same way, it is the philosophy of the Tao that we are all falling off a tree, at every moment of our lives. As a matter of fact, the moment we were born, we were kicked off a precipice, and we are falling, and there is nothing that can stop it.
So instead of living in a state of chronic tension, and clinging to all sorts of things that are actually falling with us because the whole world is impermanent, be like a cat.”
— Alan Watts
