Daily Reflection 4.27.21

[readoldthings]

Let's move on to Chapter 9 of The Art of War. I'm going to take the rest of the book somewhat quickly. 

We come now to the question of encamping the army, and observing signs of the enemy.

Pass quickly over mountains, and keep in the neighborhood of valleys.
 

The heading of this chapter is The Army on the March. Sun Tzu gives us details specific to actual military maneuvering, here. But are there general principles that we can tease out and apply to our own lives?

Let's see.

The point of telling us to "pass quickly over mountains," our translator notes, is that we need to not "linger among barren uplands, but keep close to supplies of water and grass."

Water and grass are fuel for men and horses. We can say for the soul generally, keeping in mind Plato's image of the soul as a winged chariot, pulled by two horses. "Barren uplands," then, are all those places in which the soul can find no nourishment, no water for the men nor grass for the horses.

What is it that nourishes the soul?

This varies from person to person, of course, depending on our individual needs and desires. There are some constants, though. Every soul is nourished by vital energy: Real food, fresh air, sunlight, the presence of other living beings. Every soul is nourished by beauty: In music, art, architecture, and stories. Every soul is nourished by purpose: By fulfilling that charge or set of charges which is its own to dispatch upon the Earth. 

And every soul without exception is nourished by Love. Love for God; for one's parents or mentors, one's children or students, one's friends, one's lover; for one's town and country, for a forest or mountain range, for one's own animals and plants-- relationship is another way to say this. 

Let us recall Plato's words in the Phaedrus:

Ten thousand years must elapse before the soul of each one can return to the place from whence she came, for she cannot grow her wings in less; only the soul of a philosopher, guileless and true, or the soul of a lover, who is not devoid of philosophy, may acquire wings in the third of the recurring periods of a thousand years; he is distinguished from the ordinary good man who gains wings in three thousand years:-and they who choose this life three times in succession have wings given them, and go away at the end of three thousand years. But the others receive judgment when they have completed their first life, and after the judgment they go, some of them to the houses of correction which are under the earth, and are punished; others to some place in heaven whither they are lightly borne by justice, and there they live in a manner worthy of the life which they led here when in the form of men. And at the end of the first thousand years the good souls and also the evil souls both come to draw lots and choose their second life, and they may take any which they please. The soul of a man may pass into the life of a beast, or from the beast return again into the man. But the soul which has never seen the truth will not pass into the human form. For a man must have intelligence of universals, and be able to proceed from the many particulars of sense to one conception of reason;-this is the recollection of those things which our soul once saw while following God-when regardless of that which we now call being she raised her head up towards the true being. And therefore the mind of the philosopher alone has wings; and this is just, for he is always, according to the measure of his abilities, clinging in recollection to those things in which God abides, and in beholding which He is what He is. And he who employs aright these memories is ever being initiated into perfect mysteries and alone becomes truly perfect. But, as he forgets earthly interests and is rapt in the divine, the vulgar deem him mad, and rebuke him; they do not see that he is inspired.

 

Stay close to the air and the sunlight; don't linger in catacombs, even if they're well stocked with groceries. Find time every day to do the things that you are meant to do on this Earth. And abide not long in a life devoid of love!