🌒 Daily Tao Reflection 21

Stop Screaming. Just Be. “The Master keeps her mind always at one with the Tao, which is what gives her radiance.” — Tao Te Ching, Chapter 21

📛 Content Warning:

Emotional reflection, breakup healing, spiritual vulnerability, quiet joy.

🙋‍♀️ Mom Warning:

All is well. I’m safe. I went on a date, and it went beautifully. This is me processing it through the Tao. Love you.

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🌀 The Tao Is Unclenchable

The Tao is ungraspable.
It cannot be explained, only felt.
It cannot be claimed, only joined.

And yet the Master shines—
not because she defines the Tao,
but because she lets it flow through her.

She doesn’t cling.
She doesn’t scream.
She lets the void echo,
and she simply remains.

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🌱 A Moment of Presence

Yesterday, I went on a date.

My first real date since the breakup back in July.
Three months in the wilderness. And now… a spark.

I didn’t try to impress.
I didn’t overthink.
I just showed up—as I am.

Which is terrifying, if you know me.
I’m poetic. I’m bombastic.
And I carry nothing inside me but echoes.

But somehow, someway… she let me be.
And that was enough.

I stayed present.
I kept my mind on what was in front of me.
Her. Her beauty. Her patience. Her joy.
And I didn’t have to scream to be seen.

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🖼️ Zao Dao: “Stop Screaming” (2013)

This artwork has no official title. I call it “Stop Screaming”, with full credit to Zao Dao, the Chinese painter and comic artist behind Song of Sylvan and Crow Teeth.

Her art speaks like the Tao: intuitive, emotional, and untranslatable. Find more of her work here or here.

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💬 Inner Radiance

“How can the Tao make her radiant?”
“Because she lets it.”

Letting someone see you is terrifying.
Letting them stay… even harder.

But there’s a beauty in just being.
Not knowing where it’s going.
Not naming what it means.
Just walking through it.

Not as a scream,
but as a presence.

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🧘 Closing Verse

“Since before time and space were, the Tao is.
It is beyond is and is not.
How do I know this is true?
I look inside myself and see.”

When I look inside myself, I see nothing.
But when she looked at me,
she saw everything she needed.

I stopped screaming.
I let myself be.
I stayed.

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🪞Author Note

Thank you for witnessing.
This reflection is part of my ongoing series on the Tao Te Ching, exploring each chapter through personal experience, myth, and art.

You can follow these daily meditations across:

• Mastodon (Wittgenstein’s Monster)

• BlueSky (Raphael Hythloday)

• Boo (Clint)

• X/Twitter (Søren Heights)

• Reddit (QuotingTheGhost)

Or subscribe here on Substack for the full archive.

With love and presence,
— Eshu Elegbara

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📚 Further Reading

• Tao Te Ching, trans. Stephen Mitchell

• Song of Sylvan by Zao Dao

• Mythologies by Roland Barthes (esp. “Neither-Nor Criticism”)

• When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön

• The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

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