Root, trunk, leaves— three parts of a tree; length, width, height— 3-dimensions of space to unlock the door with a golden key. 3 Parts of a Tree Root, Trunk, Leaves 3-Dimensions of Space X-axis, Y-axis, Z-axis Key of Knowledge, Globe, Student Laos #58, 3 kip (issued 10-1-1959) Golden Key (1867) George MacDonald Root, trunk, leaves are 3 parts of a tree. While the trunk and leaves are visible above the ground, it is the root which is invisible below the ground that sustains the tree. That's why The Little Prince learns from the Fox (Ch. 21) "what is essential is invisible to the eye" (like the air we breathe). Length, width, height measures the 3-dimensions of space, the world where we live. Laos issued four stamps #56-59 (October 1, 1959) to promote education and the fine arts. My favorite is the 3 kip stamp #58 showing a giant key to knowledge through education. The Golden Key is a fairy tale written by George MacDonald (1824-1905). It was published in Dealings with the Fairies (1867). A woman tells her great-nephew of a golden key found at the end of a rainbow. One day, he sees a rainbow and finds the key, and it dawns on him that he does not know where the lock is. He goes on a quest to find a way leading to a door that his key unlocks. Image Sources: 3 Parts of Tree (clipartkid.com); X,Y,Z-Axis (mathworld.wolfram.com); Laos #58 "Key of Knowledge" (lbdphilately.com); The Golden Key (amazon.com) Eyes, nose, mouth— three senses in your face, past, present, future— three frames of time, three ligs of tripod makes a stable base. 3 Senses in Your Face Leonardo's Proportions 3 Frames of Time Past, Present, Future 3 Legs of a Tripod makes a stable base Our eyes see, nose smells, and mouth tastes as the three senses in our face. Our other two senses— ears hear and hands touch are not on the face. Past, present, future represent the three frames of time. A tripod is a portable three-legged frame, used as a platform to support the weight and maintain the stability of some other object. It is often used in surveying and photography. Image Sources: Leonardo's Proportions (drawingsofleonardo.org); Past, Present, Future Signs (likesuccess.com); 3 Legs of a Tripod (arkon.com) Dante's Commedia is so sublime— a love poem that is vast and deep using his terza rima rhyme Dante Alighieri San Marino #622, 40 lire (issued 11-20-1965) Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) Study for Salutation of Beatrice (1849-1850) Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts Terza Rima, Dante's Canto I of Paradiso completed 1320 Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was a major Italian poet of the late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy (Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Boccaccio, is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. Dante was nine years old when he fell in love with the 8-year-old Beatrice in Florence (essay). When Beatrice died at 24 (1290), Dante vowed to write a love poem to honor her. Dante's love for Beatrice enabled him to experience the soul's ascent to paradise, then toiled 27 years to write The Divine Comedy for us to drink. Dante invented the interlocking triplet rhyme terza rima so monks who copied his poem can't revise it without all the stanzas falling apart. Image Sources: San Marino #622 Dante (delcampe.net); Dante & Beatrice (wisdomportal.com); Terza Rima of Dante's Paradiso (italnet.nd.edu) inspiring our mind to take a leap beyond colors red, yellow, blue, and three states of waking, dream, sleep, Alex Grey (b. 11-29-1953) Wonder: Zena Gazing at the Moon (1996) 3 Primary Colors Red, Yellow, Blue Newton's Prism Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) The Sleeping Gypsy (1897) Museum of Modern Art, NY Mandukya Upanishad on waking, dream,sleep states & sacred AUM Dante's Commedia inspires our mind to take a leap like all great works of art, music, and poetry. Alex Grey is a visionary artist, author, teacher, and Vairayana practitioner. I've selected his Wonder: Zena Gazing at the Moon (1996) to illustrate "mind to take a leap" (Poem). The Moon is 238,000 miles from the Earth. How far is the Moon from your Mind? When we realize that the Moon is in our Mind, our mind takes a leap like the Sage of Elephant Mountain, Lu Hsiang-shan (1139-1192). He proclaimed to his students: "The universe is my mind, and my mind is the universe." The colors red, yellow, blue are part of the rainbow colors ROYGBIV— red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Issac Newton displayed these seven colors from a prism shined with white light. When we realize that this world of multiplicity came from that Oneness of Light, we sense Plato's epiphany in Philebus 16d— "From the gods a gift to the human race: thus I reckon the gift of seeing the One in the many and the many in the One." The Mandukya Upanishad is entirely devoted to the explanation of Om or Aum— the three states of waking, dream, and deep sleep, and the transcendental "fourth state" of illumination (turiya). Joseph Campbell explained to Bill Moyers in Power of Myth that turiya is the silence between the AUM's. I chose Henri Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy to portray dream and sleep. When the gypsy wakes up, she wonders "Where did the lion go?" Then she realizes that her Dream-Self created the whole dream world. More meditation leads to her Waking-Self creating the whole waking world. This Self-Realization is enlightenment experienced by Buddha (The Awakened One) and the Zen Masters. Images: Alex Grey's Wonder (pinterest.com); 3 Primary Colors (intelliapps.co); The Sleeping Gypsy (commons.wikimedia.org); Mandukya Upanishad (vedanta.com) always learning wisdom fresh and new— "Beauty, Truth, Goodness" Plato's shower wishing "Happy 3rd Birthday to you!" Sophia (Wisdom) Ephesus Library, Turkey Truth Beauty and Goodness by Rudolf Steiner (1923) Plato (427 BC-347 BC) Raphael's School of Athens Happy Birthday Cake for 3-year-old Lilly Sophia is honored as a goddess of wisdom by Gnostics. "Happy is the man that finds wisdom, and the man that gets understanding. For she is better than silver and gold, more precious than rubies: and all the things you can desire are not to be compared unto her." (Proverbs 3.13-15). That Wisdom came before Light may be found in Book of Wisdom 7.29): "For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it." Another source is a Gnostic Coptic text On the Origin of the World (circa 150 AD) that Sophia existed before Chaos came into being. Since Wisdom came before Light & Chaos, she is fresh and new. May we keep our mind likewise. Plato taught the virtues of beauty, truth, goodness (Phaedrus 246e & Symposium 211c). Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) lectured on "Truth Beauty and Goodness" (Dornach, January 19, 1923), saying these "were held to be the greatest ideals of human striving." (Stephen R. Turley's 2015 book Awakening Wonder: A Classic Guide to Truth, Goodness & Beauty is available online). Plato's mentor Socrates had an argumentative wife Xanthippe. His students witnessed that after one argument, Xanthippe poured a bucket of mop water over his head. Socrates calmly said "After thunder, the rain." Recalling this story, Plato's shower is a gentler kind. Found a birthday cake with 3 candles, but "Happy 1st Birthday Lilly" birthday cake had Lilly's name on it. Edited this image in Adobe Photoshop to create "Happy 3rd Birthday Lilly" using 24 pt Apple Chancery strong font. Photo Sources: Sophia in Ephesus (wikipedia.org); Rudolf Steiner's "Truth Beauty and Goodness" (wn.rsarchive.org); Plato by Raphael (thecultureconcept.com); Happy 3rd Birthday Cake (customcakesbyb.com) redone in Photoshop (wisdomportalcom). Three hands on clock— second, minute, hour with white lily— a three-petalled flower. 3 Hands of Clock * 3-Petalled Mariposa Lily * Using the terza rima interlocking rhyming scheme— aba, bcb, cdc, ded, efe, fgf, gg, I wanted to end this birthday poem on a happy note. The last couplet needs to rhyme with the previous stanza's "shower" and William Blake's poem in Auguries of Innocence came to mind— "To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower. / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour." So I used "hour" and "flower" as the end-rhymes of this terza rima poem for my grandniece Lilly's 3rd birthday. Clock time is Earth, but the 3-petalled flower points to the Trinity and Heaven. Image Sources: 3 Hands of Clock magnifyingaids.com); 3-Petalled Mariposa Lily (inaturalist.org) — Peter Y. Chou     Mountain View, 3-10-2016     reconstructed on 12-15-2016 | Top of Page | The Number 3 | Poems 2016 | Poems 2015 | Poems 2014 | Poems 2013 | Poems 2012 | Poems 2011 | | Haikus 2016 | Haikus 2015 | Haikus 2014 | Haikus 2013 | Haikus 2012 | CPITS | Books | A-Z Portals | Home | © Peter Y. Chou, Wisdom Portal P.O. Box 390707, Mountain View, CA 94039 email: (12-15-2016)