The astonishing spiritual wisdom of Okay Yoni

In moments of stress, when the world no longer seems to make sense and I feel in need of communion with an intelligence even greater than my own, I find myself returning again and again to the Twitter feed of the avant-garde Japanese conceptual artist and general all-round Wise Woman, Okay Yoni (aka Yoko Ono). It only takes a few of her pithy, sagacious tweets and the damage wrought upon one's fragile psyche by a seemingly cruel and incomprehensible world is instantly repaired: one feels soothed, healed – somehow whole again. If you’re unfamiliar with the petite genius’s gem-like utterances, here are some telling examples:

Take the first word that comes across your mind. Repeat the word until dawn.

Have a dance party. Let people dance with chairs.

On the solstice at sunrise
celebrate mornings of
past, future, and now.
Listen to the world.
Touch each other
when the sun comes up.

Waiting for the sunrise
So we can go on the streets
And see the people smile

Count the numbers of wrinkles on your face or your body or certain parts of your body, Send it to your friend in place of a letter.

Count the numbers of stars in the sky every day. Make a number list and send it to your friends.

Count the numbers of lights in the city every day. Make a number list and hang it on the wall.

When the curtain rises, go hide and wait until everybody leaves you. Come out and play.

Break a contemporary museum into pieces with the means you have chosen. Collect the pieces and put them together again with glue.

Collect sounds in your mind that you have overheard through the week. Repeat them in your mind in different orders one afternoon.

I want the sky to land here, to cool it, and make it well again.

Make a hole. Leave it in the wind.

Whisper all your secret thoughts to a pachinko ball.

Yes, I’ll admit that at first glance they might strike one as the sort of utter nonsense that a talentless, beady-eyed, cold-hearted, wealth-obsessed charlatan would spew out in order to convince gullible, pathetic, needy fools that their creator was some sort of sage. Nevertheless, I deplore those unenlightened cynics who make a habit of posting sarcastic comments under Okay Yoni’s tweets. For instance, when Ms Yoni tweeted, “Imagine letting a goldfish swim across the sky. Let it swim from the West to the East. Drink a liter of water”,  someone was unkind enough to comment: “Imagine laying around in bed all day and calling it a protest. Imagine if you hadn’t broken up The Beatles.”

The following tweet …

Imagine the clouds dripping. Dig a hole in your garden to put them in.

…received a number of truly shocking responses, including:

Well that’s Monday sorted. (Muriel Gray)

Isn’t that basically known as rain? (Chris Deerin)

Called Alan Titchmarsh – we’re on it!

is that the clouds or the drips I'm putting in the hole?

Trying to figure out the logistics of that.

Good old Yoko Ono - making a handsome living out of utter bollocks for half a century, and still going strong!