Taoism. What is it?

 on page 11 of "Handbook of Korean Art, Folk Paintings" by Yeol-su Yoon 

"Muneyoshi Yanagi classified fold paintings into Chinese characters, auspicious events, traditional subjects, still-life scenes, and the three major religions, namely, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism."

Also referenced in "British Museum: Korean Art and Archeology" by Jane Portal published by Thames & Hudson. "The first group has Daoist origins, the rocks and pines being symbols of longevity, while the five peaks symbolize the five mountains of Korea. The mountains rise from the waves just as the mythical peaks of the Daoist immortals' island of Penglai (Korean: Pongae) arise from the eastern sea."

So I didn't know what Taoism was and imagined it to be something of a shaman belief system with totems and spirit animals. To get me started on understanding what is Taoism, I downloaded "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu, read by Stephen Mitchell. I listened to it on audiobook while driving a 3 hour drive to the mountains. First thing, all my kids fell asleep. I found that funny, within 40 minutes they were all out, 11 year old, 14 year old and 16 year old crashed out. Stephen Mitchell reads the book in an almost meditative voice and it suits the topic. Favorite quote "doing not doing" which doesn't mean doing nothing but rather means being the action. In college we read Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugene Herrigel, I think that I better understood what Lao Tzu was saying because I read Herrigel. My take away is that Taoism is about moving with life and keeping balance. So that is pretty light and top level and doesn't help me with knowing that rocks and pines are symbols of longevity unless someone tells me. 

I did look it up for brevity and clarity:

"Taoism holds that humans and animals should live in balance with the Tao, or the universe. Taoists believe in spiritual immortality, where the spirit of the body joins the universe after death." 

So having established that I'm going to quote Jane Portal again "Folk art was closely associated with folk religion, annual folk festivals and ceremonies linked to important events in the life cycle, such as birth, marriage and death. Folk religion was a syncretic mix of native Korean Shamanism, folk Buddhism and Daoism as well as certain aspects of Confucianism. All these were reflected in folk paintings." pg 144

Hopefully I will continue to explore that mix.