Without honesty, life becomes a pantomime. And yet it’s hard to know what’s true.
I’ve found that truth unfolds in concentric rings; like ripples in a still pool of water, or the growth of a tree.
And each ring references, yet also takes space from, the previous.
And so only in cycles of time, and in seasons, is a kind of long term knowing revealed.
It’s easy to forget that there is a kind of glacial energy to the every day, like leaves unnoticed piling in drifts in the gutters in autumn. Each day another leaf, and soon enough, there’s a drift of half noticed moments, forgotten days, and the occasional memory that stays forever. And this is life?
Through the threads of being and days, acting and passivity, choices and impositions, life passes.
There’s a phrase in the northern part of Italy, up against the alps: “Tiempo alla passa. Passa il bin.” Which is dialect for: Time passes. Pass it well.
And I came across a phrase, translated from Lao Tze by Lori Dechars, that says:
How do I know the way of things at the beginning?
I feel like I’ve come to a thought about life and love in general recently that feels clear: which is that I should let what loves me do so, and I should love only what I love. And endlessly let go of those things that aren’t this.
In that way, I stop resisting the flow of life, and live out a trajectory that is true. And maybe I’ll gain some energy from no longer resisting the inevitable course that my journey wants to make.
In all this, in writing and in conversation, I try to find the words that are true. And yet its always hard to find the right words. And in that same way, its hard to know when to follow what is easy, or pursue what is hard.
It’s important to remember the rules of life. But I lost my rule book long ago. I do my best to make up whatever makes sense to do, whatever’s true, vital, alive, and real. And to remember that resisting is a form of safety. That it’s good to be safe sometimes, but a life that’s always safe... is maybe one that produces no living.
Thanks for listening ~
