Heaven and Earth are not kind:
The ten thousand things are straw dogs to them.
Sages are not kind:
People are straw dogs to them.
Yet Heaven and Earth
And all the space between
Are like a bellows:
Empty but inexhaustible,
Always producing more.
Longwinded speech is exhausting.
____Better to stay centered.
( Tao Te Ching, Chapter 5)
Once Upon A Time
i agreed with this
and aspired to the be the Sage
reading it today
made me pause:
i have had the gift, these last few weeks, of being held in simple loving
that is
much of my anger and confusion has subsided
to a form of clarity about what must be done
and my feelings therein
as well as a base of unconditional love and forgiveness
(with, of course, the human highlights of judgments… but they’ve been passing like t he wind)
a part of me wonders what my relationship to the Christian paradigm this has
i am curious
because of my trip to Brazil
there i felt a loving embrace
and since
have been walking in friendship with … Christ
not that i have gone to church yet
Even my love for Leo will not move me to attending mass in any regular manner
but i feel
in part
this love
comes
from
respecting each and every individuals’ lives
with love
(if even not intimacy or interraction)
Though, i suppose this chapter does not exclude love
it’s not that Tao excludes love
it’s that it functions beyond that
i must say i love the idea of functioning beyond humanity
yet i have great desires in the human realm
perhaps that is my crux
because
the growth i have experienced in the last few years
has grounded me much more in my humanity
that is
i no longer just want to be a lone wizard attending to the needs of the reality as it shifts
i feel the longing to be a lover with another
(perhaps many, but deeply and truly)
THAT requires existing on another plane than just Spiritual
and
indeed
that desire has always been in me
it’s only recently i am not frightened by it to the point of pretending it’s not there
it is only recently i have been embracing it so fully and
feeling the warmth of that embrace
flowing into it to make it stay
to make it pleasurable
to get past my bullshit and baggage
to another
and rest in love
what better vacation or retreat is there?
many of you may have love that you can rest in
cynically, i doubt it
but it may be true
i’m still moving slowly
to be friends
to understand
hear and feel you
perhaps, my dear scarecrows
i will discover a way to dance with all of our hearts