Plague Journal, Searching For The Emptiness – Inside

July 7, 2021 Jerry King Comments 0 Comment

It is the center hole, the emptiness inside, the inner space…that holds me.

These phrases from verse eleven of the Tao Te Ching in my mind serve as an anchor chain this morning. I awakened with a high blood sugar reading, which perhaps is not unusual for anyone diabetic. The condition nevertheless is unacceptable, something that I must do something about. There is no strict formula to be followed for changing the amount of insulin that I need, so I must make a judgment call, an evaluation of factors involved. Such is life, one judgment call after another. Sometimes the stakes are small, and sometimes great. Sometimes the effects of action taken are immediate and apparent, and at other times consequences emerge “down the road.” Consequences accrue.

That is how one creates/makes/assembles a life.

How will I approach the work that is to be done today? The work is but a means, preparation and a taking up of materials to the end of good use, a vessel suitable for containing a good life.

Here is verse eleven from the Tao Te Ching.

We join spokes together in a wheel
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it holds the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

— Excerpt, Tao Te Ching Vs. 11
By Lao Tsu, Trans. by Stephen Mitchell

And the tune to get us through the day? This one is a fit: Dreams by The Cranberries. Is not a dream, the symbol of the empty space that is between us?